|
|
|
|
Raised in a backwoods region of New York state, "with books reluctantly held in one hand and a rifle or fishing-pole firmly and affectionately grasped in the other," George Catlin was equipped with the training and inclination to visit the plains Indians of the American West and become, as he put it, their "historian." On observing a delegation of native Americans in Philadelphia, the artist vowed that he would capture "the living manners, customs, and character of an interesting race of people, who are rapidly passing away from the face of the Earth." He carried to the field two contemporary European philosophies: a belief in the virtue of "natural man" (man living in a natural environment), and a conviction that the scientific recording of natural phenomena was a key to progress. By 1844 when he issued his Indian Portfolio of twenty-five plates, Catlin had devoted eight years to the project, had produced several hundred paintings that he exhibited to thousands in America and Europe as his "Indian Gallery," and had written the first of three books about the natives of North and South America. Catlin hoped to publish supplementary volumes of his Indian Portfolio that would illustrate additional customs, but the financial failure of the first volume ended the project. Pictured here is "Buffalo Dance" (lithograph with hand coloring, 12 x 17 5/8 in.), which records one of the "Medicine Ceremonies" that plains Indians conducted prior to a hunting or war excursion. When the herds of buffaloes eluded their hunters, "it [was] decided very gravely that the buffalo-dance must be commenced, 'to make the buffaloes come;' and when such is the case, the dance is kept constantly going, both night and day." The participants wore "masks of the buffalo." When "'buffaloes come,' . . . the dance ceases, and preparations are made for the hunt."
Image rights owned by the Virginia Historical Society. |
|
|
