Article Review of “the Ideal Works of Edmonia Lewis...

â€Å"The Ideal Works of Edmonia Lewis: Invoking and Inverting Autobiography† by Kirsten P. Buick Kirsten Buick’s article â€Å"The Ideal Works of Edmonia Lewis: Invoking and Inverting Autobiography† focuses on several different works by the African-Indian sculptor. The article is beneficial in analyzing the cultural significance of Lewis’s works. Buick concentrates specifically on six of Lewis’s sculptures: Forever Free, Hagar in the Wilderness, Minnehaha, The Old Indian Arrowmaker and His Daughter, Hiawatha, and The Marriage of Hiawatha. Buick states, â€Å"while the subjects of her sculptures are African American and Native American women, invoking her autobiography, their features follow idealized, western European models† (190). In this†¦show more content†¦The final section of the article, Art and Self, poses the question: â€Å"What would Lewis have risked if she had sculpted obviously black or obviously Indian women† (201)? The article goes on to explain that Lewis wanted her art to be separate from her ethnicity and gend er. Here Buick explains that Lewis â€Å"refused to be victimized by her own hand† (201). Buick provides several quotes from art historians and passages from interviews with Lewis, making her argument and article stronger. Very few weaknesses exist within Kirsten Buick’s article. Because of the divisions in the article, there is no clear thesis. Each section in the article seems to have its own thesis statement. Additionally, Buick’s conclusion paragraph, only two sentences long, does not adequately wrap up the article. Despite these minor flaws, the article is very well written and organized. Buick provides more than sufficient data to back up her argument. She provides quotes from other writers and columnists, art historians, and Edmonia Lewis herself. When discussing Lewis’s sculpture Hagar in the Wilderness, Buick provides text from the Bible on Hagar. After providing a visual analysis of each sculpture mentioned, Buick explains their cultural signifi cance. For example, Buick mentions the relationship between mother and child in Lewis’s The Freedwoman on First Hearing of Her Liberty and explains, â€Å"with the end of slavery, mother and child were no longer property that could be