WALK IN BEAUTY: THE NAVAJO AND THEIR BLANKETS By Anthony Berlant

Description: WALK IN BEAUTYThe Navajo and Their BlanketsANTHONY BERLANTAND MARY HUNT KAHLENBERG64 color and 8s black-and-white illustrationsIn 1849, when Lieutenant James Simpson led the first official U.S. expedition into Navajo country, he noted in his journal, with evident surprise, that the Navajo people made what were "probably the best blankets in the world." Few would dispute his judgment of the blankets, now collectors' items prized for the power of their abstract design and for their stunning color.But the Navajo blanket was more than an object of beauty and utility: it was an expression of the Navajo spirit, its form inextricably linked with the beliefs, culture, and experience of "The People of the Earth." This handsome and unusual book expresses that link. The authors have interwoven an illuminating study of the culture of the Navajo and a moving narrative of their history with an authoritative examination of the blankets themselves. A haunting picture, heightened by contemporary photographs, emerges - of the Navajo way of life, their leaders, their tragic experiences after the coming of the Americans in the nineteenth century.The Navajo blankets that have survived are from the nineteenth century. The authors examine in detail materials, dyes, and weaving techniques; they show the development (illustrated with some 60 color plates) from the bold but harmoniously striped"Chief Blanket" to the well-named "Eye-Dazzler," and discuss the influence of the traders in the late period. Walk in Beauty's precise technical data and material on the care of blankets will be of interest to weavers and collectors."In beauty, happily, I walk," the Navajo Night Chant begins. This book is a revelation of the beauty and richness of the culture of one group of native Americans. THE AUTHORSArtist ANTHONY BERLANT, who has been a student of the American Indian since child-hood, is currently Associate Director of the Mimbres Foundation, an organization formed to protect and excavate the villages of the prehistoric Mimbres Indians of southern New Mexico. Art historian MARY HUNT KAHLENBERG is Curator of Textiles at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The authors previously collaborated in organizing and writing the catalog for the great exhibition of Navajo blankets that opened at the Los Angeles County Museum in 1972 and was later shown with much success elsewhere in the United States and in Europe. AT THe HEART of the Navajo world view is the belief thattheir ancestors came out of the earth. Ages ago, according to tradition, they were led up through successive subterranean worlds to the surface of this one by the Holy People of Navajo mythology. The understanding of their origin-that they came directly from the soil and are inexorably a part of it—is the touchstone of the Navajo experience. It influences all that they do and all that they are.The blankets described in this book are, like the ancestors of the people who made them, drawn out of the earth. The wool came from the backs of Navajo sheep; the looms on which the blankets were woven were made from tree trunks and set in place with rocks. The blankets were woven from bottom to top on vertical looms, and so seemed to have taken shape and grown directly out of the earth as if by some process of nature.Like everything of significance in the Navajo scheme, the art of weaving is firmly grounded in religious tradition. Legend has it that Spider Woman, one of the Holy People, taught them how to weave. Such a strong link between their own origins and the origins of blanket-making served to connect the material world with the spiritual world, identifying blankets as a rendering in physical terms of the mystical universe. When the Navajo wrapped blankets around themselves, they were surrounding their bodies with the totality of their being, gathering about themselves the four corners of a world at once beautiful and familiar.Shoulder blankets, also known as wearing blankets, were made primarily to be worn by members of the tribe; they were also offered in trade with other tribes or with the white man.They are entirely secular objects, without ceremonial sig-nificance. Nor are they symbolic in any direct sense. Efforts have been made to interpret their design symbolically, but these interpretations are imposed by the commentator. The Navajo saw the blankets differently. Each is individual in design, and each represents both the woman who made it-through the expression and control of its design—and the person who wears it-through the alteration of his appearance. One of the best ways to understand the design of a Navajo wearing blanket is, very simply, to wear it. Draped like a cape and brought forward, pulled together across the arms, the blanket reveals its essential design concept as half units met to form whole units. ORDER BEFORE 2 PM CENTRAL - SAME DAY SHIPPINGPRML244

Price: 57.5 USD

Location: Saint Paul, Minnesota

End Time: 2025-01-17T20:01:14.000Z

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