A Winter Hunting Scene
George Catlin traversed the Great Plains in the 1830s capturing Indian peoples and customs with his paintbrush.
Catlin experienced the buffalo hunt firsthand and understood its dangers. He recounted an experience at the mouth of the Yellowstone: "Amidst the trampling throng, Monseigneur Chardon had wounded a stately bull, and at this moment was passing him again with his piece levelled for another shot; they were both at full speed and I also, within reach of the muzzle of my gun, when the bull instantly turned and receiving the horse upon his horns, and the ground received poor Chardon, who made a frog's leap of some twenty feet or more over the bull's back, and almost under my horse's heels."
Dying Buffalo Bull in a Snowdrift is one of the most poignant of Catlin's images of Native American cultures. A wounded buffalo's blood seeps into the frozen ground. An Indian—his pursuer and killer—lies motionless next to him. The brave's headdress and bow are scattered on the ground. The scene is a reminder of the risk and loss inherent in the Native American's way of life.
See this painting and about sixty others in our traveling exhibition Lure of the West: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The show is currently on view at the Museum of Art at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, through May 18, 2002.
Source: Amy Pastan. The Lure of the West: Treasures of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (New York and Washington, D.C.: Watson-Guptill Publications, in cooperation with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2000).
Pictured: George Catlin, 1796–1872, Dying Buffalo Bull in a Snowdrift, 1837–1839, oil, 20 1/8 x 27 3/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.
George Catlin traversed the Great Plains in the 1830s capturing Indian peoples and customs with his paintbrush.
Catlin experienced the buffalo hunt firsthand and understood its dangers. He recounted an experience at the mouth of the Yellowstone: "Amidst the trampling throng, Monseigneur Chardon had wounded a stately bull, and at this moment was passing him again with his piece levelled for another shot; they were both at full speed and I also, within reach of the muzzle of my gun, when the bull instantly turned and receiving the horse upon his horns, and the ground received poor Chardon, who made a frog's leap of some twenty feet or more over the bull's back, and almost under my horse's heels."