Catlin's lament

by John Hausdoerffer

"George Catlin gained renown for his nineteenth-century paintings of Indians and their lands, sympathetic portraits that counrerbalanced those of other Americans eager to conquer and dominate both. In this first book to probe the attitudes that shaped and constrained Catlin's career, John Hausdoerffer argues that, despite his sympathies, Catlin's work embodied the same prevailing sentiment toward Nature that sanctioned Indian removal and thus undercut his own alternate vision for westward expansion." "Hausdoerffer examines key events from Catlin's career to show how his work consistently teeters between resistance and consent to nineteenth-century ideologies of nature. He reviews Catlin's decision to devote his talents to Native American concerns, his journey west to document "vanishing" lifeways, his presentation of his findings to American audiences, and his cultural reenactments of Indian life, the original "Wild West" shows, in Europe. He also shows the importance of Yellowstone Na