In what could be read as a tourist record of a trip to the great Parisian Museum, Walt Wooten’s Visit to the Louvre imagines two Plains men standing before the majestic canvas of Oath of the Horatii (Jacques-Louis David, 1784). It is one example from the series of oil on canvas paintings Wooten produced on the theme of Native men standing before well-known works from the Euro-Western canon in the Louvre collection. The momentary pause as the Indian duo are interrupted by an unseen onlooker creates a painting within a painting, which is achieved through Wooten’s detailed and deliberate attention to accurately replicating the Neoclassical style of David’s most recognized statement of Roman loyalty. Both men stand in a dignified posture with the self-assurance of the warriors; this identity is revealed by the eagle feather hair ornamentals, a traditional Plains male marker earned through exceptional acts.¹ Dressed in other garments of Western European origin, the nineteenth century semi-civilized aboriginal melds non-traditional clothing with the few elements of Native regalia. The combination of eagle feathers, braided hair, Western style scarves, long-sleeve shirts, and trade cloth blankets wrapped around the two men’s bodies mirror the dress of David’s valorous warriors.

      In David’s composition, two figural groups are joined by a third, the Native men Wooten inserts into the foreground of his painting. As the Native duo turn away from David’s painting, they are observed by an unseen viewer in a manner that suggests the encounter is unexpected. In his essay in the series, art historian Robert McGrath asks, “Why does the Indian, here famously engaged in an unprecedented act of European spectatorship, seem to interrogate us, the viewers….?”² The act of visual engagement suggests for Wooten’s audience that Natives’ presence in a museum setting is an awkward occasion, a one-way experience to modern eyes and one that is rarely inclusive.

      With the inversion, Wooten invokes an oppositional gaze that formulates a visual confrontation and gives notice of a changing shift in power dynamics.³ As unlikely an event for the Louvre as a visit from a delegation of Ojibwe Warriors is, the act of visiting European institutions was, for Indigenous people, unexpected but not improbable. Hundreds of Natives traveled from the Americas since European contact and were recorded in art to mark the occasion--including Wooten, who inserted himself in self-portrait. The singular exception is the perspective on these occasions of a literate individual, Maungwudaus, whose narrative accounts of the Catlin tours of England and France provided a unique insight through the Native voice.⁴

      Although Natives continue to be objectified in most museum settings, within the Native diaspora, the institution of museums has gained support at the tribal level. Currently, this support remains limited to regional and thematic Native art, but collections are growing in numbers as more communities develop their own holdings, cultural interpretive centers, and casinos which display both traditional and fine art of tribal origin for public audiences. Perhaps, we’ll see an artist capture the non-Natives observing these collections in the future.

¹ William C. Sturtevant, “What Does the Plains Indian War Bonnet Communicate?” Art as a means of communication in pre-literate societies; the proceedings of the Wright International Symposium on Primitive and Precolumbian Art, (Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1990), 355-374.

² Robert L. McGrath, “The Artful Indians of Walt Wooten,” Walt Wooten: From a Visit to the Louvre, (Phoenix: Heard Museum, 2004).

³ bell hooks, “The Oppositional Gaze,” in Black Looks: Race and Representation, (New York: South End Press, 1992).

⁴ George Henry [Maungwudaus], Remarks concerning the Ojibway Indians by one of themselves, called Maungwudaus, who has been travelling [sic] in England, France, Belgium, Ireland, and Scotland, (Leeds, England: C.A. Wilson, 1847).