How artists captured the Wild West
...a fascinating lecture which enabled us to appreciate the vast and dramatic landscapes of the American Wild West, its history and its art ... find books which you and your child of whatever age can share, then laugh with them, turn over the flaps with them and go on adventures with them
The Arts Society Newbury: Buffalo and Storms: The American West in 19thcentury art, Zoom talk by Toby Faber, on Tuesday,
March 23
THIS month’s Zoom lecture for The Arts Society Newbury covered the history of settlers who opened up the wild west of America. Accompanying the covered wagons and explorers were artists who drew maps, sketched and painted the vast plains, buffalo hunts and Native Americans.
Explorers Lewis and Clark set out on an epic two-year journey to the Rockies, making their way to the Pacific and trading with the Native Americans.
On their return they sponsored artist George Catlin to paint the colourful Chief Buffalo Bulls in his native regalia complete with head feathers indicating the number of men he had killed.
He also recorded an initiation ceremony of young braves which is not for the faint-hearted!
1803 saw the acquisition of Louisiana from the French, which doubled the size of America.
Artists recorded the clashes between settlers and explorers as reservations granted in perpetuity to the Sioux Indians were encroached by farmers and settlers moving along the ‘Oregon Trail’, heading for the promised land of Oregon.
The involvement of the Army often resulted in brutal conflict.
The railroad opened up the great plains; the artist Alfred Miller sketched as he travelled west before returning to Baltimore to paint 200 paintings of the huge vistas and herds of bison being rounded up and hunted mercilessly.
He depicted Sioux tepees close to the Frontier Fort Laramie which provided protection and trading opportunities for all.
Frederick Church painted idealised landscapes and his colossal sevenfoot wide Niagara Falls, 1857, which toured the country, realistically places the viewer perilously close to the edge.
Another contemporary artist was Albert Bierstadt of the Hudson River School.
He created lavish, sweeping landscapes which were highly-prized, although they were criticised for ‘exaggeration of the vertical’ to create dramatic effect.
His Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak complete with a cascading waterfall depicted sublime virgin territories which were about to be overrun by civilisation.
Toby Faber, whose grandfather founded Faber & Faber, gave us a fascinating lecture which enabled us to appreciate the vast and dramatic landscapes of the American wild west, its history and its art.