GEORGE CATLIN — EWERS 501 



before the advance of white settlement mto those regions. Hundreds 

 of thousands of easterners and western Europeans first saw the West 

 in Catlin's paintings or book illustrations. 



Modern art critics have taken a particular interest in Catlin's 

 landscapes. They have approved their simplicity of form and color. 

 Yet they convey a clear impression of the bigness of the West — the 

 breadth of the plains, the distance to the horizon, the vastness of the 

 sky (see pi. 19, fig. 1). 



Earlier critics who knew the country Catlin portrayed have praised 

 his landscapes in general. Joseph N. Nicollet, government explorer 

 and mapmaker, who ascended the Missouri to Fort Pierre in 1839 

 and who knew the Upper Mississippi well, wrote: "The spirited 

 pencil of Mr. Catlin has faithfully represented the pictorial features 

 of this country in some of the sketches contained in the first volume 

 of his travels" (Nicollet, 1843, p. 39). Dr. Washington Mathews, 

 who traveled up and down the Missouri several times in the 1860's 

 and early '70s, praised Catlin's ability to catch the distinctive char- 

 acteristics of each locality, be it eroded sandstone bluffs in the South 

 Dakota Badlands or the conical hills farther upriver with "marvelous 

 quickness and insight" (Mathews, 1891, p. 599). 



Wlien they began to compare some of Catlin's landscapes with 

 specific topographical features in that locality, critics found that he 

 did take some liberties with what he saw. Audubon, who seemed 

 to enjoy calling attention to Catlin's lapses, wrote at the mouth of 

 Knife Kiver, June 10, 1843: "We saw many very curious cliffs, but 

 not one answering the drawings engraved for Catlin's work" (Audu- 

 bon, 1897, vol. 2, p. 24). Again, while at Fort Union near the mouth 

 of the Yellowstone River, he commented: "Sprague walked to the 

 hills about two miles off, but could not see any portion of the Yellow- 

 stone River, which Mr. Catlin has given in his view, as if he had been 

 in a balloon some thousands of feet over the earth" (idem, p. 96). 

 This is the view reproduced in plate 19, figure 1. 



Recently, Harvey B. Reynolds, Superintendent, Pipestone National 

 Monument, informed me that Catlin's historic panorama of the pipe- 

 stone quarry (pi. 19, fig. 2) exaggerates the height of the quartzite 

 ledge and moves the boulders known as "Three Maidens" far to the 

 left of their actual location to get these picturesque landmarks into 

 his scene. It should be clear, then, that Catlin did exercise his artistic 

 license when painting landscapes. Wliile his landscapes show the 

 general character of the country they are not all precise pictorial 

 documents. 



CATLIN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 



George Catlin was not the first artist to paint western Indians 

 from life. Delegations from some tribes beyond the Mississippi were 



