American Visions: The Promised Land

The following questions are based on the 2nd video in the "American Visions" series: "The Promised Land". Students can use this page to review the content of the video.

1. The early religious missions played a vital role in the artistic and cultural development of America.    
2. The Pilgrims were the most radical wing of the 17th Century English Puritans.    
3.What is missing from this Pilgrim house?  Artwork, pictures, and no religious art    
4. They considered religious art the work of the devil.    
5. The first colonists saw the unexplored land as a blank slate... where they could create their utopia.

6. The wilderness was untamed... but it was also home to about 12 million American Indians.    
7. The first big cultural collision between colonists and natives took place in the desert tablelands of the southwest.    
8. The Spaniards didn’t find gold, but they arrived at the foot of sky city, the ancient city of Acoma.    
9. One Spaniard called it the greatest stronghold ever seen in the world.    
10. With 2000 dwellings, this is the oldest continually populated city in North America.    
11. The Acomas had lived there for 1000 years before the Spanish arrived. It was a sacred place.    
12. In 1599 the Spanish massacred most of the Acoma’s and sold the rest into slavery.    
13. The basic unit of construction is the mud brick or adobe.    
14. What kind of artwork is included in the mission church of San Jose, built in 1700?    Indian designs combined with Spanish style religious art    
15. Old Spanish homes of colonists often had their own chapels.

16. The arrival of the Puritans was a mythic event.    
17. John Winthrop wrote: “They would build a city on a hill whose example would shine back across the Atlantic and reform the corrupt old world.    
18. Winthrop believed his flock had been chosen by God to begin a new phase of human history.    
19. The society of Puritans created  has proved to be absolutely basic to the way Americans imagine themselves today.    
20. New people and the beginnings of a new architecture.    
21. Old Ship Meeting House could hold 700 people. It is the oldest church in New England.    
22. Puritan church services lasted six hours.    
23. The only decoration in the church was likely to be an eye painted on the pulpit.    
24. Gravestones were their only religious art and their only sculpture.    
25. Puritan society was fixated on death.    
26. In the Puritan world, nothing was accidental.    
27. They were obsessed by witchcraft.    
28. Puritan homes were designed to keep the family in and the wilderness out.    
29. The earliest form of American furniture is the 6 board chest.

30. The Puritans had a love/hate relationship with nature.    
31. The only kind of paintings the Puritans encouraged was portraiture.    
32.  Portraits were painted for what reasons? a record, to commemorate social place, to honor someone after death, and to remind of the transience of life    
33. To the Puritan’s, money was a sign of God’s approval, so why not show it off.    
34. The Puritans left the first portraits of individual Americans.    
35. The Puritans really weren’t conservatives, but invented the idea of American “newness”, which underwrote the American Revolution.    
36. They believed in freedom for themselves, but not for others, and were not very tolerant or democratic.

37. In a Quaker church service, there is no sermon, no singing - they wait for the inner spirit to be revealed.    
38. The Quakers helped to create a haven from religious persecution not just for themselves, but for all.    
39. Describe Edward Hick’s painting “Peaceable Kingdom”:    
 Lions, lambs, cattle, leopards, a child - all at peace; Penn signing the treaty with the Indians in the background    
40. Tolerance really mattered to the Quakers, as it didn’t to the Puritans.    
41. The Amish have especially stuck to their traditions, rejecting worldliness and modernity.    
42. Dutch immigrants brought the bright, heraldic designs of German folk art to America.    
43. There was no desire to express anything through the art, it was simply to decorate.    
44. Pennyslvania German folk art was a copycat art.    
45. A common design in their art is the unicorn.

46. Which folk art was the work of women? Quilts    
47. Which quilts have attracted the most attention? Amish    
48. How many Shakers are there today?  8     
49. Founded by Mother Ann Lee in 1774, they are called Shakers because of their quivering dance.    
50. Shakers believed in complete sexual equality, and stressed community, celibacy, and living in the spirit of Christ.    
51. Unlike the Amish, the Shakers did believe in innovation.    
52. They invented labor saving devices so they could have more time to pray.    
53. Two motto’s of the Shakers are: “Hands to work and hearts to God”, and “Do all of your work as if you were going to live 1000 years and yet as if you are going to die tomorrow.”    
54. In Shaker style, form follows function.    
55. A Shaker chair is so light it can be picked up with 1 finger.

56. In Virginia, English traditions are kept alive.    
57. Virginia colonists wanted to recreate aristocratic priviledge in America, with indentured servants and later, slaves.    
58. Early Virginia was promoted as a Garden of Eden.    
59. In 1607, Jamestown was settled.    
60. The Puritans had believed in general education; the Southerners were against it because it might disturb the hierarchy of class.    
61. What does the art work of the Southern colonies tell us? a desire to be an extension of English culture; (slave with a silver collar) - but a fancy coverup of a brutal society supported by slave labor    
62. Freedom was the basic desire of all the early colonists.    
63. The 1st, freedom of religion, the 2nd, freedom to create wealth.    
64. While the colonies expanded and pulled away from England, cultural independence didn’t come in a rush.

65. The first original American art was furniture.    
66. The furniture style that developed celebrates the abundance of America.    
67. Painting was slower to evolve.    
68. In “The Berkeley Group”, figures appear more natural.    
69. By the end of the 1760’s, the tide of religious zeal has ebbed, but the desire for liberty remained.    
70. Crevecour wrote: “Who then is this American? This new man?

71. Describe these colonial paintings of the 18th century; how are they different from the Puritan portraits?    
  - realistic;    
 - plain, straight forward, down to earth;    
 - hard-working, independent minded Americans    
 -NOT showing off the aristocratic wealth of generations of European society    


C.L.A.S.S. 2 page