By way of introduction from the Pacific Northwest Coast

The art of the Pacific Northwest Coast Indian people is flamboyant, monumental and complex. It is also deliberately ambiguous. That ambiguity is fundamental to both its form and meaning. Take, for example, the painted bentwood box design reproduced in Figure 1. At first glance even a trained eye sees a jumble of lines and shapes. Fortunately, however, Bill Holm (1983) has provided us with conceptual tools for sorting out this apparent jumble. To begin with it is necessary to distinguish positive and negative space. In this case the negative areas are white but they may also be incised; the positive areas are black and shaded, but they are commonly also raised. With close inspection it is then possible to pick out the main figure from the detail by following the continuous black or raised outline known as the formline (right-hand illustration in Figure 1). Holm (1983: 33-4) goes on to explain: