{"id":1417,"date":"2015-04-29T12:51:15","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T17:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=1417"},"modified":"2015-04-29T12:51:15","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T17:51:15","slug":"the-melting-pot-remingtons-chinese-figure-study-and-american-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2015\/04\/29\/the-melting-pot-remingtons-chinese-figure-study-and-american-music\/","title":{"rendered":"The Melting Pot: Remington’s Chinese Figure Study and American Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frederic Remington (1861-1909) was an American painter, sculptor, illustrator, and writer (no relation to the rifle- and typewriter-makers, Eliphalet and Philo Remington). Although he studied for short periods at Yale’s School of Fine Arts as well as at the Art Students League in New York, he was a mostly self-taught artist. After a period traveling through the Dakotas, Montana, the Arizona Territory, and Texas, he had one of his drawings published in\u00a0Harpers’s Weekly<\/em>, leading to a long relationship with that publication as well as with\u00a0The Century Illustrated\u00a0<\/em>and Scribner\u2019s Magazine<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Due to Remington’s first-hand experience with the quickly-vanishing frontier,\u00a0he grew renowned for his visual and textual depictions of cavalry, cowboys, Native Americans, and\u00a0the American West:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"5042214861_ec9ed5fa5f_z\"<\/a> \"5169152407_ea99bdf4fc_z\"<\/a> \"5042171903_3c65c10bbe_z\"\u00a0\"6329189165_f7370ae467_o\"\"6332165260_ed50d9552e_o\"<\/a> \"6329996698_7396f6a42b_o\"<\/p>\n

Knowing about his affinity for the American West, it might at first seem odd that while painting cowboys and campfires Remington also drew this\u00a0Chinese figure study:<\/p>\n

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I promise you though, this is not odd\u00a0at all.<\/p>\n

As everyone knows, America is a land of immigrants, referred to in past years as the great melting pot (now we opt for the great salad bowl, kaleidoscope, or mosaic). Beginning in the 19th century, immigrants from China came to America, especially to the West, to work as laborers for the transcontinental railroad and the mining industry. These immigrants faced fierce racial discrimination, leading to such laws as the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, prohibiting immigration from China for ten years, and the 1892 Geary Act, extending the prohibition for another decade. Thus the presence of Chinese immigrants in the American West would not have been uncommon, and Remington would have found many study subjects as\u00a0he traveled the frontier.<\/p>\n

“That’s interesting, but why is this post in a music history blog?”<\/em><\/p>\n

By presenting a Chinese figure in various outfits, Remington demonstrates the Americanization of immigrants: on the left is a figure in more traditional clothing, while the figures on the right take on more and more aspects of Western culture, such as replacing the tunic with a baggy shirt and the cap with a Spanish guacho or grandee. So, by including Chinese immigrants in his oeuvre, Remington was\u00a0portraying other cultures as an important piece\u00a0of the American pie. In similar ways, composers like Amy Beach, Edward MacDowell, and\u00a0Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k also sought to include other cultures as members of the American family.<\/p>\n

Take the fifth movement of\u00a0MacDowell’s\u00a0Indian Suite\u00a0<\/em>of 1892, which pulls tunes from the Iroquois tribe:<\/p>\n