GEORGE CATLIN — EWERS 503 



stadt, Seth Eastman, Paul Kane, Baldwin Mollhausen, Jolin Mix Stan- 

 ley, and Charles Wimar. Catlin's pioneer work bore the brunt of the 

 criticism of later artists. It set the standard they hoped to better. 

 His, too, was the model for many eastern artists content to profit from 

 the popular interest in the West without bothering to learn about it 

 firsthand. All or very nearly all these later artists were familiar with 

 Catlin's work, either in the original oils or in the little linecuts of his 

 1841 book. Audubon probably was not the only artist to carry a well- 

 worn copy of Catlin's "Letters and Notes" into the field. 



Catlin's paintings most frequently are compared with the works of 

 Carl Bodmer, a 23-year-old Swiss artist who accompanied the noted 

 German scientist, Maximilian, Prince zu Wied, to the upper Missouri 

 in 1833-34. This comparison is an obvious one because Catlin and 

 Bodmer saw much of the same country and met the same Indian tribes 

 within a period of one year. 



In this comparison Catlin's impressionistic field sketches commonly 

 suffer at the hands of Bodmer's painstaking studies. Yet, as an ad- 

 mirer of the accomplishments of both artists, I should like to point 

 out their very different backgrounds and the fact that even though 

 they worked in the same region they did so under quite different condi- 

 tions. George Catlin was self-taught. He developed a definite style, 

 but it lacked the polish academic training might have given it. Catlin 

 traveled on his own as a free-lance artist-writer. He had only 86 days 

 on the Upper Missouri. Time was precious. He had to work very fast 

 or miss a great deal. 



Carl Bodmer, on the other hand, was academically trained in the 

 best European tradition of fine draughtsmanship. His sole responsi- 

 bility on the Upper Missouri was that of preparing field studies to il- 

 lustrate the scientific writings of his employer. Prince Maximilian. 

 They had to be exact to the finest detail. Indian costumes, ornaments, 

 and accessories had to be so rendered as to suggest the qualities of ma- 

 terials from which they were made as well as their colors, sizes, and 

 shapes. The Prince and Bodmer spent 11 months on the Missouri 

 above Fort Pierre (May 30, 1833, to April 29, 1834) . Bodmer worked 

 slowly and methodically. His artistic production of 11 months (judg- 

 ing from the number of his known Upper Missouri field drawings in 

 pencil and watercolor preserved in the collections of the estate of 

 Prince Maximilian) little outnumbered Catlin's output of approxi- 

 mately 12 weeks. Maximilian's journal tells of the infinite care taken 

 by himself and Bodmer in selecting subjects and the time devoted 

 by Bodmer to some of his drawings. Bodmer worked several days on 

 a watercolor of an elaborately costumed dancer. Several more days 

 were given to sketching the interior of a Mandan earth lodge, and 

 another series of days to recording a view of the Rocky Mountains from 



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