The boundless woods have been his home, and dwellers of the wilderness the sitters for his art. So far as Indian life is concerned, the reader will find a little of every thing in Catlin’s gallery; not of faces merely, but of grand western life and scene.
THE WORLD.
Catlin’s Indian Gallery.—I visited this collection with expectations very highly excited by the strong and renewed expressions of admiration which it had received from the press in New York and Boston; but my anticipations had fallen below the reality in degree as much as they had differed from it in kind. I had supposed that it was merely an assemblage of the portraits of distinguished Indian chieftains, instead of being, as we find that it is, a very complete and curious tableau of the life and habits of the strange and interesting races which once inhabited the soil we now possess. Mr. Catlin’s advertisement does no justice to the character of his collection. He does not state himself. He is a person of lofty genius and disinterested ambition, and he has abhorred to tarnish the purity of his self-respect by even claiming his own.
Mr. Catlin spent eight years in the most intimate intercourse with the tribes which occupy the territory lying 2000 miles above St. Louis. His only purpose in visiting these remote and secluded nations was to transfer to his canvas faithful representations of those scenes of conduct which were most characteristic of that people, and those personal traits which would best transmit the memory of the savage to times which would no longer witness his existence. This design he fulfilled by copying on the spot pictures of the sports, fights, business, and religious ceremonies which passed before his sight; and the gallery which he now opens to the community, revives before the gaze of refinement, the whole condition and qualities of the wild and far-roaming occupants of the prairies and forests. An attentive examination of his museum has led us to the opinion that this is one of the most striking triumphs that the pencil has ever achieved; for while the brush of Lawrence preserves the likeness of an individual, that of Catlin has perpetuated the portraits of a nation. Let every American visit this exhibition; let every one who would be informed or entertained give it his protracted study. The more it is examined the more it will gratify.
CONSTITUTIONNEL du 22 Juin.
Le musée Catlin est une des collections les plus curieuses qu’on ait vues à Paris, tant à cause du caractère naïf de la peinture, qu’à cause de l’originalité des sujets qu’elle représente.
M. Catlin a donc rapporté de son voyage aux Montagnes Rocheuses quatre à cinq cents toiles, portraits ou paysages, tous peints d’après nature. Parmi ces portraits, il y a des figures d’une beauté, d’une élégance superbes. Il y a des profils, le croirait-on, qui rappellent le type grec ou l’Antinoüs. Bien plus, dans les scènes de danse ou de combat, dans les fêtes ou les assemblées de tribus, on remarque tres souvent des personnages dont la pose, l’attitude, le geste, ressemblent tout-à-fait à l’antique. Cela n’est pas, d’ailleurs, si surprenant pour qui veut réflechir au caractère de la beauté antique. Qu’est-ce donc qui distingue l’art grec entre tous les arts? n’est-ce pas la simplicité et le naturel? Les artistes grecs avaient le bonheur de trouver d’abord autour d’eux toutes les conditions premières de race, de climat, de civilisation, qui favorisent le développement de la beauté; et secondement, ils laissaient faire la nature et ne torturaient jamais le mouvement de leur modèle. Il n’y a dans toute la statuaire grecque que cinq ou six poses peut-être qui sont le type de tous les autres mouvemens. Les hommes rapprochés de la nature ne se tortillent pas comme les civilisés. Le calme est d’ordre naturel; et c’est là un des premiers élémens de la beauté antique qu’on retrouve dans la beauté sauvage.