Went to-day to see this just-finish'd painting by John Mulvany, who
has been out in far Dakota, on the spot, at the forts, and among the
frontiersmen, soldiers and Indians, for the last two years, on purpose
to sketch it in from reality, or the best that could be got of it. Sat
for over an hour before the picture, completely absorb'd in the first
view. A vast canvas, I should say twenty or twenty-two feet by twelve,
all crowded, and yet not crowded, conveying such a vivid play of color,
it takes a little time to get used to it. There are no tricks; there
is no throwing of shades in masses; it is all at first painfully real,
overwhelming, needs good nerves to look at it. Forty or fifty figures,
perhaps more, in full finish and detail in the mid-ground, with three
times that number, or more, through the rest--swarms upon swarms of
savage Sioux, in their war-bonnets, frantic, mostly on ponies, driving
through the background, through the smoke, like a hurricane of demons.
A dozen of the figures are wonderful. Altogether a western, autochthonic
phase of America, the frontiers, culminating, typical, deadly, heroic to
the uttermost--nothing in the books like it, nothing in Homer, nothing
in Shakspere; more grim and sublime than either, all native, all our
own, and all a fact. A great lot of muscular, tan-faced men, brought
to bay under terrible circumstances--death ahold of them, yet every man
undaunted, not one losing his head, wringing out every cent of the pay
before they sell their lives. Custer (his hair cut short stands in
the middle), with dilated eye and extended arm, aiming a huge cavalry
pistol. Captain Cook is there, partially wounded, blood on the
white handkerchief around his head, aiming his carbine coolly, half
kneeling--(his body was afterwards found close by Custer's.) The
slaughter'd or half-slaughter'd horses, for breastworks, make a peculiar
feature. Two dead Indians, herculean, lie in the foreground, clutching
their Winchester rifles, very characteristic. The many soldiers, their
faces and attitudes, the carbines, the broad-brimm'd western hats, the
powder-smoke in puffs, the dying horses with their rolling eyes
almost human in their agony, the clouds of war-bonneted Sioux in the
background, the figures of Custer and Cook--with indeed the whole scene,
dreadful, yet with an attraction and beauty that will remain in my
memory. With all its color and fierce action, a certain Greek continence
pervades it. A sunny sky and clear light envelop all. There is an
almost entire absence of the stock traits of European war pictures. The
physiognomy of the work is realistic and Western. I only saw it for an
hour or so; but it needs to be seen many times--needs to be studied over
and over again. I could look on such a work at brief intervals all
my life without tiring; it is very tonic to me; then it has an ethic
purpose below all, as all great art must have. The artist said the
sending of the picture abroad, probably to London, had been talk'd of.
I advised him if it went abroad to take it to Paris. I think they might
appreciate it there--nay, they certainly would. Then I would like to
show Messieur Crapeau that some things can be done in America as well as
others.