- Email: [email protected]
Fencing with Fritsch
DISSECTING ROOM
Painters and the American West: the Anschutz Collection An exhibition at Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, USA, showing until Jan 13, 2002, and then at the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, in 2003. owboys and Indians on horseback, pursued and pursuing, galloping across vast plains studded with mountains and framed by endless skies: this is the familiar scenario of America’s Old West. The lawless danger, rugged unexplored terrain, and pristine beauty of this 19th-century frontier attracted free-spirited adventurers, disgruntled misfits, dreamy fortuneseekers, and pious missionaries. It was also a powerful lure for little-known artists in search of recognition. They found extraordinary landscapes, exotic native inhabitants, and flat open plains with herds of buffalo and other wildlife. These artist-pioneers were initially drawn to the terrifying strangeness of the so-called primitives who inhabited the area. In the 1830s, George Catlin trekked through Indian territories whose inhabitants had seldom, if ever, seen a white man. His 1832 paintings of Mandan Indian initiation rites—bold, imprecise images of young men wearing buffalo skins and being dragged until bloody around a circle of dancers— emphasise the barbaric nature of this
cowboy riding a bucking horse in A Cold Morning on the Range (1904) and his Return of a Blackfoot War Party (1887) is a dark portrait of dignity in defeat, as weary horsemen, with hostages in tow, cross a mountain top and sight their village below. In The Picture Writer’s Story (1884), a portrait of an Indian storyteller, George de Forest Bush uses poses borrowed from Michelangelo’s
“uncivilised” culture. In Indian Rescue (1846), Asher Durand uses a more classical composition to depict a forest scene dominated by large trees with a small vignette of traumatised white captives at the centre, surrounded by Indians, and lightsplashed hills in the distance. Inspired by these works, later waves of landscape artists endured the rigours of frontier travel to capture the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains and the stark splendour of the Southwest deserts. Albert Bierstadt’s Wind River, Wyoming (1870) portrays sharp mountains descending to a river bed, bathed in bright western sun. The coppery bluffs Charles Schreyvogel, The Silenced War Whoop in Thomas Moran’s The Cliffs of (1908) Green River (1887) rise abruptly Sistine Chapel figures of Adam and the from expansive flat plains and are mirLibyan Sibyl, reproductions of which are rored in a shallow pond. juxtaposed in the exhibition. A poignant As the West was tamed by migrant rendering of the clash of cowboys and settlers and the arrival of the railroads, Indians is seen in The Silenced War artists sought to ennoble the vanishing Whoop (1908) by Charles Schreyvogel. frontier with romanticised visions of the More recent paintings explore Old West. Frederic Remington depicts a America’s ambivalent impressions of the Old West, especially the tensions between the American Indians and their conquerors. George Bellows’ Pueblo, Katharina Fritsch Tesuque, Number One (1917) is a brutal An exhibition at Tate Modern, London, UK, showing until Dec 9, 2001. rendering of poverty-stricken residents of a government-created Indian reservarat the size of a cow sits on a tion. Walter Ufer’s curious Paint and Fritsch is subtly drawing attention to man’s chest while he sleeps. The Indians (1923) is a double image of the the fact that women continue to remain rat, made of plaster is painted artist painting his self-portrait, while a absent from most seats of power despite black, the man with his cot and bedding hostile Indian woman stands next to him almost 100 years of suffrage. are all a powdery white. Katharina and a benign Indian man looks over his Fritsch’s work also reflects the Fritsch’s works are typified by their shoulder. The wild-eyed Indian in difference in teaching practices between immediate impact and stark simplicity, Randall Davey’s Buffalo Dancer (1919) German and British art schools. In the most of the works are monocoloured evokes the mystery of Indian rituals no UK, students are encouraged to generplaster sculptures—a black monk, a longer performed. The only painting ate as many ideas as possible and then to white skeleton, a green elephant. Her by an American Indian, Fritz Scholder’s select a few of them to develop over a work is heavily symbolist and full of An American Portrait (1979), depicts a short period. Younger students produce linguistic references, which are almost traditionally posed Indian in a headscores of less polished works and most impenetrable to the non-German dress, but wraps him in an American flag colleges do not insist that students speaker. I was helped by the presence and besmirches his face with black embark on large-scale or very involved of a bilingual companion who explained blotches, in a raw commentary on the works until their final year, if at all. The some of the references to me. For obliteration of traditional Indian life. opposite is true of German art colleges example, in Man and Mouse (1991–92), This collection is of uneven quality, where precision and skill are highly val“Mausi” is a politically incorrect referbut provides an instructive look at the ued. Students are taught to create large ence to women as overbearingly needy, fascination with, and evolution of, artisscale, immaculately finished works from or crushing in their need for attention, tic interpretations of the American West, the outset. The downside to this affection, and support. This work alone from the earliest encounters with unfaapproach is that it can occasionally lead is enough to provoke a discussion into miliar cultures and terrains to nostalgic artists to produce exquisitely finished Fritsch’s representation of women. But renderings of brave and lusty cowboys, works on the flimsiest of premises— some commentators have argued that a noble savages, and a vanished paradise. unfortunately several such works lurk rather different tone is conveyed in her among these exhibits. Wanda Reif 1988 sculpture Company at Table, which Frederika Whitehead 3736 Kanawha St N W, Washington, shows 32 seated men on either side of a e-mail: [email protected] DC 20015, USA long narrow table. Perhaps in this work
C
The Anschutz Collection
Artists following the wagon trains
Fencing with Fritsch
A
1738
THE LANCET • Vol 358 • November 17, 2001
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet Publishing Group.
Painters and the American West: the Anschutz Collection An exhibition at Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, USA, showing until Jan 13, 2002, and then at the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, in 2003. owboys and Indians on horseback, pursued and pursuing, galloping across vast plains studded with mountains and framed by endless skies: this is the familiar scenario of America’s Old West. The lawless danger, rugged unexplored terrain, and pristine beauty of this 19th-century frontier attracted free-spirited adventurers, disgruntled misfits, dreamy fortuneseekers, and pious missionaries. It was also a powerful lure for little-known artists in search of recognition. They found extraordinary landscapes, exotic native inhabitants, and flat open plains with herds of buffalo and other wildlife. These artist-pioneers were initially drawn to the terrifying strangeness of the so-called primitives who inhabited the area. In the 1830s, George Catlin trekked through Indian territories whose inhabitants had seldom, if ever, seen a white man. His 1832 paintings of Mandan Indian initiation rites—bold, imprecise images of young men wearing buffalo skins and being dragged until bloody around a circle of dancers— emphasise the barbaric nature of this
cowboy riding a bucking horse in A Cold Morning on the Range (1904) and his Return of a Blackfoot War Party (1887) is a dark portrait of dignity in defeat, as weary horsemen, with hostages in tow, cross a mountain top and sight their village below. In The Picture Writer’s Story (1884), a portrait of an Indian storyteller, George de Forest Bush uses poses borrowed from Michelangelo’s
“uncivilised” culture. In Indian Rescue (1846), Asher Durand uses a more classical composition to depict a forest scene dominated by large trees with a small vignette of traumatised white captives at the centre, surrounded by Indians, and lightsplashed hills in the distance. Inspired by these works, later waves of landscape artists endured the rigours of frontier travel to capture the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains and the stark splendour of the Southwest deserts. Albert Bierstadt’s Wind River, Wyoming (1870) portrays sharp mountains descending to a river bed, bathed in bright western sun. The coppery bluffs Charles Schreyvogel, The Silenced War Whoop in Thomas Moran’s The Cliffs of (1908) Green River (1887) rise abruptly Sistine Chapel figures of Adam and the from expansive flat plains and are mirLibyan Sibyl, reproductions of which are rored in a shallow pond. juxtaposed in the exhibition. A poignant As the West was tamed by migrant rendering of the clash of cowboys and settlers and the arrival of the railroads, Indians is seen in The Silenced War artists sought to ennoble the vanishing Whoop (1908) by Charles Schreyvogel. frontier with romanticised visions of the More recent paintings explore Old West. Frederic Remington depicts a America’s ambivalent impressions of the Old West, especially the tensions between the American Indians and their conquerors. George Bellows’ Pueblo, Katharina Fritsch Tesuque, Number One (1917) is a brutal An exhibition at Tate Modern, London, UK, showing until Dec 9, 2001. rendering of poverty-stricken residents of a government-created Indian reservarat the size of a cow sits on a tion. Walter Ufer’s curious Paint and Fritsch is subtly drawing attention to man’s chest while he sleeps. The Indians (1923) is a double image of the the fact that women continue to remain rat, made of plaster is painted artist painting his self-portrait, while a absent from most seats of power despite black, the man with his cot and bedding hostile Indian woman stands next to him almost 100 years of suffrage. are all a powdery white. Katharina and a benign Indian man looks over his Fritsch’s work also reflects the Fritsch’s works are typified by their shoulder. The wild-eyed Indian in difference in teaching practices between immediate impact and stark simplicity, Randall Davey’s Buffalo Dancer (1919) German and British art schools. In the most of the works are monocoloured evokes the mystery of Indian rituals no UK, students are encouraged to generplaster sculptures—a black monk, a longer performed. The only painting ate as many ideas as possible and then to white skeleton, a green elephant. Her by an American Indian, Fritz Scholder’s select a few of them to develop over a work is heavily symbolist and full of An American Portrait (1979), depicts a short period. Younger students produce linguistic references, which are almost traditionally posed Indian in a headscores of less polished works and most impenetrable to the non-German dress, but wraps him in an American flag colleges do not insist that students speaker. I was helped by the presence and besmirches his face with black embark on large-scale or very involved of a bilingual companion who explained blotches, in a raw commentary on the works until their final year, if at all. The some of the references to me. For obliteration of traditional Indian life. opposite is true of German art colleges example, in Man and Mouse (1991–92), This collection is of uneven quality, where precision and skill are highly val“Mausi” is a politically incorrect referbut provides an instructive look at the ued. Students are taught to create large ence to women as overbearingly needy, fascination with, and evolution of, artisscale, immaculately finished works from or crushing in their need for attention, tic interpretations of the American West, the outset. The downside to this affection, and support. This work alone from the earliest encounters with unfaapproach is that it can occasionally lead is enough to provoke a discussion into miliar cultures and terrains to nostalgic artists to produce exquisitely finished Fritsch’s representation of women. But renderings of brave and lusty cowboys, works on the flimsiest of premises— some commentators have argued that a noble savages, and a vanished paradise. unfortunately several such works lurk rather different tone is conveyed in her among these exhibits. Wanda Reif 1988 sculpture Company at Table, which Frederika Whitehead 3736 Kanawha St N W, Washington, shows 32 seated men on either side of a e-mail: [email protected] DC 20015, USA long narrow table. Perhaps in this work
C
The Anschutz Collection
Artists following the wagon trains
Fencing with Fritsch
A
1738
THE LANCET • Vol 358 • November 17, 2001
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet Publishing Group.