Io SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 134 
and examples of the work of both artists, executed before Bodmer 
departed from Fort Clark, which clearly reveal the influence of 
European realism upon their painting styles. 
It is not possible or necessary to distinguish the separate influences 
of Catlin and Bodmer upon the work of these artists. Probably the 
cumulative effect of the examples and encouragement of two white 
artists, who visited the Mandan within a period of a little over a 
year, was important in impressing upon the native artists’ minds the 
possibilities of realistic representation of men and horses which found 
expression in their own later work. 
Significant, too, were the character and position of the two Indian 
artists who fell under the spell of the white artists’ realism. Both 
Four Bears and Yellow Feather were sons of prominent men in their 
tribe. They were not idle dreamers but active warriors, versatile, 
gregarious fellows. Certainly Four Bears was a decided extrovert, 
who numbered painting among his many interests and accomplish- 
ments. He was the antithesis of the American artist James A. 
McNeill Whistler’s conception of the primitive artist as a “man who 
took no joy in the ways of his brethren, who cared not for conquest, 
and fretted in the field—this designer of quaint patterns—this devisor 
of the beautiful—who perceived in Nature about curious curvings, 
as faces are seen in the fire—this dreamer apart, was the first artist.” 
(Whistler, 1916, p. 8.) Rather, the example of Four Bears would 
suggest that the artist in a primitive hunting culture was more apt 
to have been an active hunter and warrior, a fierce competitor, a 
wide-awake, keen participant in the affairs of his tribe, who enjoyed 
picturing the most exciting, heroic, and memorable of his rich 
experiences. 
There remains the problem of the relative permanence of Catlin’s 
and Bodmer’s influence upon Mandan Indian art. This is difficult 
to answer. Examples of Mandan painting in the late 1830’s and the 
1840’s are lacking. Unfortunately, neither Four Bears nor Yellow 
Feather long survived Bodmer’s sojourn among the Mandan. Catlin 
claimed that ““Seehk-hee-da was killed by the Sioux, and scalped, two 
years after I painted his portrait.” (Catlin, 1848, p. 19.) The journal 
of Francois Chardon, who succeeded Kipp in charge of Fort Clark, 
repeatedly mentioned Four Bears’ activity as a warrior during the 
middle ’30s, but said nothing of his artistic endeavors. In the sum- 
mer of 1837 a disastrous smallpox epidemic decimated the Mandan 
tribe. Late in July of that year, Four Bears contracted that dread 
disease. He died a few days later. But before his death this courage- 
ous leader delivered a speech to his people denouncing the whites as 
