An Alternative Way of Thinking about the Development of Western Art History

An Alternative Way of Thinking about the Development of Western Art History

Introduction

The essay “Construction of the Imaginary Indian” written by Marcia Crosby, aims to highlight a modern phenomenon in the context of social sciences and arts. Moreover, the essay provides a good overview of conventional images of Canadians, particularly Native Americans. The Canadian centricity of this essay aims to provide a lens in order to bring focus on numerous events from an innovative and new point of view. The alternative way of thinking about the development of Western Art history as described by the given essay is the interest of Western civilization in First Nations people. Moreover, the goal of this essay is to illustrate the image of Indian as seen by the Canada's non-Indian since the middle of the nineteenth century. The author has assessed the evolution and genesis of the image of the Indian with the help of using a historical analysis of numerous archival and published materials (Crosby, 1991).

Furthermore, the central theme of this essay is that the imaginary picture of Indians presented by the non-Natives has been continued to recent times. The author also highlighted that embracing of difference is one of the major components of postmodernism, and the First Nation people assert their cultural and national differences against the homogenizing effects of mass culture, academic discourse, and government legislation. Moreover, Marcia Crosby describes that “Imaginary Indian” functions as a necessary but peripheral component of the history of Europe in North America. The author also referred a negative space as a way to legitimate the invasion of West's history and colonization of peaceful and innocent people. However, the West as it sees itself is the positive space as identified by the author. In addition to this, Marcia Crosby also provides her opinions on the works of Paul Kane and Emily Carr in the context of heritage and authentic artifacts of a dying Indian culture (Francis, 1992).

Response on the study

The essay written by Marcia Crosby seems to be read as a position paper. She tries to make her way in studying Indian culture and art history, and she tries to develop her strong opinions of the colonial artists and Western invaders. Moreover, she aims to discuss the “embracing of difference” in terms of a modern phenomenon in the history of social sciences and arts. However, the ...