MILLER
- CATLIN - BODMER
Among the
artists who first recorded the American West the most important
are George Catlin, Karl Bodmer, and Alfred Jacob Miller in this
order. Of this
group, Catlin and Bodmer were motivated primarily to produce a
historical and ethnographic record and were imbued with an
essentially scientific point of view. Miller is a different
matter. To compare him with Catlin and Bodmer is to juxtapose
passionate sincerity, professional objectivity, and romantic
poetry, which, in all fairness, are hardly comparable.
Miller
was trained in Paris and Rome in portrait, landscape, and marine
painting as well as that most romantic of themes, the painting
of history. His great opportunity came to accompany the wealthy
Scottish traveler Sir William Drummond Stewart on a tour of the
trans-Mississippi West, he was to record, not the facts of
ethnography, but a dramatic adventure into an exotic world.
In regard to
the paintings of Catlin and Bodmer; they are viewed as exciting
early views by white people of the Indian cultures, showing the
customs, costumes, and physiognomy. The look of things before
they would be changed forever.
Miller was
born in Baltimore. He studied in Paris and Rome, upon his return
to this country he opened a portrait studio in Baltimore but was
unsuccessful. In 1837 he moved to New Orleans where he was
selected by Capt. William Drummond Stewart as artist to record a
journey to the Rocky Mountains. The expedition journeyed by
wagon along what was to become the Oregon Trail. Miller sketched
the Native American along the way and also recorded the
rendezvous of the mountain men in what is now southwestern
Wyoming. Miller returned to Saint Louis with about 166 sketches
which were later developed into oil paintings while in New
Orleans and Baltimore. From 1840 to 1842 he lived in Stewart's
Murthly Castle in Scotland, Painting oils as decorations
depicting favorite episodes from the trip. He also delivered a
portfolio of 83 small drawings and watercolors. Miller spent the
rest of his life in Baltimore painting portraits and making
copies of his Western themes.
One
of the best known paintings in Joslyn's extensive Miller
collection, The Trapper's Bride represents an American
Fur Company trapper taking a wife. Miller painted several
versions of this subject, one of which is in the Walters Art
Gallery in the artist's home town. About this incident the
artist later wrote:
The
price of acquisition in this case was $600 paid for in the
legal tender of the region: viz.: Guns, $100 each, Blankets
$40 each, Red Flannel $20 pr yard, Alcohol $64 pr. Gal.,
Tobacco, Beads etc. at corresponding rates. A Free Trapper is
a most desirable match, but it is conceded that he is a ruined
man after such an investment.... The poor devil trapper sells
himself, body and soul, to the Fur Company for a number of
years. He traps beaver, hunts the Buffalo and bear, Elk, etc.
The furs and robes of which the Company credits to his
account. - David
C. Hunt
Fort Laramie, 1845
Ft. Laramie
has in its history four incarnations: (a) a cottonwood stockade
constructed at Laramie's Point, but named by Wm. Sublette "Fort
William", 1837 painting by Alfred Jacob Miller shows
the exterior view; an adobe fort depicted in the
engraving; a military post, showing its present configuration
consisting of a mix of restorations and ruins. The fort served
as a terminus of the "Trappers' Trail running from Taos
northward. The Trappers Trail fell into disusage when fashions
changed and silk replaced beaver in hats. In 1841,the stockade
was replaced by an adobe structure depicted in the engraving
above and as described by Francis Parkman below.
Miller gave a description
of the fort as being: "of
a quadrangular form, with block houses at diagonal corners to
sweep the fronts in case of attack. Over the front entrance is a
large blockhouse in which is placed a cannon. The interior of
the fort is about 150 feet square, surrounded by small cabins
whose roofs reach within 3 feet of the top of the palisades
against which they abut. The Indians encamp in great numbers
here 3 or 4 times a year, bringing peltries to be exchanged for
dry goods, tobacco, beads and alcohol. The Indians have a mortal
horror of the "big gun" which rests in the blockhouse,
as they have had experience of its prowess and witnessed the
havoc produced by its loud "talk". They conceive it to
be only asleep and have a wholesome dread of its being waked up."
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Bodmer
was born in Zurich, Switzerland. At the age of thirteen he began
to study art with his uncle Johann Jakob Meier; a painter and
printmaker. In 1828, Karl and his elder brother Rudolph left
Switzerland and followed the Rhine to Koblenz where they began
to work on their own. Bodmer worked there for three years,
producing drawings and sketches that were etched by Rudolph and
sold to tourists in travel albums. It was while he was in
Koblenz that the young Bodmer met Prince Maximilian in January
of 1832. The Prince was planning a trip to North America and was
looking for an artist to illustrate his travels Bodmer served
the expedition in much the same way as a modern-day
photographer. His landscapes recorded the western frontier so
accurately that the landmarks—where they have not been altered
by time or settlement—are identifiable today. And his detailed
portraits of Native Americans are among the most important
visual records of the Plains Indian tribes in the early 19th
century.
Places
visited by Prince
Maximilian and Karl Bodmer:
Europe
to St. Louis, May 17, 1832 - March 24, 1833
On
May 17, 1832, Maximilian and Bodmer boarded the Janus and set
sail from the Netherlands. They arrived in Boston on July 4,
1832, amid Independence Day celebrations. From there, they
traveled by stagecoach into New York City and across
Pennsylvania, stopping to visit in Philadelphia, Bethlehem. They
continued west through Ohio and into Indiana [Mouth of Fox
River, (Indiana)], spending the winter in New Harmony,
Indiana so Maximilian could recover from illness. Thomas Say and
Charles-Alexander Lesueur had been on two American frontier
expeditions with Major Stephen Long who, a decade earlier,
explored the Rocky Mountains; Lesueur was respected for his
study of living organisms in Australia as well as North America.
Maximilian took advantage of this opportunity to visit with the
scientists, and utilize the town's library that contained one of
the best natural history collections in the country. In the
spring, the journey continued by riverboat to St. Louis,
Missouri, which served as the gateway to the west.
St.
Louis to Fort Union, March 24 - July 6, 1833
In
April, Maximilian and Bodmer boarded the American Fur Company's
steamboat, Yellow-Stone,
to
begin their historic journey up the Missouri River. In early
May, the Yellow-Stone docked at Bellevue, located just south of
present-day Omaha, Nebraska, where Maximilian and Bodmer visited
a trading post and Indian agency operated by Major John
Dougherty. The party continued upriver to Fort Pierre where they
boarded the larger steamboat, Assiniboine. Seventy-five days
after leaving St. Louis, the expedition reached Fort Union, in
present day North Dakota, [Fort Union on the Missouri]
which was the farthest a steamboat could navigate on the
Missouri at this time. Like the other Missouri River forts
visited by Maximilian and Bodmer, Fort Union was not a military
encampment but a commercial outpost owned by John Jacob Astor's
American Fur Company and operated for trading purposes.
Fort
Union to Fort McKenzie, July 6 - September 14, 1833
In
order to push further west, Maximilian's party boarded a Fur
Company keelboat and traveled another 500 miles upstream toward
Fort McKenzie, north of what is now Great Falls, Montana. While
traveling on the upper Missouri, they passed through a
particularly beautiful area of the Missouri River where Bodmer
depicted the Stone Walls on the Upper Missouri.
Winter
at Fort Clark, November 8, 1833 - April 18, 1834
After
spending six weeks at Fort Mckenzie, the expedition returned
downriver to Fort Clark, located about 45 miles north of the
present city of Bismarck, North Dakota; they wanted to meet and
learn more about the Mandan and Minatarre [Hidatsa], whose
villages were located near the post [Mih-Tutta-Hangkusch, a
Mandan village]. They spent an extremely bitter winter of
1833-1834 at the fort where they endured many hardships. In
spite of this, however, the two men continued their work with
great interest and in good spirits. Maximilian collected
information from the warriors and elders of the tribe; and
Bodmer executed dozens of studies of the villages, ceremonies,
and individual people.
St. Louis to New York - May 27 - July 14. On April
18 the party left Fort Clark and proceeded downriver, landing at
St. Louis on May 27. Their journey back to New York took them to
the Great Lakes and to Niagara Falls. They sailed for Europe on
July 16. Maximilian and Bodmer took with them vast numbers of
specimens of flora, fauna (including live bears!), densely
packed pages of notes, and many sheets of detailed drawings and
watercolors produced during the journey.
Bodmer
was employed to make detailed, accurate drawings of what the two
men saw on their expedition, to be used upon their return to
Europe to generate the printed illustrations for the account
Maximilian planned to publish of their experiences. As they
journeyed across the eastern half of the United States,
Maximilian recorded numerous insightful observations about the
young nation. But Maximilian and Bodmer's most notable
contributions lie in their ground-breaking documentation of the
flora, fauna, and native inhabitants of the Missouri River
valley, from St. Louis to Montana. Maximilian's diary records
the life, rituals and languages of tribes such as the Omaha,
Sioux, Assiniboin, Blackfoot, Mandan, and Minatarre (commonly
known as Hidatsa). Bodmer's work vividly reflects the
landscapes, wildlife, frontier settlements, Indian villages, and
people that Maximilian described in his diaries. Together,
Maximilian and Bodmer's written and visual documentation
constitute an invaluable record of the upper Missouri frontier.
In
1834 the steamboat Assiniboin, carrying a large part of Prince
Maximilian's natural history and ethnographic specimens burned
and sank on the Missouri River.
Following
the Buffalo: In the 1830s the buffalo was the staff of
life for the Plains Indians, providing food, clothing, and
shelter. A full-grown bull at 8 to 10 years old measured six
feet tall at the shoulder, 10 feet long from nose to rump, and
could weigh as much as 2,000 pounds. Maximilian and Bodmer
witnessed a large number of buffalo moving toward the river
while traveling from Fort McKenzie to Fort Union. Bodmer
captured the scene in Herds of Bisons and Elks on the Upper
Missouri.
While visiting Fort Union on their way up the Missouri River,
Maximilian and Bodmer recorded the life of the Assiniboins, a
nomadic tribe encamped in the area. Maximilian visited the
Assiniboin camps, observing the women at work, a curing
ceremony, and other aspects of tribal life. He describes in his
journal their patterns of nomadic movement and methods of
hunting:
The two explorers spent twelve days at the fort where Bodmer
rendered portraits of Assiniboin tribesmen and scenes of daily
life. His work there includes a sketch that became the print A
Skin Lodge of an Assiniboin Chief which shows a tipi made of
buffalo hide.
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Catlin's Letters
and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North
American Indians read. "If I should live to
accomplish my design, the result of my labours will doubtless
be interesting to future ages; who will have little else left
from which to judge of the original inhabitants of this simple
race of beings, who require but a few years more of the march
of civilization and death, to deprive them all of their native
customs and character."
Early
exposure to Indian lore may have sparked George Catlin's
lifelong interest in native American culture. In a frequently
quoted, albeit highly romanticized, autobiographical account,
the artist related colorful tales of his mother's capture and
safe return by a band of Iroquois and his own vivid memories
of a friendly Oneida tribesman who was murdered when Catlin
was about ten years old. Nearly two decades later, the legend
continues, a chance encounter with a delegation of Plains
Indians passing through Philadelphia rekindled the artist's
youthful fascination. Inspired by their pristine grandeur,
Catlin dedicated himself to the monumental task of documenting
all Indian tribes from the Alleghenies to the Rockies, vowing
nothing short of the loss of his life would prevent him from
visiting their country and becoming their historian.
Catlin's professional life was somewhat unorthodox. Acceding
to his father's wishes, he agreed to study law in Litchfield,
Connecticut, but concurrently established a more
temperamentally congenial alternative career as a painter of
portrait miniatures. After passing the bar exam in
Connecticut, Catlin returned home to rural Pennsylvania, where
he practiced law with his older brother for three years.
By 1821 the young artist had moved to Philadelphia, where he
exhibited some early work at the Pennsylvania Academy of the
Fine Arts. Catlin remained in the city for approximately four
years and probably undertook some formal art study during this
period, but little definitive information exists regarding his
early training. He was invited to Albany to paint
DeWitt Clinton, the governor of New York, in 1824 and the
following year he was hired to create a series of lithographs
depicting construction sites along the Erie Canal.
Catlin settled in New York in 1826, the year he
was elected to the National Academy of Design. Although work was scarce
during much of this time, in 1829 the artist did receive a
relatively prestigious commission to paint a group portrait of
the one-hundred-one Virginia legislators assembled at the
State Constitutional Convention in Richmond.
Despite this minor coup, Catlin was becoming increasingly
dissatisfied with the progress of his career. After more than
a decade as a painter, he had attained only marginal success.
Like many artists of his day, Catlin believed that history
painting would be a far more elevated vehicle for his creative
talents than portraiture; yet, when forced to vie for
patronage with more established -- and more skilled--
contemporaries, he had great difficulty obtaining commissions
for this type of work. Stung by harsh criticism of his
painting by influential critics such as William Dunlap, who
described him as "utterly incompetent," Catlin may
have began to doubt his ability to compete with better-known
artists. Surely, he must have realized that an alternate,
highly unconventional career spent traveling throughout the
western territories painting Indians would offer him adventure
and almost certain fame, since regardless of the critical
evaluation of his art in purely aesthetic terms, the
historical significance of his pioneering contribution could
not be denied.
With the aid and encouragement of General William Clark, the
renowned explorer who was then serving as Superintendent of
Indian Affairs for the Western tribes and Governor of the
Missouri Territory, the artist gained access to numerous
midwestern tribes and was able to study them in great detail.
Scholars differ widely as to the chronology of his travels,
and Catlin's own itineraries --reconstructed in later years--
often are unreliable. It is known that the first Indian
portraits he painted in the West were executed near Fort
Leavenworth in northeastern Kansas in the late summer or early
fall of 1830. After a season of intensive field work during
which he produced numerous summary sketches, Catlin returned
east in the late fall, visiting New York, Albany, and
Washington. Rather than traveling extensively the following
year, he probably spent most of 1831 finishing paintings based
on the field studies he had created the previous season.
Catlin was anxious to
travel even further west, seeking even more distant Indian
tribes that presumably were less likely to have been
compromised by their contact with white men. He returned to
Saint Louis in December, 1831, and the following spring he
undertook an arduous three m onth journey on the Yellowstone
River to Fort Union, North Dakota, two thousand miles upriver.
During the voyage, Catlin painted landscapes from the deck of
the steamboat, and after arriving at his destination, he began
painting genre scenes of Indian life in addition to
straightforward portraits. He kept extensive notes to document
his travels and made numerous notebook sketches.
While in the Upper Missouri territories, the prolific artist
often completed five or six paintings a day. Returning south
with French-Canadian trappers, he visited the Mandan villages,
where he was permitted to witness and document a sacred four
day initiation ceremony. Some scholars have suggested that
Catlin's month long, in-depth study of the now extinct Mandan
tribe constitutes his greatest ethnographic achievement. In
the summer of 1838, only six years after his visit, the Mandan
Indians were virtually annihilated by a smallpox epidemic
inadvertently introduced by fur traders. Catlin reported that
nearly half of the contaminated Indians, realizing that death
was inevitable, "destroyed themselves with their knives,
with their guns, and by dashing their brains out by leaping
head-foremost from a thirty foot ledge of rocks in front of
the village." Within months, nearly two thousand had
perished. The forty who survived the epidemic were soon
enslaved, murdered, or assimilated by neighboring tribes. The
virulent disease ravaged adjacent tribes, as well, killing
some 25,000 Blackfoot, Cheyenne, and Crow Indians before
gradually spreading west to the Pacific, leaving a trail of
death and devastation in its wake. Appalled by the tragic
loss, Catlin lamented, "What an illustration is this of
the wickedness of mercenary white men. "
Contrary to information
the artist published years later, Catlin probably did not
travel west in 1833; he most likely took time off to complete
works begun the previous season. He exhibited some one-
hundred-forty paintings in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and
possibly Louisville that year, and he may have spent part of
the winter in New Orleans. In the spring of 1834 Catlin
accepted an invitation to join the first U.S. military
expedition to the Southwest, where he encountered little known
tribes such as the Comanche in Oklahoma. During this arduous
journey, the artist -- along with many in his party-- became
seriously ill with fever. More than a hundred in the group
died. After several weeks of recuperation at Fort Gibson,
Catlin made a solitary twenty-five day, five hundred fifty
mile trip back to Saint Louis on horseback. He and his wife,
who had been living there with friends during her husband's
extended absence, sailed to New Orleans, before moving on to
Pensacola, Florida, where they visited one of his brothers for
the winter. He returned to New Orleans, where he lectured and
exhibited some work in the spring of 1835. Catlin then
traveled north to Fort Snelling (on the Upper Mississippi near
St. Paul, Minnesota), where he painted the Ojibwas and Eastern
Sioux. He also traveled in Iowa that year, painting Sauk and
Fox Indians.
Catlin shipped his art east and began planning an exhibition
for the late spring of 1836. His wife, who was expecting their
first child, had returned to be with her family in Albany.
When she suffered a miscarriage, Catlin abruptly cancelled the
scheduled Buffalo show and in June set out in search of the
Pipe Stone Quarry in southwestern Minnesota, a legendary site
where Indians of many nations garnered material for their
peace pipes. Formerly this land had been considered neutral
territory -- a sacred place where enemies could meet in
harmony in accordance with the wishes of the Great Spirit. By
the time of Catlin's visit, however, it was controlled by the
Sioux, who detained the artist and his English traveling
companion in an attempt to restrict their access. Catlin
persevered, however, even managing to collect some of the
prized mineral, which later was named "Catlinite" in
his honor.
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There
is so much more information available on the Internet, in
libraries and book stores on these gentlemen that this is just a
very small sampling to make you aware of these sources at hand.
Use them, you will enjoy the experience of those that have
traveled before you. Hope you enjoyed this short history of
these wonderful artists that have recorded our history in their
work.
come warm yourself friends stay
and enjoy yourself,
we like the company.
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