Before Europeans colonized North America, rich, complex art traditions flourished among many indigenous tribes who had developed a highly stylized vocabulary that employed complex geometric patterns and used near abstracted forms that both evoked the natural world and symbolized ancestral and mythological stories. The objects were often utilitarian and, at the same time, imbued with ritual significance. However, the newly arrived colonists in the Eastern United States primarily viewed those traditions as curiosities or arts and crafts, while aspiring to British fine art traditions and cultural values. Native American artists adapted the new materials and techniques brought by the colonists, including floral embroidery, beads, and silver smithing.At the same time, some indigenous artists developed a European style to depict native subjects. David Cusick, a Tuscarora artist, published hisSketches of Ancient History of the Six Nationsin 1828, and, along with his brother Dennis, a watercolorist, established the Iroquois Realist School. The first Native American art movement included over 25 Iroquois artists, who employed drawing, painting, and printmaking to realistically depict their tribe's beliefs, history, fashion, and lifestyle. Edmonia Lewis, of Mississauga Ojibwe and African-American descent, became internationally known for her Neoclassical sculpture, likeThe Death of Cleopatra(1876), exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. In the early 1900s, Native American art began to receive national and international attention. The Kiowa Six, Spencer Asah, James Auchiah, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, Lois Smoky, and Monroe Tsatoke, were celebrated for their Ledger drawings that employed strong outlined, flat areas of bold color. The group exhibited at the 1928 First International Art Exposition in Prague and the Venice Biennale in 1932.Much American Folk Art is utilitarian in nature, as sculptures were primarily figureheads for ships, weathervanes, and carved gravestones, but framed embroideries and velvet paintings were also made for wall decorations. Early American folk painters were called limners, from a term limning, meaning, "to outline in clear, sharp detail." Often self-taught, limners travelled from town to town and made a living by offering to paint anything, from signs for local merchants to farm implements and carriages. As the colonies reflected the British cultural values that viewed portraiture as a sign of social standing, fine art portraitists like the French born Henrietta Johnston, who emigrated to Charleston, South Carolina around 1705, gravitated to the cities, while limners made it possible for ordinary people in small towns to have their portraits painted. Boldly colored and outlined without modeling or shading, folk art portrayals were often intimate, depicting the sitter with a few objects that were of personal significance. Beginning his career as limner, Edward Hicks became famous for hisThe Peaceable Kingdom(1829-31), a work that expressed his Quaker values in a dynamic folk style. Folk art also drew upon African American traditions; in the 1880s Harriet Powers, a former slave, began exhibiting her quilts, depicting powerful narratives in bold color and geometric forms and patterns.(Adapted from https://www.theartstory.org/definition/american-art/)Why does the author describe the adaptation of new materials like beads and silver smithing by Native artists …