ART OF SETH EASTMAN — McDERMOTT 583 



tune by the painting and exhibiting of a moving travelog 500 or 

 1,000 yards long. John Banvard, showing his so-callod "3-mile" 

 painting of the ]Mississippi River, was having tremendous success in 

 the eastern cities. Two other panoramas of the Mississippi were in 

 the making in 1847, and two more would be underway before East- 

 man was transferred from Fort Snelling in 1848 [8J. "There have 

 been several artists here this season," the captain confided to Lan- 

 man in this same letter, "It has been proposed for me to join with 

 one or two of them in painting a panorama of the Mississippi, from 

 the Falls of St. Anthony to New Orleans — I have not yet decided — 

 I dislike to leave my Indian pictures — ]My long residence among 

 the Indians has given me a knowledge of their habits and character. 

 For this reason these gentlemen wish me to miite with them." 



Eastman probably referred either to John Rowson Smith or Henry 

 Lewis, for both these painters visited Fort Snelling in 1847, and 

 Lewis, in fact, was there at the moment the captain was writing. 

 In the descriptive pamphlet issued for his panorama, Smith, on pre- 

 senting the view of Fort Snelling, told his audience that "Captain 

 Eastman, an eminent artist, whose Indian pictures are considered 

 among the very best, is stationed at this post." Farther on, lie 

 acknowledged indebtedness to Eastman for his scene at Maiden's 

 Leap, below Lake Pepin : "In the foreground is a delegation of In- 

 dians in canoes, meeting at a sand bar, to have a 'talk' about a treaty, 

 taken from a splendid painting by Captain Eastman, for the Arts 

 Union, New York" [9]. (Such a painting was not among those 

 sold presently to the American Art Union; it may, however, have 

 been one of the pictures disposed of late in 1848 to the Western Art 

 Union at Cincinnati.) It has already been noted that Lewis based 

 two scenes in his panorama on Eastman sketches and used them 

 again for two of the lithographs in his "Das Illustrirte ISIississip- 

 pithal." As will be seen, Lewis and Eastman became good friends. 



Fortunately, Eastman escaped the fever and staj^ed with the Indians, 

 keeping steadily at work m the wilderness. When he wrote to Charles 

 Lanman he mentioned two paintings, one just completed ("Indian 

 Burial") and a companion piece that he was about to begin, showing 

 "the scene that occurs immediately after the burial, representing the 

 friends of the deceased tearing oif their clothes and throwing them to 

 the dead body, cutting off their hair, piercing their arms and legs, with 

 their knives, etc. — It is one of the wildest scenes that occurs among the 

 Indians. — " This painting has not been located, but the pencil sketch, 

 "Indians Mourning," was undoubtedly a preliminary drawing of this 

 subject. Of the first painting ("Indian Burial"), the St. Louis Re- 

 publican expressed its hearty approval, both of picture and painter, 

 saying— 



579421—61 43 



