SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONSVOLUME 134, NUMBER 7
EARLY WHITE INFLUENCE UPONPLAINS INDIAN PAINTINGGEORGE CATLIN AND CARL BODMERAMONG THE MANDAN, 1832-34(With 12 Plates)
ByJOHN C. EWERSPlanning Officer for the Museum of History and TechnologyU. S. National MuseumSmithsonian Institution
(Publication 4292)
CITY OF WASHINGTONPUBLISHED BY THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTIONAPRIL 24, 1957
THE LORD BALTIMORE PRESS, INC.BALTIMORE, MD., U.S.A.
EARLY WHITE INFLUENCE UPON PLAINSINDIAN PAINTINGGEORGE CATLIN AND CARL BODMER AMONG THEMANDAN, 1832-34By JOHN C. EWERSPlanning Officer for the Museum of History and TechnologyU. S. National MuseumSmithsonian Institution(With 12 Plates)During their visits to the Upper Missouri in the years 1832-34the artists George Catlin and Carl Bodmer created some of the mostauthentic and best-known pictures of American Indians drawn orpainted in the days before the development of photography. Theirwidely circulated originals and the published reproductions of theirpictures have provided millions of viewers in this country andabroad, who never saw a Plains Indian, with a clear, accurate con-ception of the physical appearance and customs of those Indians asthey appeared a century and a quarter ago.Anthropologists, historians, and art critics have been accustomedto regard these artists as interpreters of Indian culture. Yet thereis another point of view from which their contribution may be con-sidered. While among the Indians they demonstrated their skill inhandling an alien art style. They were in effect missionaries of thewestern European artistic tradition. To what extent was their ex-ample an influence upon native art ? Might they not have been activeas innovators in as well as observers of Indian culture?I believe that data are now available to demonstrate precisely thatCatlin's and Bodmer's artistic example did influence the develop-ment of the painting styles of at least two prominent Mandan Indianartists who had rare opportunities to observe their artistic activityclosely while these white artists were recording the native culture oftheir tribe. ABORIGINAL MANDAN INDIAN PAINTINGFrom the time of the first known visit of white men to the Mandanvillages in 1738 until the appearance of George Catlin among themSMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 134, NO. 7
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nearly a century later, the Mandan were repeatedly visited by whitetraders, explorers, and some Government officials. Several tradersare known to have lived among these Indians for a number of yearsduring that period. But no one skilled in drawing or painting in thetraditional, realistic nineteenth-century style of western Europeanculture is known to have practiced his art in the Mandan villagesprior to the visit of George Catlin in the summer of 1832. MandanIndian painting remained in the aboriginal tradition until that time.The origin of the Mandan painting tradition is lost in antiquity.La Verendrye, the French explorer-trader, observed, when he was inthe Mandan villages on the Missouri in 1738, that these Indianstraded painted buffalo robes to neighboring Assiniboin. (La Veren-drye, 1890, p. 19.) However, the oldest example of Mandan paint-ing that has been preserved (which is also the earliest dated specimenof the figure painting of any Plains Indian tribe) is a painted buffalorobe collected by the American explorers Lewis and Clark in 1805.This robe is preserved in the collections of the Peabody Museum ofArchaeology and Ethnology of Harvard University, Cambridge,Mass. (See pi. 1.) Lewis and Clark included it among the collectionof ethnological materials which they sent to President Jefferson fromthe Mandan villages on April 5, 1805, before they embarked on theiroverland trek westward to the Pacific. They reported that the paint-ings on this robe portrayed a battle fought between Mandan warriorsand enemy tribesmen about the year 1797. (Lewis and Clark, 1906,vol. 1, pp. 281-288.) So this robe must have been painted within theperiod 1 797-1805.This is a most interesting example of the aboriginal style of paint-ing employed by men who were the delineators of heroic deeds ofthe tribe or of individual warriors on the inner surfaces of buffalorobes. The painting comprises a composition of 44 foot warriors and20 mounted men in combat. Their weapons include 15 trade gunsand a pistol in addition to a larger number of native-made offensiveand defensive weapons—bows and arrows, lances and shields. Allthe figures, human and animal, are heavily outlined in a very darkbrown, almost a black. Some of the outlined forms are filled in withdark brown, blue green, reddish brown, or yellow.Careful examination of individual figures delineated on this speci-men reveals some of the characteristics of the traditional native artstyle. An enlargement of one of the human figures on this robe(pi. 2), clearly illustrates the characteristic style of human figure inthis composition. The head is a featureless, almost circular knobwith pendent, conventionalized hair. The neck sits upon a separately
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)etail iif Mandan robe showing style of painting a fool warrior,(Peabody Museum, Harvard University.)
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rendered, elongated body which is geometric in character and drawnin outline only. The arms are lines extending outward from theshoulders and bent about midway of their length (i.e., at the elbows).At the ends of these arms are solid ball hands with the five fingersextended as lines. The legs are relatively short, bent at the knees.The grossly shaped upper legs are connected to linear lower legs.The foot is merely a continuation of the line of the lower leg at anangle from it. There is no attempt to portray body clothing. Yet theconventionalized representation of the phallus and scrotum may bean indication that the Mandan and their neighbors wore no breech-cloths at that period. Some contemporary descriptions of those In-dians also suggest the absence of the breechcloth in the men's costumeof the time.The enlargement of one of the mounted figures painted on thisrobe (pi. 3) shows the same style of rendering the head, arms, andbody of the human figure. Notice that the man does not straddlethe horse but merely sits atop it. There is no attempt to render thefigure below the waist. The head and body of the horse are drawnin outline. The animal has neither eye nor mouth, but the ears areindicated one above the other and the mane is drawn in a conven-tionalized manner. The horse's neck and body are decorated ingeometric fashion with lines forming angular patterns some of whichare partially filled with spots of color. As in the human figures,the upper legs of the horse are thick and the lower ones are merelines. The hoofs are hook-shaped extensions of the legs.This primitive Mandan painting accented the general character-istics of the human form—the roundness of the head, the straight-ness of the limbs, the bilateral symmetry of the body, qualities RudolfArnheim has referred to as characteristics of the drawings of bothprimitives and children. (Arnheim, 1954, p. 131.)Details of the human figure were unimportant to the primitiveMandan artist. His head remained featureless. Bodies were crudelyproportioned and appendages grossly generalized. Although his me-dium was paint, he used color sparingly. His heavy outlines gaveto his work more the character of drawing than painting. He had noknowledge of color modeling or such other sophisticated conceptsas foreshortening and perspective. When one object overlapped an-other he did not try to eliminate the outlines of the more distant one.Note the handling of the quiver carried by the warrior illustrated inplate 2. But generally there was no overlapping of human or animalfigures which were scattered over the surface of the robe, each beingrendered individually beside, above, or below the others.
4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 34Anthropologists customarily refer to this primitive work as picturewriting, a term which aptly expresses the major motive for its crea-tion. The painter was more concerned with recording a memorableevent by this pictorial shorthand than with the aesthetic appeal ofhis creation. He was more historian or biographer than artist.GEORGE CATLIN AMONG THE MANDAN, 1832George Catlin (pi. 4, fig. 1), spent the summer of 1832 on theUpper Missouri. He traveled upriver on the first steamboat to ascendthe Missouri to Fort Union, stopping briefly at Fort Clark, theAmerican Fur Company's post at the Mandan villages. He returneddownstream by skiff, stopping over at Fort Clark for a period of twoor more weeks. During that period the amazingly energetic Catlincreated more than 40 pictures. Half this number were portraits ofMandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Indians in the neighborhood of FortClark. The remainder were landscapes.Catlin was a self-taught artist whose forte was portraiture. Hepossessed a remarkable ability to catch a likeness of his sitter witha few swift, bold strokes of his pencil or brush. Catlin's own accountof his journey repeatedly referred to the Indians' delight and amaze-ment at his ability to transfer their faces to canvas. They had seennothing like this realistic portraiture before. (Catlin, 1841, vol. 1.)Catlin was less skilled in rendering the human body. His interestin the details of Indian costume and ornament usually was secondaryto his keen desire to record faithfully the heads and faces of hissubjects. Not infrequently, he exaggerated or omitted importantdetails of dress. (Ewers, 1956, pp. 495-498). Nevertheless, Cat-lin's very practice of painting from a model may have been a noveltyin method of rendering the human figure that impressed some ofhis Indian sitters who had been familiar only with the generalizedrepresentations of humans created by native picture writers.CARL BODMER AMONG THE MANDAN, 1833-34Carl Bodmer, on the other hand, was a meticulous draughtsmanthoroughly trained in the best European traditions of drawing fromthe model. The German scientist Prince Maximilian zu Wied care-fully picked young, Swiss-born Bodmer (he was only in his earlytwenties) to accompany him on his travels in America for the pur-pose of making drawings that would illustrate his own scientificobservations. The exacting scientist expected his artist's record tobe no less accurate in every detail than would be his own writings.
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Detail of paintings on front of Four Bears' shirt, collected by George Catlin in 1832.
NO. 7 WHITE INFLUENCE ON INDIAN PAINTING—EWERS 5The Prince and the artist ascended the Missouri on an AmericanFur Company steamer in 1833. (See Bodmer's own field portraitsof himself and the Prince, pi. 4, fig. 2.) They met some of theMandan briefly on their way upriver in June. In the fall of that year,after more than a month of observation and picturemaking amongthe Blackfoot near Fort McKenzie, they returned to Fort Clark.There they spent the winter from November 8, 1833, to April 18,1834, a period of more than five months. James Kipp, the furcompany's manager of Fort Clark, provided the German noblemanand his artist associate with a whitewashed room in a newly builtwooden building within the fort which served them as living quarters,studio, and workroom. Throughout their stay, Bodmer worked as-siduously drawing and painting the likenesses of Mandan and otherneighboring Indians in his studio, and scenes in the nearby Indianvillages. He worked slowly and methodically, sometimes taking a fullday or longer to complete a single portrait or view. During thisperiod he created some of the most exact, realistic pictures of Ameri-can Indians ever executed. These pictures possess a remarkablesharpness and depth of focus. Not only are the faces of the Indianstruthful likenesses, but the minute details of costume and ornamentare precisely delineated.Although Catlin introduced realistic portraiture to the Mandan,the superior draughtsman, Carl Bodmer, showed them how everydetail of a picture could be rendered with absolute truthfulness.Bodmer was the missionary par excellence of the white man's tradi-tion of realism in art.Nor was Bodmer content merely to exhibit his own work amongthe Indians. He furnished some of them with paper and watercolors,and encouraged them to make pictures for him and for Prince Maxi-milian. In the collections belonging to the estate of Prince Maxi-milian zu Wied are no less than nine original Indian drawings onpaper, collected during Maximilian and Bodmer's trip to the UpperMissouri in 1833-34.THE CHANGING ART STYLE OF FOUR BEARS, MANDAN CHIEFBoth Catlin and Prince Maximilian considered Four Bears themost remarkable man in the Mandan tribe. Although he held therank of second chief, he was his people's most popular leader. Hewas the son of a prominent warrior, Handsome Child. Four Bearshimself, though of slight build and medium stature, claimed to havekilled 5 enemy chiefs and to have taken 14 scalps. Upon his return
6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 134from a coup-counting session in the Mandan village of Ruhptare inJanuary 1834, Four Bears told his white friends "with great satis-faction and self-complacency, that he had enumerated all his exploits,and that no one had been able to surpass him." (Maximilian, 1906,vol. 24, p. 58.)Four Bears also was a leader in Mandan ceremonies. Prince Maxi-milian saw him lead a dance of the Dog Society, and learned thathe had been selected as director of the great tribal religious festival,the Okipa, to be held the following summer (1834).Four Bears' services to the traders and to visiting whites weremany. Mr. Kipp relied upon him to protect the trading post at FortClark from the petty thievery of Mandan women and children. Maxi-milian found him to be his best authority on the language and religionof the Arikara, a tribe the scientist had no opportunity to visit. Heobserved that Four Bears spoke Arikara "fluently" (Maximilian,1906, vol. 24, p. 73).The active, versatile Four Bears was also an artist. This hand-some, stout-hearted, friendly Mandan leader completely captivatedGeorge Catlin as did no other Indian among the more than 40 tribesCatlin visited. Catlin devoted a full chapter of his book to thiswarrior's exploits and frequently referred to him elsewhere. Hepainted two portraits of Four Bears (his Mah-to-toh-pa) , both ofwhich are preserved in the collections of the U. S. National Museum(Nos. 386128 and 386131). One portrait shows Four Bears inmourning, bare to the waist, with scars on his breast, arms, and legsevidencing his past submission to the excruciating self-torture of theOkipa. The other (see pi. 5, fig. 1), painted in a day-long session,presents Four Bears at full length in his finest dress costume. Catlincollected this costume and displayed it for many years in his travel-ing exhibition. The handsomely quilled and painted shirt is pre-served in the U. S. National Museum (No. 386505). This shirtprovides excellent examples of the art style Four Bears employed indepicting his war exploits in 1832 or earlier. On the right side ofthe shirt front he simply recorded his victims by painting their headsand upper bodies (pi. 6). On the back of the shirt he portrayed oneof his coups (pi. 7). Note the very close similarity of this style tothat of the painting on the buffalo robe collected by Lewis and Clarka quarter century earlier. Except for the crude representation of thefeatures (two marks for eyes and one for the mouth), the renderingof the human figure is almost identical. It is definitely in the traditionof aboriginal Mandan picture writing.
NO. 7 WHITE INFLUENCE ON INDIAN PAINTING EWERS 7Shortly before Catlin left the Mandan, Four Bears invited him toa feast in his earth lodge and presented him with a robe bearing arepresentation of his most important coups. The chief had spenttwo weeks painting this robe during Catlin's residence in the village.Unfortunately, the original of this robe is lost, and Catlin's copyof the specimen, reproduced in his book and in one of his paintingsin the American Museum of Natural History (pi. 8), appears to bean untrustworthy interpretation of the Indian artist's style. Catlinadopted conventions of his own for rapidly rendering his copies ofIndian pictographs. They appear to be more Catlin than Indian instyle. Yet there is one detail in these paintings that Catlin surely didnot invent—the hooklike hoofs of the horses, just like the horse hoofsportrayed by the unnamed Mandan artist prior to 1805. (See pi. 3.)Prince Maximilian and Bodmer came to know Four Bears (theirMato-Tope) even better than had Catlin. They first met him at FortClark in June 1833, on their way upriver, and the Prince boughtfrom him "his painted buffalo dress," suggesting that the clever In-dian was adept in dealing with white collectors. On their return toFort Clark in November, Four Bears came to visit them in theirstudio. Prince Maximilian's journal tells of his repeated visits to hisquarters during their long stay at Fort Clark. Sometimes he spentthe night on the floor before their fire. Four Bears exhibited an un-usual interest in Bodmer's art. He brought other Indians to thestudio to be painted and remained to watch the proceedings. He him-self posed for two portraits by the Swiss artist, one of which is re-produced as plate 5, figure 2. (The other, a full-length view in dresscostume, is published as plate 46, in Maximilian's Atlas). He alsoprevailed upon Bodmer to paint for him a white-headed eagle holdinga bloody scalp in his claws. In return Four Bears painted for Maxi-milian a representation of his principal coups on a buffalo robe, anda separate rendering of one of his exploits, the conquest of aCheyenne chief in hand-to-hand combat, apparently executed onpaper. Although I have not been able to locate the originals of theseworks, they undoubtedly are reproduced with fidelity in Maximilian'sAtlas, plates 51 and 55. I include them here as plates 9 and 10.Comparison of the style of painting illustrated by the picture onplate 10 with that of the painting on Four Bears' shirt (pis. 6 and 7),clearly reveals the great change in this Mandan artist's style thattook place during the period 1832-34. Gone were the knoblike heads,the stick figures, the crude proportions, the lack of detail. Headswere now painted in profile, the features sharply defined. Great carewas taken in drawing a realistic human eye. The arms, legs, and
8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 34bodies were well proportioned, and the details of headgear, ornaments,and body costume, and the moccasined feet were delineated withpainstaking care. Even though the colors of the original drawingare not known, some attempt at color modeling is suggested on theface and upper body of the warrior on the right. Can there be anydoubt that this marked change in the painting style of Four Bears inthe direction of a much more realistic treatment of the human figureshould be attributed to the example of the white artists George Catlinand Carl Bodmer, whose artistic methods Four Bears had observedclosely over a total period of several months?INFLUENCE UPON THE ART STYLE OF YELLOW FEATHERNext to Four Bears, the most frequent Mandan Indian visitor toBodmer 's studio at Fort Clark during the winter of 1833-34 was ayoung warrior named Sih-Chida, The Yellow Feather. He was theson of a deceased Mandan head chief. Yellow Feather proudlyshowed Maximilian the Indians' copy of the first treaty betweenhis tribe and the United States, signed by his father and GeneralAtkinson in the year 1825.Bodmer executed a full-length portrait of Yellow Feather in De-cember 1833 (plate 11, fig. 2, man on the left). Almost certainlythis young man also posed for Catlin a year and a half earlier,although Catlin rendered his name "Seehk-hee-da, the Mouse-coloured Feather." (See pi. 11, fig. 1.) Not only are the facialfeatures of the Bodmer and Catlin portraits similar but the sitterwears a pair of long pendants of dentalia and large trade beads whichappear to be identical.Maximilian wrote, "Sih-Chida, a tall, stout young man, the sonof a celebrated chief now dead, was an Indian who might be de-pended on, who became one of our best friends and visited us almostdaily. He was very polished in his manners, and possessed moredelicacy of feeling than most of his countrymen. He never impor-tuned us by asking for anything ; as soon as dinner was served hewithdrew, though he was not rich, and did not even possess a horse.He came almost every evening, when his favorite employment wasdrawing, for which he had some talent, though his figures were nobetter than those drawn by our children." (Maximilian, 1906, vol. 24,pp. 15-16.)Yellow Feather spent several nights in Maximilian's quarters,sleeping on the ground before the fire. On one occasion he recoveredMaximilian's thermometer which he found concealed under the robe
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Detail of paintings on back of Four Bears' shirt, collected by George Catlin in 183-
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of a woman who had stolen it. On April 10, Yellow Feather left tojoin a large Hidatsa and Mandan war party against an enemy tribe.But sometime before his leavetaking, Yellow Feather painted at leasttwo pictures in watercolors on paper for the Prince's collection. Oneof these I here reproduce as plate 12, with the very kind permissionof Karl Viktor Prince zu Wied. The style of painting the humanand animal figures exhibited by this picture, though crude, is a farcry from the simple figures of traditional Mandan picture writing.The rider sits astride his horse rather than on top of it. His faceis shown in profile and considerable emphasis is given to a realisticrepresentation of the human eye. The eye of the horse, both thewhite and the ball, are shown with an equal concern for detail. Theears, nostril, and mouth are delineated. There is some grace in theentire horse figure. The hoofs are realistically formed in contrastto the hooklike conventionalized hoofs of traditional Mandan pic-tography. The figures have some degree of roundness achieved byelementary color modeling which is less apparent in the photographicreproduction than in the full-colored original. Although we haveno earlier example of Yellow Feather's art with which to comparethis painting, I believe the influence of the white artists Catlin andBodmer is reflected in this example of the effort of a young Mandanartist to portray details and to achieve realism in his figure painting.CONCLUSIONSThe foregoing data provide perhaps the best documented casehistory of the influence of the European artistic tradition of realismupon the painting style of primitive American Indian artists of acentury and a quarter ago. The details of this documentation areindeed remarkable. We know the characteristics of traditional Man-dan Indian picture writing as it was practiced prior to and at thetime of these Indians' introduction to the European art tradition. Weknow who the missionaries of the European tradition were (GeorgeCatlin and Carl Bodmer), and when they were active among theMandan (1832-34). W^e know that these white men demonstratedthe objectives and methods of realistic drawing and painting to theMandan, and that they actively encouraged the efforts of nativeartists. We know who two of those artists were (Four Bears andYellow Feather). We know that these Indians posed for both whiteartists a total of six times and that they watched the white men paintnumerous portraits of other Indians. We have examples of the paint-ing of one native artist prior to the visits of Catlin and Bodmer,
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and examples of the work of both artists, executed before Bodmerdeparted from Fort Clark, which clearly reveal the influence ofEuropean realism upon their painting styles.It is not possible or necessary to distinguish the separate influencesof Catlin and Bodmer upon the work of these artists. Probably thecumulative effect of the examples and encouragement of two whiteartists, who visited the Mandan within a period of a little over ayear, was important in impressing upon the native artists' minds thepossibilities of realistic representation of men and horses which foundexpression in their own later work.Significant, too, were the character and position of the two Indianartists who fell under the spell of the white artists' realism. BothFour Bears and Yellow Feather were sons of prominent men in theirtribe. They were not idle dreamers but active warriors, versatile,gregarious fellows. Certainly Four Bears was a decided extrovert,who numbered painting among his many interests and accomplish-ments. He was the antithesis of the American artist James A.McNeill Whistler's conception of the primitive artist as a "man whotook no joy in the ways of his brethren, who cared not for conquest,and fretted in the field—this designer of quaint patterns—this devisorof the beautiful—who perceived in Nature about curious curvings,as faces are seen in the fire—this dreamer apart, was the first artist."(Whistler, 191 6, p. 8.) Rather, the example of Four Bears wouldsuggest that the artist in a primitive hunting culture was more aptto have been an active hunter and warrior, a fierce competitor, awide-awake, keen participant in the affairs of his tribe, who enjoyedpicturing the most exciting, heroic, and memorable of his richexperiences.There remains the problem of the relative permanence of Catlin'sand Bodmer's influence upon Mandan Indian art. This is difficultto answer. Examples of Mandan painting in the late 1830's and the1840's are lacking. Unfortunately, neither Four Bears nor YellowFeather long survived Bodmer's sojourn among the Mandan. Catlinclaimed that "Seehk-hee-da was killed by the Sioux, and scalped, twoyears after I painted his portrait." (Catlin, 1848, p. 19.) The journalof Francois Chardon, who succeeded Kipp in charge of Fort Clark,repeatedly mentioned Four Bears' activity as a warrior during themiddle '30s, but said nothing of his artistic endeavors. In the sum-mer of 1837 a disastrous smallpox epidemic decimated the Mandantribe. Late in July of that year, Four Bears contracted that dreaddisease. He died a few days later. But before his death this courage-ous leader delivered a speech to his people denouncing the whites as
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NO. 7 WHITE INFLUENCE ON INDIAN PAINTING EWERS IIblack-hearted dogs who had repaid his long and faithful friendshipwith a pestilence which was causing him to "die with my face rotten,that even the wolves will shrink with horror at seeing me." Chardonwrote Four Bears' brief obituary in his journal under the dateSunday, July 30, 1837: "One of our best friends of the Village(Four Bears), died today, regretted by all who knew him."(Chardon, 1932, pp. 44-45, 50, 123-125.)BIBLIOGRAPHYArnheim, Rudolf.1954. Art as perception. Berkeley, Calif.Catlin, George.1841. Letters and notes on the manners, customs, and condition of theNorth American Indians. 2 vols. London.1848. A descriptive catalogue of Catlin's Indian collection. London.Chardon, Franqois A.1932. Chardon's journal of Fort Clark, 1834-39. Ed. by Annie Heloise Abel.Pierre, S. Dak.Ewers, John C.1939- Plains Indian painting. Palo Alto, Calif.1956. George Catlin, painter of Indians and the west. Ann. Rep. Smith-sonian Inst, for 1955.La Verendrye, Pierre G. V.1890. Journal of La Verendrye, 1738-39. Rep. Canadian Archives for 1889.Ottawa.Lewis, Meriwether, and Clark, William.1906. Original journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Ed. by ReubenGold Thwaites. 8 vols. New York.Maximilian, Alexander Philip, Prinz zu Wied-Neuwied.1906. Travels in the interior of North America. In Early Western Travels,ed. by Reuben Gold Thwaites, vols. 22-24. Cleveland.Whistler, James A. McNeill.1 916. Ten o'clock. Portland, Maine.