146 BALCH— THE ART OF GEORGE CATLIN. 



Col. J. H. Eaton, U. S. A., R. H. Kern, Esq., etc. It is not sur- 

 prising therefore that the engravings are somewhat monotonous in 

 handHng and lack to some extent realistic detail. The drawings 

 doubtless were much tetter than the reproductions, but these never- 

 theless have saved a great deal which has now passed away of the 

 life of the American Indians and Eastman's work will remain a per- 

 manent contribution to American Ethnology. 



But by all odds the most important of all painters of the Amer- 

 ican Indians is George Catlin. Catlin was a man of many activities : 

 a great traveler and something of an explorer, an ethnologist, a 

 geologist, a voluminous writer, but above all a painter. About his 

 travels and his views on geology and ethnology, his own writings 

 offer all necessary data to a student ; of his art, numerous engraved 

 reproductions are accessible. But of his art, from a painter's point 

 of view, and of his rank as an artist, no critical study, to my knowl- 

 edge, has yet been made. And to fill this lacuna by a technical 

 examination of the paintings of this remarkable man is the object 

 of this paper, which although it appears in my name, is really a 

 case of joint authorship. For my wife studied the Catlin pictures 

 in New York and Washington with me and many of the observations 

 and ideas here presented are hers. 



I had the pleasure of meeting Catlin on one occasion many years 

 ago in Europe, I think in 1871. He was then traveling about ex- 

 hibiting his collection of pictures. I went to see these and was 

 lucky enough to find him in the gallery where they were and to 

 have a long talk with him, and I remember him as a most interest- 

 ing and friendly old man, who loomed up to my boyish eyes as a 

 hero. 



Catlin was born in 1796 in the Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania. 

 His boyhood was passed principally in hunting and fishing. When 

 he grew up he studied law, but soon grew tired of this and went to 

 Philadelphia, where he started as a painter, without teacher or ad- 

 viser. After several years, one day a delegation of Indians from 

 the " Far West," arrayed in their native dress, happened to pass 

 through the city, and this event determined the course of Catlin's 

 life. He dreamed of nothing but painting Indians and he carried 

 out his dream. 



