Geronimo Boscana and Fritz Scholder offer disparate views on the Luiseño tribe due to their vastly different time periods and backgrounds; however, Scholder relied on the retellings of his people’s stories and focused on the effects of the European perspective in his work. Not only did the stories and traditions of the Luiseño tribe influence the paintings of Fritz Scholder in style and content, but also the European and anti-Indian perspective offered by Friar Geronimo Boscana and other non-Indians in their retellings of the myths shaped Scholder’s conception of self and his artistic renderings of Indians.[1]
Friar Geronimo Boscana headed the St. Juan Capistrano Mission south of present day Los Angeles from 1812 till 1826, and he complied a mixture of his own writings on the native peoples and retellings of their stories.[2] Boscana wrote Chinigchinich in the hopes of supplying future friars with the knowledge necessary “to remove [the Indians’] erroneous belief, and give them an understanding of the true Religion.”[3] Boscana lays little stock in the faculties of the native peoples as he attempts to convert them to Christianity and discusses their stories and practices with a distinct air of condemnation and condescension.[4]
Fritz Scholder is considered one of the most prolific and influential Native American artists. He was a member of the Luiseño tribe, and though he denied his “Indianness” frequently his paintings illustrate a commitment to expanding the understanding of Indian art and Indian culture. His 1970 piece Mad Indian No. 3 is indicative of his usual style with a central harsh, humanoid figure- dressed in leggings, a loose tunic, and moccasin like shoes long hair- and some intrusion of an American flag, which in this case waves behind the solitary Indian figure.[5]
Fritz Scholder simultaneously grappled with the inextricable duality represented in Boscana’s text, the portrayal of Indian culture and custom intermingled with harsh and damning Eurocentric criticism, and both gave rise to Fritz’s art and are apparent in Angry Indian No. 3. Boscana consistently discussed the central figure of the chief, who across Boscana’s narrative was portrayed in similar terms of power, significance, and physical appearance, all of which were replicated in Scholder’s painting. Boscana described the power structure within the tribe as “toward [the chief] was observed but little respect.”[6] Boscana never makes any attempt to substantiate this statement, which merely reflects his inability to conceive of Indian culture and lifestyle outside of the context of his European values. Scholder engaged with this idea of the chief in Angry Indian No. 3, which depicts a screaming Indian with an American flag hovering over him.[7] This image elicits the ideas of the chief in Boscana’s work. The Indian in this work is dressed in regalia, holding a ritualistic instrument that implies his power, but does not assert it given that it is held low and loosely, just as Boscana had implied that all of the chief’s power was implied but not exercised due to lack of respect amongst the people. His anger weakens him and stems from the overpowering of himself and his people by American and European conquest. Here Scholder engaged with the usual narrative presented by Boscana where the weakness of Indians is internal, such as Europeans perceived Indians as unintelligent and barbaric since they lacked European values. This denied the reality of the devastation of Indians, which came from external forces, such as European invasion. In addition, Boscana described the flesh of the Indian gods and chiefs as being “painted black” for rituals and celebrations; however, Scholder chooses to instead paint his Indian in white with all other features save his hands being black and the only color being streaks of red in the American flag in the background.[8] Here Scholder disputed Boscana’s attempt to associate blackness with a negative idea of the Indian or savagery, and instead he paints the Indian white to associate the destruction of this man and his anger with whiteness or European and American colonization. This reasserts the chief as a respected being, not without fault or critique on Scholder’s part, but without quite the level of unexamined bias Boscana brings to his analysis of the systems of Indian life.
Though in some regards Scholder wished to dispute the traditional European image of the Indian, in some ways he engaged it as well, which highlighted the complexity of Indian life and Indian persons in a way that European negativity and romanticization did not achieve.[9] Boscana described the California Indians as “[consuming] [animal flesh] in a raw state.”[10] Scholder created this hyperbolic portrayal of a black-mouthed Indian with jagged teeth that simultaneously critiques Boscana’s dehumanization of Indians and the inaccurate romanticization of Indians in art. By not ignoring Boscana’s description, Scholder offers a more reliable critique since he hopes to create an image that encapsulates a myriad of views on the Indian. The Indian portrayed in Angry Indian No. 3 falls outside of the easy categorization of “savage” or “noble-savage.” Scholder merely wanted to portray Indians as he saw them, as complex, and in many cases angry and dismissed by a greater American culture, which is further illustrated by the elevation of the flag above the Indian in Scholder’s image. Furthermore, Scholder rebelled against Boscana’s patronizing bigotry by simultaneously accepting the oppressed state of Indians without the Indian he paints in this case being fully defeated. The Indians shoulders slouch slightly, but his anger and his indomitable form represents defiance to the flag behind him and to Boscana’s “amusement” towards Indians.[11] Scholder defies Boscana’s conception of a hapless Indian that can easily be manipulated to serve Boscana’s aims. Instead, Scholder offers a more holistic portrayal by playing off the dehumanization and comparison to animals offered by Boscana, and simultaneously he offers an emotive, powerful, and real Indian figure that defies the conventions of positive and negative portrayals, and the Indian becomes, as Scholder wanted him to be, a testament to human complexity.
Through drawing together Boscana’s Chinigchinich and Scholder’s Angry Indian No. 3, the staunchly unexamined bias of Boscana is thrown into sharp relief by the visual honesty of Scholder, and Boscana informs the subject matter of Scholder driving him to approach Indian art in a previously unsought way as Scholder attempted to dispel Boscana’s creation of the Indian chief as this powerless, ignored ruler, and corrupted ruler into a complex human who led their people but were subject to the difficulties of European invasion. Scholder sought through critique of Boscana’s dehumanization of Native peoples to create a holistic view of Indians that neither Boscana and other Europeans nor a romanticization of Indians provided.
[1]. Fritz Scholder is famous for denying that he is an Indian artist, which demonstrates his simultaneous internalized discomfort with the Indian and his unmanageable curiosity.
[2]. Boscana, Friar Geronimo, Chinigchinich, trans. Alfred Robinson (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846), vi-vii.
[5]. Fritz Scholder, Mad Indian No. 3, 1970, oil on Canvas, collection of Stéphane Janssen, Arizona.
[6]. Boscana, Chinigchinich, 2.
[7]. The image of the chief is common throughout Scholder’s paintings and many can be interpreted in a similar context using Boscana as Mad Indian No. 3.
[8]. Boscana, Chinigchinich, 7.
[9]. In my opinion, the painting that best illustrates this is Scholder’s 1969 piece Indian with Beer Can that seeks to confront the reality of alcoholism in the Indian community.
[10]. Boscana, Chinigchinich, 2.
Research Questions to Consider:
1. The wealth of Native produced art and European or Colonist produced art creates an interesting opportunity to compare and contrast between the two, and examine what drives particular biases and portrayals.
2. Scholder discussed throughout his life that since he was only one-fourth Native American that he could not claim the identity. Is the belief influenced by the national dialogue around tribal affiliation and recognition or from an internal struggle over his father’s upbringing in a residential boarding school and his father going on to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs?
Additional Resources
http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/scholder/
Works Cited
Boscana, Geronimo. Chinigchinich, trans. Alfred Robinson. New York: Wiley and Putnam,
1846, vi-45. Accessed 10 Sept. 2014. <http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/ca/bosc>
Scholder, Fritz. Mad Indian No. 3. 1970. Oil on Canvas. Collection of Stéphane Janssen,
Arizona. Accessed 18 Sept. 2014. <http://nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/scholder/works.html>