1.5 Formline Style

Art of the Pacific Northwest

Stylized Art. Is this concept making sense? Let’s take a brief look at an age-old artistic tradition that displays one of the most stylized aesthetics one can find.

Fans of American football are familiar with the distinctive design of the Seattle Seahawks logo. They may not realize that it emulates the style shared by peoples of the Pacific’s Northwest Coast: the Haida, Tlingit, Kwakiutl, Tsimshian, and Chinook.

Seattle Seahawks Helmet	Chilkat Chiefs. (1895). Coudahwot and Yehlh-gouhu, Chiefs of the Con-nuh-ta-di	Chief’s Seat. (1972). Ksan Historical Village

Style, Convention, and Culture

In 1791, French ship Captain Etienne Marchand recorded observations of the inhabitants of Canada’s Northwest Coast. He comments on ship’s Surgeon Roblet’s puzzled reflection on the region’s art:

But let’s consider the aesthetic dimension of this clash of cultural perspectives. Seeing with 18th Century eyes, Roblet thinks of children’s drawing, particularly the absence of “principles” of technique. But which principles? As a cultured Frenchman, Roblet simply assumes that Neo-Classical European conventions are universally applicable, superior standards of artistic excellence:

Marchand is not so sure. Perceiving that this art follows its own rules, he dimly senses the context gap between his European eyes and the designs’ Context of Origin. In particular, the issue here is a clash between two kinds of representation:

[1] Mimesis: from a mainstream perspective in Europe in the Americas, mimetic realism appears to be “natural,” intrinsic to human perception. However, as we shall see, it has a clear cultural lineage descended from the work of classical Greek artists. It is itself conventional, culturally determined, learned and by no means universally human.

The Formline Style

Artists of the Northwest coast have for centuries composed magnificent designs within a strict pattern of Conventional rules. In 1965[2], Bill Holm analyzed the rules of that style from a Western academic perspective. Note the subtitle: Northwest Coast Indian Art: an Analysis of Form. Holm focuses, not on the symbolic significations of mythic and totemic figures, but on the rules and patterns of their style:

Holm’s formal analysis recognizes that stylistic conventions govern the selection and location of body part within a formline design. The term refers to a visual unit fusing two formal components of visual art:

Formlines of varying thickness use strictly coded colors to organize the components of the design. Heavy, black formlines dominate the composition so remarkably that Holm refers to them as the primary element. Red is used for form lines defining secondary elements within the whole, e.g. cheeks, tongues, and limbs (Holm, p. 30). Blues and greens are used for tertiary elements such as eye sockets, feathers, or fins (p. 32).

The stylized spaces delineated by these formlines enclose roughly geometrical shapes. Holm uses the term ovoid for the distinctive, rounded rectangles that form stylized eyelids and U forms which may be split or doubled. These forms, simple but capable of endless variation, comprise the vocabulary of formline art. Animal figures can be composed intact, split or rearranged, or distributed into various sections of the design (Holm, p. 12). Far from being a primitive or savage tradition, formline art is both elaborately regulated and flexible enough to support rich variations among separate peoples and individual artists. Holm’s generic diagram establishes the core formal vocabulary from which these variations are derived.

Bill Holm. (2015, p. 59) Diagram of formline conventions.

The flexibility of these forms have supported a wide variety of applications. The formline style graces “boxes, settees, house fronts, interior partitions and screens, canoes, dishes, spoons, rattles” (Holm, p. 14).

Richard Carpenter. (c 1860). Bent Corner Chest.	Haida people. (c 1850). Chilkat Tunic	Chief Shake’s Interior House. (1966).

The most famous application of formline design, the totem pole, plays roles in many of these functions. A Totem is a sacred symbol or spirit animal that invokes a ritual or religious tradition and may be associated with a family, clan, or tribe. The crest function[3] of totemic house posts can affirm clan identity.​

Totems on Chief Shake’s Island. (1960).	Dlam (Interior Housepost) (c 1907). Left post.	Chief Mungo Martin (1953). Kwakwaka’wakw “big house”

Today, talented artists keep the formline tradition alive. Iljuwas Bill Reid, of maternal Haida descent, immersed himself in Haida tradition and sculpted, drew, and painted compositions that extended the possibilities of formline art:

Haida Raven (1972). Ink on paper.	Cedar Screen. (1968). Laminated red cedar.	The Raven and the First Men. (1978). Laminated cedar beams.

Raven Brings Light

Holm subtitled his book A Formal Analysis. When he wrote the first edition in 1965, inquiries into the peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast had been dominated by anthropologists such as Franz Boas and Claude Levi-Strauss. Scholarship had meticulously studied clan structures, rituals, technologies, and social norms. Where possible, these studies draw deeply on folklore. In 1909, John R. Swanton recorded narrations in English of Tlingit story tellers. These oral narratives are authentic, but not necessarily authoritative. Remember that every telling of an oral narrative is a performance which differs and evolves from earlier versions.

For many Native American peoples, animal species are represented by spiritual avatars who play key roles in origin stories and moral fables. A trickster god with multi-layered personality, Raven deceives, sometimes playfully, spirit beings and humans, teaching morals and conveying boons and blessings.

Vital Questions

We normally think of myth as the domain of storytelling. Yet, as we have seen in Egyptian, Hindu, and Pacific Northwest Coast art, myth expresses itself in interwoven visual and narrative forms.

Context

We have barely scratched the surface of the context that produced Pacific Northwest Coast art and narrative. These mythic structures express and facilitate a complex social structure divided into clans and governed by rituals and mating conventions. If you are interested, there is a wide literature on these matters.

Content

We have noted that Formline art contains two primary contents:

• Totem animals reflecting Haida, Tlingit, and other Northwest Coast cultures
• Abstract forms that organize and blend with body parts of these animals

Form

From an artistic point of view, formline art is noteworthy for the precedence of form and style over representation. Visual subjects are recognizable, but fragmented and subordinated beneath the elegant lines and forms of the style, boldly drawn in primary colors and shaped by a fusion of geometrical linearity and organic curves. Style. Form. Composition. Let’s remember these concepts as we go forward.