Baleen Basket of a Hunter and a Polar Bear
The Baleen Basket with a carved Ivory hunter and a polar bear handle on the cover was made by George Omnik in 1961. My reaction to this artwork is so intriguing!! I have to say I’d like to own a Baleen Basket. The Baleen Basket was made in Alaska! The Art Elements of the Baleen Basket are pattern, color, and formation. The Baleen Basket has patterns of the way that the basket weaving of the baleen was done. The color of the baleen and the ivory are black and white. The formation of the carving is a polar bear and a hunter.
Baleen is a flexible and waterproof material, lending itself perfectly to the art of basket weaving.
A culmination of beauty and functionality, this basket nods to the deep connection Iñupiaq still have today with our natural environment.
Baleen Basket-Polar Bear and a Seal Handle
The baleen basket with a polar bear and seal handle was made by George Omnik from Point Hope, Alaska. It is also displayed at the Honolulu Museum of Art. The art elements in the basket are pattern, color, and formation. The pattern of the design is how the artist weaved the basket clockwise. The color of the basket is that the baleen is black and the ivory that was carved into a polar bear and a seal, is white. The formation of the handle on the lid was carved into a polar bear and a seal on an iceberg.
George Omnik
George Omnik was born on July 1, 1905, and died in September of 1978. George Omnik was an Alaskan Inupiaq Eskimo from Point Hope, Alaska. He was an early Iñupiaq basket maker whose work largely distinguished the Point Hope style of baleen basket-an art form developed in the early twentieth century by Iñupiaq artists in the Point Barrow region and spread to communities throughout Alaska. Omnik was the first man in the community to practice basket making, and his use of flat lids, wide wefts and shouldered cylindrical shapes influenced the basketry of later Point Hope makers, like Luke Koonook and Gregg Tagarook.
He was a known artist for basket weaving. Omnik expertly executes a clockwise weave to produce a lidded basket with a deftly carved ivory and ink topper depicting a fight scene between a hunter and a bloody polar bear that contrasts a black sheen of the baleen.
In Praise of Wāhine
The painting “In Praise of Wāhine” was painted by Linda Rowell Stevens. The art elements in the painting are the lines, color and contrast. The lines of the fire from the lava that are in the goddess’s hands, the color of her dress is red, the color of the fire of the lava is orange, yellow and the lava is grey. The contrast of the lava in her hands looks hot, but the goddess depicts that she has the will power to send the lava away that comes out of the volcanoes. My reaction to the painting is that the goddess is strong-willed and powerful.
Linda Rowell Stevens
Linda Rowell Stevens was born in Utah. Her family moved to Connecticut and then to Virginia where she attended college at Virginia Commonwealth University. Linda moved to Hawaii in 1972 at the age of 21. Linda Rowell Stevens is known to be a Hawaiian Legends artist.
View of the Whirlpools at Awa
The “View of the Whirlpools at Awa” was painted in 1857 by Utagawa Hiroshige. The painting is located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, New York. The name of the painting is called “Naruta Whirlpool” Awa Province from the series Views of Famous Place in the Sixty-Odd Provinces”. The art elements of the painting are lines, color and formation. The lines that are in a spiral shape is what forms the whirlpool and the waves. The color of the water that shapes the whirlpool and the waves are blue and white. The formation of the whirlpool, is the spiral form that creates the whirlpool.
Utagawa Hiroshige
Utagawa Hiroshige was born Andõ Hiroshige 1797 in Edo, Japan. He died on October 12, 1858 in Japan. He was a Ukiyo-e artist. Hiroshige was best known for his horizontal-format landscape series “The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō”. He was known for printing and painting.
https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/George-Omnik/11F3A48FCC5F5253/Biography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_arts_by_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas
https://www.inuitartfoundation.org/iaq-online/circle-george-omnik-s-baleen-basket
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baleen_basketry
https://www.lindarowellstevens.com/about
https://vilda.alaska.edu/digital/collection/cdmg2/id/6572/
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