Catlin’s Indian Gallery.—The conception and plan of this gallery are in a high degree ingenious and philosophical. While it seems to the careless victor to be only a very animated representation of some of the most striking incidents in Indian life, it is in fact so contrived as to contain an intelligent and profound exposition of all that characterizes the savage in mind, in memory, and in manners; a revelation of the form and qualities of his understanding, of the shape and temper of his passions, of his religious impressions and the traditions which have given them their hue, and of the mingled ferocity and fun, barbarity and bonhomie, which streak his character. These are the matters that are brought out by a study of these pictures; and they show, on the part of the originator of this museum, a comprehension and reach of understanding which of themselves merit the name of genius. The execution is as happy as the purpose is judicious. No artist in this country possesses a readier or more graphic pencil; perhaps no one, since Hogarth, has had in so high a degree the faculty of seizing at a moment the true impression of a scene before his eyes, and transferring it to the canvas. And as a refined and finished portrait-painter, his large picture of Osceola alone sets him on a level with the most accomplished professors in any part of the States, and shows what eminence and what emolument might have been achieved by him had he devoted himself to that narrower branch of his art. The great and unshared merit of these sketches lies in the circumstance that there is nothing either in the grouping or the detail in anywise imaginary, but that every scene which his collection contains was copied by him from life, while the original was before him. Of the tribes thus represented, some have already, in the interval since these drawings, been entirely swept away from the earth, and it is plain that others, who escape that fate, will, as they are more nearly approached by the whites, lose much that is distinctive in their character and habits, and in a few, probably a very few years, the only memorial of the bravery, the sufferings, the toils, sports, customs, dresses, and decorations of the Indians, will be Catlin’s Gallery.
We feel great pride in stating that Mr. Catlin is a native of Pennsylvania. His birthplace, we are informed, is the valley of the Wyoming. There, probably, he acquired that fondness for the free wild life of the huntsman and forester that has led him so far from the tame continuance of cities, and has made the privations of that remote existence tolerable. There, too, he must have imbibed in early youth that love of the chace, and that sympathy with its noble excitements, which has made him out of sight the best exhibitor of the sports of the West that ever yet employed pen or pencil in illustration of the magnificent diversions that gave a dash of sublimity to the occupation of those dwellers by the sources of the Father of Waters. We, too, have seen something of that stirring Western life, and have had a taste of its delights and dangers, though we pretend not to a tithe of the lore here brought out. We know, perhaps, enough to judge of what is well done in this department, and we can testify strongly to the prodigious superiority of Mr. Catlin in the conception of the hunting-scenes, in the appreciation and selection of its strongest points and most interesting moments, and in the vigour and power with which the whole is presented, over Mr. Irving. Mr. Irving’s style is, at all times, nicer and more fastidious than suits our taste; certainly it is too dainty to be capable of expressing the roughness and energy of those exhibitions. It may be that we ought not to have Indian life at all, but if we are to have it, let us have something of the heartiness and strength which make it what it is, and let there be some harmony between the subject and the manner. In Irving’s dialect there are no terms for the utterance of what is most peculiar on those occasions; the harp-like gentleness of his tones and regularity of his pauses cannot present the hurry, helter-skelter dash and drive of those impetuous onsets and those breathless contests. His descriptions of the buffalo-hunt remind us of Finden’s engraving of a ragged peasant, wherein the ravelled coat seems fringed with lace, and the cap seems tasselled with flakes of the ermine. Catlin brings forward the scene in all the rudeness and the raciness of reality.
Upon the whole, Mr. Catlin has accomplished a work which will for ever associate his name in the highest rank of honour, with a subject that will interest the civilized world every year more and more through all coming time. We have learned with great regret that he will certainly take his museum to England in the course of a few weeks. We know too well how it will be valued there, to imagine that it will ever be permitted to come back.
THE PHILADELPHIA GAZETTE.
Catlin’s Indian Gallery.—We cannot notice this collection too often. It is one of those productions which illustrate, in an eminent degree, the observation of Playfair, that when the proper time has arrived for some great work to be performed, some individual is raised up by Providence whose position and character and capacity precisely fit him for accomplishing the design. For reasons that will be appreciated by the philosopher, the philanthropist, and the theologian, as well as considerations that address themselves to the curiosity of the man of general knowledge, it was particularly desirable that a full and authentic record should be given to the world of the national characteristics of a race whose history is so peculiar, whose condition is so curious, and whose speedy extinguishment is so certain, as those of the North American Indians. Accordingly, when it is plain that the moment has arrived beyond which the portraiture of their state cannot any longer be delayed, if it would be known that they are in that native predicament which has been in nowise modified by European intercourse, a man appears whose birth in a spot of which the traditions are so strongly interfused with the memory of the Indian (the Wyoming Valley), has caused his imagination to be deeply impressed, even from his earliest youth, by the character and actions of this people; who is endowed by nature with the hand and eye of a painter, and who passes through a professional education which advances his talent to the skill of an accomplished artist, and who has inherited a fortitude of spirit, an elevation of purpose, and a vigour of limb, which render him competent to encounter the dangers, the discouragements, and the difficulties which of necessity lie along the path to the object in question. The man is willing to devote the best years of his life to the task of working out a great picture of those tribes of savages which are separated by 2000 miles from the farthest settlement of his nation.
One of the most remarkable tribes which has yet been found on this continent was that of the Mandans. They were more advanced in the knowledge of domestic comforts, and were distinguished for more intelligence and a higher sense of honour than any of their brethren. They possessed certain very extraordinary and interesting annual religious celebrations, which were in part a commemoration of the Deluge, and contained, amongst other things, an allusion to the twig which the dove brought back from Noah to the earth. Mr. Catlin was the first white man who was ever admitted to inspect these ceremonies in the sacred hall in which they were performed for four days. He made several large and very copious paintings of the scenes which were presented to him; and he sketched almost all that was striking in the character of this tribe. The next year the whole of this nation was swept away by the smallpox; not an individual man, woman, or child survives; and the world possesses no other knowledge of this people or their traditions than is contained in these pictures in the gallery of Catlin. Fortunately they present us with as full and satisfactory a representation as could be desired.
We believe that all who have visited this collection have formed but one opinion as to its interest and excellence. We would remind our readers that this gallery will remain open for their inspection but a short time longer before its final removal to England.
Mr. Catlin’s Gallery of Indian Paintings.—We congratulate our citizens on the opportunity they have now presented to them of witnessing the results of Mr. Catlin’s labours and travels among the tribes of Aborigines inhabiting the Rocky Mountains and the prairies of “the far West.” Mr. Catlin spent many years among these tribes, at the imminent risk of his life, and at an incalculable cost of comfort, solely with the view of taking likenesses and sketches from life and nature, and of representing these “children of the forest” in their own peculiar costumes, and as he found them in their own native wilds.