Edwin Willard Deming, The Mourning Brave, ca. 1892, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 in. (101.5 x 76.1 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William T. Evans, 1912.9.1
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Artwork Details
- Title
- The Mourning Brave
- Artist
- Date
- ca. 1892
- Location
- Not on view
- Dimensions
- 40 x 30 in. (101.5 x 76.1 cm)
- Credit Line
- Gift of William T. Evans
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- oil on canvas
- Classifications
- Subjects
- Indian
- State of being — death
- State of being — emotion — sorrow
- Landscape — time — night
- Figure group
- Object Number
- 1912.9.1
Artwork Description
Edwin Willard Deming’s paintings romanticized the lives of Native Americans, feeding the myth of a vanishing race of noble savages. In this painting an Indian brave mourns the death of an Indian woman inside a shadowed teepee. With his hands covering his face, he prays over her body, asking the Great Mystery, symbolized by the light that streams from above, to protect her spirit and guide it to the “Happy Western land beyond the Great Waters” (Walsh, ed., Edwin Willard Deming, His Work, 1925).
