154 BALCH— THE ART OF GEORGE CATLIN. 



ness, Catlin's painting is truly individual, it is unlike anyone else's, 

 a sure test that he had real underlying art powers. His pictures are 

 not founded on tradition and therefore perhaps have a certain 

 primitive look; indeed Catlin more than any American might be 

 called a primitive. The painters of to-day would not see things 

 as Catlin did; they are too learned. And from the standpoint of 

 modern art some phases of his work would be called bad, and yet it 

 is probably accurate to say it is partly those very naivetes which 

 make it so good. 



Catlin's position among artists is unique. He devoted his life, 

 with almost no pecuniary reward, to delineating the deeds and the 

 artistic beauties of a vanishing race. His pictures are the great 

 record of our displaced predecessors. His incident pictures are 

 painted directly on the spot, either from the Indians posing for him 

 or from memory immediately afterwards. He painted hundreds of 

 such incident pictures from occurrences he actually saw. No one 

 else has done anything of the kind except most sporadically. No 

 one could do it now. For all these scenes have disappeared from 

 the face of the earth. Anyone in the future, artist or layman, who 

 wants to see how our Indians, untouched by white civilization, ac- 

 tually lived and appeared, must turn to Catlin. In the coming cen- 

 turies the Indians more and more will amalgamate and fuse with 

 their conquerors and the more they do, the greater value will scien- 

 tists attach to the wonderful records which Catlin has left of the 

 copper-colored men who once ranged and roamed in wild and un- 

 restrained liberty from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. 



