Native American History

Charlie Russell: Stories That We See

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Whose Meat? (1914), on display at the CM Russell Museum

 

Charlie Russell’s culturally perceptive and action-oriented paintings reflect the social sensitivity that he possessed as well as his visual awareness of the natural world around him. Russell was a much-appreciated story teller, a natural gift that I believe is reflected in his art work. In Charlie Russell’s paintings, we see stories, and many of them represent the climax-point of stories we want to hear.

Shadows Hint Death (1915)

This raises a significant question regarding the works I am featuring in this post: What distinguishes these Russell paintings from examples like those of James Tissot’s biblical scenes, or Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms images? Regarding the paintings of both of the latter two artists, the word illustration may be used without diminishing our regard for their beauty or accomplishment. Yet, and without rendering a judgment about Tissot and Rockwell’s work, there may be a discernible difference between what are technically referred to as illustrations, and paintings that are more properly termed “fine art.”

Tom Gilleon’s recent exhibition of paintings at the CM Russell Museum included a personal reflection by the artist regarding his transition from being an illustrator for Walt Disney and NASA, to pursuing painting as a fine art. In that reflection, he refers to an illustrator’s skill in distilling imagery into its simplest forms, for example, by focusing on the power of simple lines and basic shapes. He suggests that, in his transition to fine painting, he pursued those basic shapes and forms as ends in themselves, being aware of how his paintings connect viewers directly to our primal human understanding of such forms. In a statement titled, “Profound Truths in Simple Forms,” he says that “by eliminating all unnecessary elements and being as direct as possible, an artist has the opportunity to guide viewers’ eyes, to tell them stories, to move their emotions.” The Russell paintings I feature here do just that.

Meat’s Not Meat Til Its in the Pan (1915), on display at the CM Russell Museum

Yet, the question remains. What distinguishes fine art paintings from those we call illustrations? If the latter are of a publishable kind, surely they share some of the properties we associate with fine art, and reflect a comparable degree of skill by the artist and a dedication to quality in the results. Building on Gilleon’s reflection noted above, we might say that illustrations are produced to accompany the telling of a story, whereas many examples of fine art paintings do the telling of the story. They do this by capturing more than a particular moment, while being suggestive of the broader context of what has come before, and what might come next. Another way to make the point is this: artworks intended as illustrations generally provide an image of a moment, or a dimension of a story that is communicated by other means, such as narrative.

Yet, in examples of fine art, a painting is meant to communicate on its own, apart from any accompanying text, and sometimes even without a title. In such work, factors such as atmospheric conditions of weather and lighting, or the emotional disposition of any characters portrayed, as well as interaction between them, often play a major role. And the presence and function of these latter elements can significantly determine the effectiveness of a particular work.

Paying the Fiddler (1916), on display at the CM Russell Museum (depicting a cattle rustler caught in the act)

In these works of representational art, we begin to inhabit the scene and story, while finding out more about them as we consider the imagery. Russell’s attention to background, the broader context, and surrounding figures, contribute significantly to the overall effect of his work. His very well-known early painting, Waiting for the Chinook (The Last of 5000), provides a reference point for this distinction. As a relatively simple image, its power lies in how it rises above the simple portrayal of a fact, in how it suggests multiple answers to a larger question.

Waiting for the Chinook (The Last of 5000)

This may help us observe how each of the paintings featured here not only tells a story, but invites the viewer into those stories to imagine what has led up to the moment being portrayed, as well as concerning what might yet happen in the given situation.

Wild Horse Hunters (1913)

Except for the early Chinook painting (seen above), all of the images included here date after the turn of the 20th century, when the “Old West” had in large part already transitioned from the lore and imagery of the “cowboys and indians” days, an ethos Wild Bill Cody had successfully captured in his eponymous Wild West Show, and was a world soon eclipsed by the emerging film industry.

In Without Knocking (1909)

 

Additional note: Readers may also be interested in the prior post, “Charlie Russell’s Vision of the ‘Old West’.” Once again, I commend a visit to the CM Russell Museum, in Great Falls, MT, to see original Russell paintings and sculptures as well as the artist’s studio and residence, carefully preserved adjacent to the museum. Interior photos of Russell’s studio and home are seen the photo below.

Charlie Russell’s Vision of the “Old West”

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Charles M Russell, The Fireboat (1918)

 

One of the most prolific and skillful painters and sculptors who sought to portray the myth and reality of the “Old West,” having witnessed its waning days, was the cowboy-turned-artist, Charlie Russell. He discovered his real vocation after moving to Montana in 1880 to try ranching at the age of 16. Fans of Russell like to repeat the story of how the would-be-artist communicated to absent land owners about the condition of the few surviving cattle after a brutal winter decimated their herd. Instead of a written report, Russell sent a painting of a single bony steer surrounded by prowling coyotes. Titled, Waiting for a Chinook (The Last of the 5,000), the illustration has become one of Russell’s best known images.

From his earliest days, Russell had the gift of being able to capture with drawing and paint the lives of what he would have called ‘Cowboys and Indians’ in ways that others found compelling. By the time of his death, at the age of 61 in 1926, Charlie Russell was one of the most famous artists in America. Despite his abiding interest in the romance of the Old West and its cowboy ethos, Russell was quite knowledgeable about Native American cultural patterns and spent a significant amount of time with the Blackfeet and other regional tribal peoples, making many enduring friendships in the process.

Ever since visiting the C.M. “Charlie” Russell Museum while in middle school, I have wanted to return to Great Falls, Montana, in order to see the splendid collection of his paintings and memorabilia for which that facility provides careful and intelligent stewardship. Recently, I was able to attend the annual CM Russell Museum weekend fundraising gala event that includes an auction of a wide array of Western art, including pieces by the museum’s namesake.

The Charlie and Nancy Russell home

 

Charlie Russell’s Studio, on the same property as the home

 

The Russell Museum is located adjacent to the artist’s restored home and log cabin studio, on a quiet street in a residential neighborhood in Great Falls, a relatively small city located on the banks of the upper Missouri River. Little did we know that this event, coinciding with the annual Western Art Week expo, attracts many buyers and patrons, eager to add to their collections. We marveled at the auction of a 1924 watercolor by Russell, Women of America, sold for the astonishing price of $1.6 million! Another watercolor by Russell, the 1904 Mandan Buffalo Hunt, attained an auction price of $750,000. Both of these recently sold works (reproduced here from the catalogue) provide a sense of Russell’s culturally perceptive, action-oriented paintings.

Women in America (1924)

 

The Mandan Buffalo Hunt (1903)

 

Of particular interest was a presentation offered by the Crow Nation linguist, Dr. Lanny Real Bird, who helped non-Native American listeners undertand the significance of sign language among Plains tribal peoples, and how it was a skill with which Charlie Russell had become proficient. This under-appreciated aspect of Russell’s skillset can be discerned in a painting by the artist that has become one of my favorites, The Fireboat (seen at the top of this post).

Dr. Lanny Real Bird

 

Russell’s painting, The Fireboat, was completed in the latter part of his career, and appears to depict a scene along the upper Missouri River near the artist’s home territory. A steamboat (visible in the far lefthand edge of the painting) has attracted the attention of three members of the Blackfeet Nation, who are joined by a fourth in the background. A setting western sun illumines the figures of the mounted Blackfeet warriors, which – along with the steamboat – subliminally suggests the cultural shift occurring on the Western Plains in the last decades of the 19th century, with the gradual eclipse of one nation by another. The middle figure, whose image helps form a visual triangle within the composition, employs a hand signal, presumably after having viewed the riverboat making its way along the river. Not obvious to the uninformed viewer, but aided by a knowledgeable interpreter of Native American signs such as Dr. Lanny Real Bird, we learn that the hand signal in The Fireboat is the one for fire, making Russell’s title for the painting intelligible.

Charlie Russell’s Western paintings may not display the refinement of technique that we might associate with the work of Frederick Remington, but possess a compelling dynamic realism in their nuanced portrayal of real people, accurately observed in their daily lives. It is worth noting that many of Russell’s finest compositions were completed at his and Nancy’s summer cabin at the edge of Glacier National Park. A visit to Great Falls to see the Russell Museum as well as the excellent Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, just an hour or so from Helena (the state capitol), can enhance a visit to Montana – even in winter – with a significant experience of the artistic and historical spirit of the “Old West.”

 

 

The Western Art of Tom Gilleon

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With the Western art of Tom Gilleon, we find another example of a skilled painter trained in the practice of traditional representational painting, whose work has morphed over the years to incorporate some features of Modern Art that are commonly associated with post-World War II American painting and printmaking. Viewers familiar with Gilleon’s paintings will notice his repetitive motif of portraying tipis on the prairie, rendered in multiple ways with varying color combinations. Yet, and in a way reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s numerous print series, the compositional elements of many of Gilleon’s paintings are often the same.

One potential criticism of so-called Modern Art, heard less frequently now, is that many viewers find examples of the genre to be simplistic, perhaps lacking in creativity, and potentially the product of less talented artists. I have addressed that observation before, especially with reference to the work of Jackson Pollock as well as James M. Whistler. In my view, elements of image composition, color choice, and the placement of the colors selected within a given work of art, as well as how color is applied, represent choices made by painters the sophistication of which is easy to overlook. In the case of Tom Gilleon, the artist’s bone fides as a skilled painter can easily be established. Note the following examples of his more traditional representational work.

The image shown immediately above, based on the mesa visible from Gilleon’s studio, provides a reference point for observing the range of his interests as a painter. The same view, featuring much less detail, can be seen in his image below.

While fully capable of portraying a Native American tipi encampment with sensitivity to its geographical and historical contexts, Gilleon over time has come to focus his work less strictly on the representation of scenes he has observed, and has moved toward an exploration of particular elements within those scenes. This has allowed him to focus more directly upon picture composition and the exploration of color. This broadening of his work as an artist can be seen in a number of images shown below. First, we observe two images that are more clearly dependent on physical observation of – or extrapolation from – specific contexts on particular occasions.

In the above two paintings, we can appreciate the artist’s skillful attention to such details as the nature of the weather, varying daylight conditions and the way they are reflected on the surface of water, and how he portrays features of the physical terrain such as a mountainside in evening light, or a mountain range obscured by a rain shower. But then, we can go on to enjoy the artist’s greater attention to the tipis themselves, and to how a common compositional element that is repeated with little variation over the course of a number of images, can give rise to a marvelous series of explorations of differing light conditions. These explorations include renderings of the effects of light both within and around the tipis that he portrays, as well as its effect upon the surfaces of those structures and the terrain in which they sit.

The latter image, so much like the ones shown above it with regard to image composition, as well as attention to color and light, is of interest because of the very subtle shift evident in the directional location of the tipi’s entrance, and the lone bare pole in the far righthand side of the painting. In this same image, the artist has felt free to move away from reproducing a historically accurate representation of various ways that particular Native American communities would apply decoration to the tipi’s surface, so as to be in a better position to attend to the abstract components of color and light in themselves.

At the outset, I alluded to Gilleon’s incorporation of aspects of painting commonly associated with the work of Abstract Expressionists as well as those whose work became associated with the label, Pop Art. The following images provide good examples of Gilleon’s willingness and ability to work beyond the parameters of more traditional landscape and portrait painting.

The artist (below) in his studio, with his view of the flat-topped mesa in the distance

The artist’s studio on his Montana ranch, with a tipi in the foreground

A Beautiful Place Where I Went to School
A view from the campus farm across the Connecticut River valley

 

In the fall of 1971, I was truly fortunate to be able to head off to Northfield Mt. Hermon School for my sophomore year of high school. After growing up mostly in Japan, and returning to the States for a couple of years, I was ready for a new challenge. I was yearning for an educational opportunity that would build upon my earlier experience at the Yokohama International School. When I arrived at Northfield Mt. Hermon (NMH) as a scholarship student, this inviting place opened the world for me, and changed my life.

Rooflines of a dorm, faculty house, and the student center in early evening light

Recently, I attended the 50th reunion of my NMH high school graduation class, which numbered about 365 in May of 1974. After graduating from this wonderful place for learning and formation, many of us at our reunion had not seen one another in fifty years! Anticipating being with school friends after such a length of time was a bit unsettling for me, given my awareness that – like others, as I came to see – I was not the same person I was when we last saw each other. I soon felt more at ease when greeted graciously by fellow members of my class and by our school hosts.

Two of the remodeled “Cottages” that serve as dorms

A theme periodically voiced during our weekend together was how troubling were the years in which we were students at NMH. The Vietnam War was still a concern; our President was in political if not legal trouble; the society around us was deeply divided and appeared to be coming apart; and large numbers of our fellow citizens seemed either unaware of or uncaring about the precarious state of the air, water, and food supply in the world around us. [In some ways, the world has not changed!]

Being the largest class in NMH’s history, at such a time, provided another challenge. Could we – from our multiple and differing backgrounds – find or make a community built of more than passing relationships upon arriving at a place that was – for some of us – far from home? To my astonishment, my first roommate was a former Yokohama classmate with whom I had last attended 7th grade, halfway around the world. And yet, I also remember my surprise at how I felt when observing the sudden absence of everyone from campus on graduation afternoon, many of whom I would not see again until our recent weekend together.

A wonderfully large green space at the center of campus

Here are a few things that distinguished my (and our) experience at NMH during those years, which are strong features of our school. The legacy of our founder, the 19th century evangelist, D.L. Moody, continues to be manifest in a strong emphasis upon spiritual and ethical values that have the power to transform both individuals and the world in which we live. Moody’s own commitment, to address not only the spiritual needs but also the social and educational needs of marginalized youth, remains central to our school’s mission. For we as alumni are rightly proud that among the first NMH students after our 1879 founding were 16 Indigenous Americans and a freed African-American from a formerly enslaved family.

The new science building

These themes are evident in our school’s mission statement, in words regarding an education that seeks to form the head, the heart, and the hands, of all those who share life together in the beautiful surroundings of the Connecticut River Valley. Fundamental to this commitment is the requirement for every student to have a work job, 3 – 5 hours per week, participating in dish crew, cleaning dorms or classrooms, or working on the school farm. These work jobs save the school a considerable amount of money that is directed toward the substantial scholarship funds that enable many students from a modest financial background to be at NMH.

Again and again during our reunion weekend I found myself saying to Martha, “I was so lucky to go here!”

Our Head of School, Brian Hargrove, speaking to us at the Alumni Convocation, in the chapel also featured in the recent film, The Holdovers

A welcome sign in the nearby historic town of Northfield, Massachusetts

 

Note: NMH provided a fitting setting for the movie, The Holdovers, and for many of its memorable scenes. The film was set in the time period when my fellow classmates and I were in attendance at NMH. One fellow alumnus at the Reunion was celebrating the 75th anniversary of his graduation!

A Desecrated Beauty

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An encounter with beauty may provide a gateway to what is holy. For beauty often embodies and expresses something sacred. When this is so, a violation or desecration of beauty can strike us as having the character of evil.

When apparent destruction befell Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, or earlier upon the Golden Spruce tree in the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, people learning about these events were shocked and in mourning. In the case of Notre Dame, a devastating fire accidentally accompanied repair work on the building. But with the Golden Spruce, a  willful human act destroyed a spiritually significant tree.

The several hundred year old Golden Spruce became widely known based on news reports of its loss, and through a subsequent book by John Vaillant. An extremely rare genetic mutation occurred in one of a very large species of trees common to the Pacific Northwest, the Sitka spruce. Vaillant tells the story of this beautiful tree, which was known as Kiidk’yaas to the First Nation Haida people. The Golden Spruce was revered through a mythical spiritual story retold over countless generations in Haida oral tradition.

The author draws us in to the significance of this particular tree for the Haida and for many others, including the person who figures principally in his narrative, Grant Hadwin. He was a forester and logger who developed a reputation for having extraordinary skills as a woodsman who possessed seemingly superhuman physical strength and endurance. Paradoxically for someone whose livelihood depended upon employment by forest product companies, Hadwin over time developed an increasing antipathy toward the detrimental effects of commercial logging and the forest clear-cutting with which he and the industry were associated. Over time he became known as a radical environmental activist, whose views may have been inspired by some remarkable spiritual experiences.

Vaillant lays the groundwork for his story about the Golden Spruce by offering a compelling introduction to the ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest coast and its islands. The reader comes to appreciate the unique habitat within which early European explorers and traders found the huge trees of the old growth forests. These trees include Douglass Fir, Western Red Cedar, and the Sitka Spruce, which in diminishing numbers are still seen today. The reader also learns about the history and culture of the Haida, and the detrimental impact caused first by Sea Otter pelt traders, and then by foresters, upon what became British Columbia, its islands, lands and first peoples. Given this background, one might expect that Grant Hadwin would somehow be the hero of the story, given his abilities, integrity, and emerging commitments.

The central irony of the narrative centers on Hadwin’s concern about the rapacious devastation of the old growth forests by commercial interests and their professional employees, who generally approach the land’s natural endowments as resources to be exploited, quickly and extensively. Yet, Hadwin himself targeted the Golden Spruce, seeing it as a corporate ‘pet,’ falsely preserved by a company in a park-like artificial island of nature, surrounded by lands violated by those who had no care for them. In the process, Hadwin – through an apparent combination of correctable ignorance and oversight – seemed surprised and defensive when he learned about the Golden Spruce’s significance for the Haida, on whose lands it had long stood.

In this book, the author accomplishes several things that taken together may seem incongruous. We gain a regard for the immense scale of the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, the towering size of their tall trees, and the hundreds or even thousand years over which some of them have grown undisturbed. We become aware of the astonishing danger and rate of mortality associated with tree felling, while coming to admire something of loggers’ courage and tenacity. And our righteous anger is stirred by the corporate appropriation of natural resources for commercial benefit at the expense of the cultural and spiritual significance of forests. For forests number among special places that have long reminded people of our higher values, and are a context where we can rediscover deeper purpose and meaning for our lives.

Vaillant  leaves us with another unresolved sense of paradox. It is prompted by the knowledge we gain of how the Haida, long feared as brutal victimizers and enslavers of other First Nation peoples, themselves became victims of hostile social, economic and geographical forces. Against this backdrop, we learn how a well-liked man, who was regarded as having extraordinary skills and integrity, and who might once have been defended by the Haida, perpetrated a bewildering act of environmental desecration and came to be seen by them as an enemy of their spiritual history and culture.

Kiidk’yaas, the Golden Spruce may be gone. The transcending beauty it had, and which it still represents, will last.

A sapling from Kiidk’yaas

The Challenge of Black Elk’s Visions

Black Elk on Harney Peak late in life

I first learned about Black Elk when asked to read the book, Black Elk Speaks, in a high school religion class. The book is the now well-known account of Black Elk’s spiritual experience as a Lakota youth, when at the age of nine he encountered life-changing visions while dangerously ill. It was written by John G. Neihardt, and it has been influential for many, but not without critical commentary regarding its historical accuracy. In my high school religion class we were asked to write an essay comparing Black Elk’s visions with those of the biblical prophet Ezekiel. To compare the two, given their significantly different temporal and cultural backgrounds, was and is a serious but also a notable challenge, and one still worth considering.

Here is the paradox that lies at the center of the question about Nicholas Black Elk (Nicholas being his baptismal name) and his identity, and one of the most beautiful persons about whom I have come to know through a book. He was present at and had vivid memories of both the battle of Little Bighorn as well as of what is rightly termed the massacre at Wounded Knee. In adult life, he was recognized and affirmed as what Anglo’s call a ‘medicine man’ among his own people. Yet, he was also received into the Roman Catholic Church and served in a distinguished way as a Catechist for that faith.

Here is a further paradox. Years ago, I met a former Episcopal Bishop of South Dakota, also a Lakota community member, who told me this. There were many baptized Episcopalians at the battle of Little Bighorn. And most of them were on the Native American side! To appreciate this comment may take some study, and perhaps deserves some reserve regarding the possibility of hyperbole. Yet, with due consideration of the history of Episcopal Church missions in Lakota territory, his view may well have some merit.

But, as the photo at the top suggests, near the end of his life, Black Elk still practiced the religion in which he had been nurtured as a child and youth. To me, this is part of the mysterious beauty of Black Elk. Perhaps it may also illustrate a documented propensity of some Native Americans to preserve an intense privacy about their culture while also realistically engaging with emerging external circumstances in a sincere way. Black Elk’s willingness to retain the spiritual world view of his childhood while accepting the Christian world view of his adult faith, in a both-and way, has not been without criticism. Yet, and maybe because I grew up in Japan, his example of ‘cultural engagement’ positively affects me.

Nicholas Black Elk serving as a catechist of the Roman Catholic Church

For Anglo and other non-Native Americans who wish to become more knowledgeable about the history of many of the peoples who populated this land before our arrival, Black Elk’s story is both informative and yet also challenging. Here is someone who engaged his spiritual life in a deeply serious and experiential way, and who was willing to reflect on its significance from more than one point of view. Whether we might identify with his personal commitments or not, many find Black Elk to be a compelling example of someone who takes his or her faith to be at the core of one’s life.

I continue to find him and his life story, while not easily understood, to be very moving. What I have come to learn about Black Elk has certainly impacted me. May God bless the memory of Nicholas Black Elk.

In addition to the books by Jackson and Neihardt, I warmly commend Peter Cozzen’s book, The Earth is Weeping.

Black Elk (on the left) photographed as a young man

 

I want to thank Martha, who is my editor. For anyone interested in the questions raised by the life and commitments of Black Elk, I recommend the following books: Black Elk: The Life of of an American Visionary, by Joe Jackson; Black Elk Speaks, by John G. Neighardt; and Nicholas Black Elk: Medicine Man, Missionary Mystic, by Michael F. Steltenkamp. Joe Jackson’s book provides a particularly compelling portrait of Black Elk. Peter Cozzen’s book, The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West, provides the best overall historical background for a proper appreciation for Black Elk and his community’s story.

The Beauty of an Appaloosa Horse

While composing a prior post on the beauty of a horse, I was reminded of a portion of the Pslams – “{The Lord’s} delight is not in the strength of the horse (PS 147:10).” Yet, God must surely delight in the beauty of a horse, a possibility that may have occurred to some of us during the recent Triple Crown racing season and / or through admiring Dega’s renditions of race horses. Perhaps the Lord especially delights in the breed of horses known as Appaloosa’s.

Traveling back and forth between Japan and my parents’ birth home area of Minneapolis, we met a family on one of the voyages across the Pacific who had a ranch in Montana. Among the many wonderful discoveries during multiple visits there was the beauty of the Appaloosa. A ‘spotted backside’ might not at all be desirable among humans and some other living beings, but in my view this common Appaloosa trait provides one of the most compelling amalgams of both solid color and random patterning that I know of in the animal world.

Most closely associated with the Nez Perce nation among indigenous American peoples, the breed initially suffered along with the decline of the community propagating its existence in the latter 19th century. Yet, despite that sad history, and perhaps because of its compelling beauty, the Appaloosa breed of horses has since thrived.

Our friends’ ranch had numerous Appaloosas, but three that I remember fondly, and for differing reasons. One, named Lonesome, a striking looking horse, had Thoroughbred blood lineage and was tall and slim, with a reputation for being occasionally arbitrary as was another more dramatically colored one named Blue. Leo, like Lonesome, was mostly spotted all over but, when first seen with his more compact and robust physique, could be identified as having an American Quarter Horse lineage.

My favorite, the one with whom I became most familiar, was Marble, a mare of not-readily-evident Appaloosa lineage, among which some are almost white and others appear almost black. Marble looked like a common brown Morgan horse, except for one distinctive detail – she had one blue eye, like one sees in some Australian shepherd dogs. Unlike the sometimes mercurial Lonesome, and the sometimes stubborn Leo, Marble would let me bridle her in the pasture, lead her into the stable next to the tack room, and saddle her without much difficulty.

An Appaloosa gelding, with a Morgan-coloring like “Marble” (note the slight brindle pattern)

The patterned coat commonly associated with Appaloosa horses may be an acquired taste, much like variegated plants among gardeners. I find horses of this background stunning to look at, and I especially appreciate how they have often been portrayed in Western art, such as in the paintings of Charles M. Russel (whose expressive Western-themed paintings I hope to feature in a future blog). It tells us something about the aesthetic sensibility of the Nez Perce that they they would have pursued breeding and cultivating the bloodline of these horses, not only for their utilitarian value but also for their sheer beauty.