Editor's note: The Joslyn Art Museum provided source
material to Resource Library for the following article or essay.
If you have questions or comments regarding the source material, please
contact the Joslyn Art Museum directly through either this phone number
or web address:
Karl Bodmer's Eastern Views:
Celebrating Volume 1 of The North American Journals of Prince Maximilian
of Wied
April 26 - August 31, 2008
Drawn from Joslyn's
renowned holdings in the Maximilian-Bodmer Collection, Karl Bodmer's
Eastern Views: Celebrating Volume 1 of The North 
American
Journals of Prince Maximilian of Wied features
34 watercolors and drawings of the eastern half of the United States painted
by the young Swiss artist Karl Bodmer (1809-1893) during the initial phase
of his and Prince Maximilian's (1782-1867) expedition to the upper Missouri
frontier in the early 1830s. The exhibition features Volume 1 of Maximilian's
original journals, here open to pages 84-85, upon which the prince recorded
his visit to the coal mines at Mauch Chunk (present-day Jim Thorpe), Pennsylvania,
and created a charming drawing of the passenger rail carriage that took
visitors to the top of the mountain where the mines were located. The exhibition
also includes a print based upon Bodmer's portraits of the first Indians
he and Maximilian encountered on their North American journey -- a delegation
of Sauk and Meskwaki (Fox) they met in St. Louis in March 1833. (right:
after Karl Bodmer (Swiss, 1809-1893), Charles Vogel, engraver, Saukie
and Fox Indians, Vignette X from the portfolio issued with Prince Maximilian's
Travels in the Interior of North America, engraving with aquatint
and roulette, hand-colored, second state, Gift of the Enron Art Foundation,
Collection of Joslyn Art Museum)
Karl Bodmer's Eastern Views
will be on view in Joslyn Art Museum's print gallery from April 26 through
August 31, 2008. The exhibition celebrates Joslyn's publication of Volume
1 of The North American Journals of Prince Maximilian of Wied.
The Eastern Views: From Boston to St. Louis, July 1832-April
1833
German naturalist Maximilian's expedition of 1832-1834
yielded the most important scientific exploration of the upper Missouri
River since the journey of 
Lewis
and Clark nearly 30 years earlier. To provide an accurate visual counterpart
to his own written observations of the people and natural features encountered
on the trip, Maximilian hired Bodmer, a skilled professional artist. Bodmer
exceeded the expectations of his employer by producing in beautifully rendered
watercolors and drawings a faithful and vivid picture of the United States
during a period of tremendous transformation. (right: Karl Bodmer
(Swiss, 1809-1893), View of New Harmony, watercolor on paper, Gift
of the Enron Art Foundation, Collection of Joslyn Art Museum)
The works in the exhibition illustrate the portion of the
journey covered in Volume 1 of the three journals, beginning with a stormy
voyage across the Atlantic and ending with the frontier town of St. Louis.
Maximilian's primary goal had always been the Western wilderness, but a
combination of factors delayed his journey there: the belated delivery of
essential supplies, wariness of a cholera epidemic affecting chosen routes
of travel, and his own illness that required a lengthy recuperation in New
Harmony, Indiana. In the months spent in the east, Bodmer immersed himself
in his role as illustrator, producing drawings of the specimens collected
for scientific purposes, the natural environment, and of the towns and settlements
rapidly overtaking the frontier. His exquisite compositions offer a fascinating
window on a brash new nation, from its burgeoning cities on the eastern
seaboard to its pioneer farms of Indiana and Illinois.
For the Eastern Views exhibition, a descriptive
label with each artwork features Prince Maximilian's own description of
the subject. These quotes are excerpted from the new English translation
of Volume 1 of Maximilian's journals
Joslyn's Publication of Volume 1 of The North American
Journals of Prince Maximilian of Wied
Many exhibitions and books have featured Joslyn's extraordinary
holdings of beautifully detailed watercolors and prints by Karl Bodmer.
Less attention has been paid to Prince Maximilian's manuscript journals,
which the prince collectively called his Tagebuch. These journals,
each containing about 300 pages filled with the prince's daily observations
on people, places, flora, fauna, and events, written by him in a now obsolete
German script and illustrated with his ink and watercolor drawings, are
the subject of a complex, multiyear publication project being carried out
by Joslyn's Durham Center for Western Studies in partnership with the University
of Oklahoma Press. Volume 1, completely translated into modern English and
fully annotated to aid the modern reader, will be available nationwide in
bookstores, including Joslyn's Museum Shop, June, 2008.
Wall panel text from the exhibition
- Karl Bodmer's Eastern Views
-
- In 1832-1834, Maximilian of Wied (1782-1867), a German nobleman and
scientist, led a remarkable expedition up the Missouri River to study the
natural history and native peoples of the American western frontier. Accompanying
him were his family huntsman David Dreidoppel and a young Swiss artist
named Karl Bodmer (1809-1893), whom Maximilian hired to document the journey
with sketches and watercolors.
-
- Before they began the trip upriver, Maximilian, Dreidoppel, and Bodmer
spent nine months traveling across the eastern United States. Maximilian's
experiences in the east-from Boston to St. Louis-occupied nearly half of
his two-year stay in America and constitute one-third of his written diary.
Accordingly, one-third of Bodmer's sketches and watercolors are also eastern
in subject and as a whole provide a fascinating document of the forces
of civilization transforming the United States in the 1830s. Bodmer's eastern
images are the focus of this exhibition.
-
- In 1839-1844, Maximilian produced a book based upon portions of his
journals, titled Travels in the Interior of North America, 1832-1834and
accompanied by an atlas of 81 engravings derived from Bodmer's watercolors.
However, until this year, the prince's longer, more complete hand-written
diaries have never appeared in print. This exhibition celebrates the publication
of Volume 1 of The North American Journals of Prince Maximilian of Wied,the
first of three volumes of Maximilian's manuscript journals to be completely
translated into English and fully annotated for the modern reader.
-
- An excerpt from the new translation of Maximilian's journals is included
here on each label and describes in the prince's own words the subject
that Bodmer has illustrated. The exhibition begins at left with the voyage
across the Atlantic on the American brig Janusand continues counterclockwise
around the gallery.
Object labels from the exhibition
- The Brig Janus
- pencil on paper
-
- After six weeks of rough seas and intermittent seasickness (especially
Karl Bodmer), the passengers of the Janus finally neared the coast
of Massachusetts on June 30, 1832. The crew took out the ship's small boat
with Bodmer aboard, and the artist made this sketch of the Janus
from the vantage of the smaller craft.
-
- Nice, clear, and sunny morning; sea smooth as a mirror. . . . Swimming
sea birds with their white breasts glisten on the splendid, blue surface
of the ocean. . . . Today we have been at sea for forty-four days; are
only one and a half days from Boston and cannot get there. About ten o'clock
the boat is lowered, and Mr. Bodmer makes a very accurate sketch of the
Janus.
- -MAXIMILIAN, JUNE 30, 1832
-
-
- Cape Cod, First View of America
- watercolor on paper
-
- On the morning of July 3, the travelers sighted Cape Cod-the first
glimpse of the North American continent. Bodmer's delicate representation
of landfall as a line upon the distant horizon initially seems a minimal
effort. When examined more closely, however, the sketch reveals the artist's
remarkable precision in rendering tiny but distinct coastal details.
-
- Ever since ten o'clock we had been looking for land, but a streak
of fog concealed it. When, however, the observation of altitude was completed,
we suddenly caught sight of land in the fog: Cape Cod lay to the south
15 miles from us. It revealed low white sand hills with several dark thickets
on them.
- -MAXIMILIAN, JULY 3, 1832
-
-
- Scene on the Janus
- watercolor and pencil on paper
-
- As the Janus continued toward Boston on July 3rd, Bodmer made
several sketches from its deck. Here he shows the ship's captain at the
rail inspecting the coast with a telescope. The seated figure is likely
Maximilian, busily noting weather conditions and perhaps his own observations
of the scene unfolding before him.
-
- Individual fishermen's sails, brown or dazzling white, gleamed near
the American coast, already veiled by the haze of the evening. Peace prevailed
on this broad panorama. Only on shipboard were people still active, whereas
we Europeans sent our searching gaze into the distance for new objects.
- -MAXIMILIAN, JULY 3, 1832
-
-
- Galley on the Janus
- watercolor and pencil on paper
-
- Conditions on the Janus were cramped and the ship was not as
well furnished as the prince would have liked. In the journal he wrote
tersely: "Cabin small, no windows aft, six bunks." Bodmer's
unfinished sketch reveals a somewhat primitive gallery with kettles and
other cooking utensils crammed into and tumbling out of the tiny space
that served as a kitchen.
-
- We now sailed still farther up toward the Bay of Boston and at five
o'clock saw scarcely more than a glimmer of Cape Cod. This afternoon the
heat had become very great on deck. Two butterflies had strayed there
but could not be captured. In addition to the sketch of Cape Cod, Mr.
Bodmer had also outlined a small view of a section of the deck of the Janus
with the galley.
- -MAXIMILIAN, JULY 3, 1832
-
-
- Boston Lighthouse
- watercolor on paper
-
- Bodmer's lovely rendering of coastal features and the lighthouse near
Boston reflects to a remarkable degree the details of Maximilian's journal
entry for July 4, when the Janus entered the port of Boston during
Independence Day festivities.
-
- After about an hour, the ship turned and we approached even more
closely the low coast that extended scenically before us and extensively
on both sides. In the center, in the direction of Boston, stood, on a
small rocky island, the snow-white lighthouse (Boston Lighthouse), with
its black roof; beside it were several small picturesque islands, some
of them of white sand covered with a grass carpet at the top and some of
them rocks. Mr. Bodmer sketched a part of this view.
- -MAXIMILIAN, JULY 4, 1832
-
-
- Entry to the Bay of New York from Staten Island
- watercolor and pencil on paper
-
- From Boston, the travelers went to Providence, Rhode Island, where
they booked passage on a steamboat to the city of New York, arriving there
on July 9. Bodmer's view of New York Harbor from Staten Island captures
the bustle of the city that had become by 1830 the largest metropolis in
the United States.
-
- New York is a very large, imposing commercial city like the largest
cities of Europe. It has 220,000 inhabitants, including Germans and very
many foreigners, generally. The streets of the city are for the most part
sightly, broad, and long, of which the finest, Broadway, is several miles
long and very impressive. The houses are made of brick, very elegant,
tall, decorated in English fashion. . . . Here one finds all the
luxury and fashionable goods from Europe and the entire world.
- -MAXIMILIAN, JULY 9, 1832
-
-
- View on the Delaware near Bordentown
- watercolor on paper
-
- Tourist sites recommended by the guidebooks of the 1830s included the
country estates of such prominent people as Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's
older brother, who had acquired a large tract of land on the Delaware River
near Bordentown, New Jersey. The estate's attractions included extensive
gardens and one of the finest art collections in the United States. Maximilian
visited the estate en route to and from Philadelphia.
-
- Bodmer painted two versions of this view of the landscape in the vicinity
of the Bonaparte property, the second of which hangs to the right of the
present one.
-
- Since today was Sunday, when neither steamships nor stages go to
New York, Mr. Bodmer stayed here, and after breakfast we took a walk to
[Joseph] Bonaparte's garden. We viewed the nicest places and climbed
up into the upper building and its high gallery, where we had a beautiful
view of the entire region, and spoke with a Frenchman who lives in this
building.
- -MAXIMILIAN, JULY 22, 1832
-
-
- View on the Delaware near Bordentown: Joseph Bonaparte's Garden
- watercolor on paper
-
- Bodmer's second version of the landscape near Joseph Bonaparte's estate
is more finished than the first (hanging at left). In this version, Bodmer
applied the conventions of late-eighteenth-century landscape painting to
create a more balanced and neatly framed composition. His alterations
include lowering the hills on both sides of the river and introducing a
clump of trees at left to frame the view. At right, he added a coach-and-four
and a delivery wagon hurrying to meet the steamboat docked at the Bordentown
landing.
-
-
- View of Bethlehem on the Lehigh
- watercolor on paper
-
- Maximilian chose Bethlehem as the base for his studies of the flora
and fauna of eastern Pennsylvania. Bethlehem was a predominantly German
village founded in 1741 on the banks of the Lehigh River by the Moravian
Brethren, a Protestant sect with origins dating to fifteenth-century Bohemia.
The prince, Bodmer, and Dreidoppel spent more than six weeks in the area,
taking afternoon walks to collect species and side trips by light carriage
to visit and sketch nearby sites of interest.
-
- This region of Pennsylvania is very beautiful. The most luxuriant
lofty forests here spread forth their tall, leafy crowns. . . . Bethlehem
is a colony of the Moravian Brethren in North America and one of the more
outstanding ones. It is situated on the slope of a hill, has an impressive-looking
church with a nice steeple, a cupola supported by several columns, and
several handsome buildings such as the schoolhouse.
- -MAXIMILIAN, JULY 25, 1832
-
-
- The Delaware Water Gap
- watercolor on paper
-
- The Delaware Water Gap is located on the border of New Jersey and Pennsylvania
where the Delaware River traverses a large ridge of the Appalachian Mountains.
Maximilian and Bodmer traveled along the Gap in August 1832 on their way
to Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania. By the 1830s, the Gap was already an established
tourist site and therefore a worthy subject for Bodmer to illustrate.
-
- We had now reached the mountain range that boldly rose on both sides
of the river. To the left the valley, too, was already narrow, and the
mountain wall rose more steeply with every step and the valley became more
and more narrow. . . . The road now ran along the bank of the river in
such a way that we could see the bank close to our right and the mountain
rising abruptly beside our wheels. Here was a majestic primeval wilderness.
. . . Mr. Bodmer sketched this view, since it is extremely wild and interesting.
- -MAXIMILIAN, AUGUST 23, 1832
-
-
- View of Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, with Railroad
- watercolor on paper
-
- The important nineteenth-century anthracite transportation center located
near the town of Mauch Chunk (today named for the athlete Jim Thorpe) on
the Lehigh River was also a center for tourism. Visitors came to marvel
at the second oldest railroad built in the United States, an ingenious
gravity-powered device that transported coal from the mine at Summit Hill
to canal boats waiting on the river below. Bodmer's somber watercolor
brilliantly captures the gloom of this raw outpost of industrial-ization
in the midst of the American wilderness.
-
- The town Mauch Chunk on the [Lehigh is] built right on the
bank between tall, partly bare rocky and wooded mountains. Here are the
well-known anthracite collieries, and all the buildings of the town belong
almost exclusively and only to the company that has these mines worked.
. . . The production of coal brings to this hidden, lonely, wild nook of
the wild valley an interesting, noteworthy activity that provides a most
interesting drama for travelers.
- -MAXIMILIAN, AUGUST 30, 1832
-
-
- Mahoning Creek, Pennsylvania
- watercolor and pencil on paper
-
- Leaving Mauch Chunk, Maximilian and Bodmer traveled to the neighboring
village of Lehighton (originally known as Gnadenhütten) on Mahoning
Creek, which became a popular rest stop for travelers in the nineteenth
century. Here, the two men spent the night. Bodmer's watercolor sketch
of the creek offers a delicate study in complementary pastel washes, which
contrast with his fine detailing of the dark green foliage.
-
- Near the outlet of the Mahoning Valley, a wooden bridge has been
very picturesquely constructed over the Lecha [Lehigh River]. .
. . Work is now being done on the bridge, so that we had to travel down
on the other side of it through dense shady trees to the river and cross
it, whereby the high stones jutting out of the rubble and hidden because
of the cloudiness of the water could easily have overturned the wagon.
- -MAXIMILIAN, AUGUST 31, 1832
-
-
- Gnadenhütten
- watercolor on paper
-
- In the mid 1700s, the town of Lehighton was known as Gnadenhütten,
originally settled by Moravian missionaries from Germany. The settlement
was abandoned after an Indian uprising in 1755, and the new town of Lehighton
was founded in its place in 1794. Bodmer's watercolor depicts the neat
farms of the Moravian Brethren who remained at the original site.
-
- The Brethren in 1769 [actually 1746] founded a small settlement
that bore the name Gnadenhütten. The Indians later attacked this town,
burned down the houses, and murdered ten to twelve of the Brethren. Even
now one can see underneath bushes the gravestone that bears their names.
The congregation at Gnadenhütten was not reestablished, but there
are still individual farmers now living on the land that belongs to the
Brethren.
- -MAXIMILIAN, AUGUST 31, 1832
-
-
- Grave of the Brethren at Gnadenhütten
- watercolor and pencil on paper
-
- Following Maximilian, who had traveled on ahead of him, Bodmer also
visited the site of the old Moravian mission at Gnadenhütten, where,
according to an inscription on the large tombstone shown here, eleven colonists
"lost their lives in a surprise from Indian warriors, November 24th,
1755."
-
- In the evening Mr. Bodmer arrived, whom I had left behind to draw
the waterfalls of the Solomon Creek, Mauch Chunk, and the Mahoning Valley.
He brought along very precisely executed sketches of all these places.
In the Mahoning Valley, he had visited the place where Gnadenhütten
once stood and had sketched it, as well as the gravestone of the Brethren
burned to death.
- -MAXIMILIAN, SEPTEMBER 11, 1832
-
-
- Susquehanna near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
- watercolor on paper
-
- Maximilian left Bethlehem on September 17 for Pittsburgh, passing through
Harrisburg on the way. Bodmer followed the prince one week later. He
executed this lyrical view of the Susquehanna River, again producing the
visual equivalent of Maximilian's description of the scene-in this case,
very likely depicting the Camelback Bridge over the river and City Island
described by Maximilian below.
-
- The Susquehanna is very wide, 603 of my paces on the bridge. It
has an island right near the city so that a very long, enormous covered
bridge with two tunnels, one for those coming, the other for those leaving,
has been constructed. . . . From the bridge at Harrisburg, the view upriver
is especially beautiful. Green wooded islands adorn the surface of the
river, which is broad but shallow and, especially now during the dry season,
would not permit navigation.
- -MAXIMILIAN, SEPTEMBER 19, 1832
-
-
- View of Pittsburgh
- watercolor and pencil on paper
-
- Bodmer's view of Pittsburgh shows the confluence of the Monongahela
and Allegheny Rivers, which merge here to form the Ohio. His sketch conveys
the impression of a dense, growing urban environment, sprawling up the
hills to find room in new suburbs. The clouds of smoke shown rising from
buildings beyond the bridge and the overall haze probably resulted from
the ubiquitous coal fires.
-
- Pittsburgh is a rather old, sprawling, but not very beautiful city.
Since there are extensive bituminous coal deposits in the immediate vicinity,
this fuel is very inexpensive here and everyone burns it. For this reason
the whole region, the entire Ohio Valley, lies in a dark haze of smoke,
and over this city it is as dense as it is in England. This smoke gives
the buildings a dark, gloomy appearance.
- -MAXIMILIAN, SEPTEMBER 28, 1832
-
-
- The Prison in Pittsburgh
- watercolor and pencil on paper
-
- Public institutions such as the Pittsburgh penitentiary were on tourist
itineraries as part of the American landscape of reform. Considered the
most advanced in the world, these institutions attracted many foreign visitors,
including Alexis de Tocqueville and Charles Dickens, as well as Maximilian.
Bodmer's sketch is an early stage in the development of his final composition
for the published engraving in the prince's Travels in the Interior
of North America, 18321834.
-
- We left Pittsburgh at eight o'clock in the morning, traveled over
the large Allegheny bridge past the imposing prison, which resembles a
fort (see Mr. Bodmer's sketch), toward the Ohio.
- -MAXIMILIAN, SEPTEMBER 29, 1832
-
-
- Economy, Rapp's Colony on the Ohio
- watercolor on paper
-
- While staying in Pittsburgh, Maximilian made periodic excursions into
the countryside. The prince visited the neighboring settlement of Economy,
the third American location of the Harmony Society, a religious communal
sect founded by the German pietist George Rapp. When Maximilian visited
in 1832, Economy was totally self-sufficient, complete with farms, industries,
and cultural amenities (including a museum, a deer park, and an orchestra).
Bodmer's watercolor reflects the ordered, serene existence of the town's
inhabitants.
-
- Finally we reach the district of Economy, which we soon recognize
from the fine cultivation of its fields. . . . The entire society is said
to own this land and all its produce in common, but old Rapp and his adopted
son manage all of it and never give an accounting of their administration.
This seems somewhat dictatorial, but one can hardly object to this arrangement,
since everything seems well ordered and practical.
- -MAXIMILIAN, SEPTEMBER 29, 1832
-
-
- Gentlemen at Louisville
- pencil on paper
-
-
- Portland on the Ohio
- watercolor on paper
-
- In early October, Maximilian's party left Pittsburgh. They booked passage
on several steamboats that would take them down the Ohio River to Mount
Vernon, Indiana. En route, the travelers spent one night in Louisville,
Kentucky, about whose inhabitants Maximilian acerbically commented in his
diary. Bodmer's sketch of the Louisville "gentlemen" provides
a perfect visual complement. The next day they boarded a steamboat at
the nearby town of Portland, where docking facilities were located. Bodmer's
finely detailed painting of Portland captures the crowded riverfront.
-
- As is usually the case [at the inn in Louisville], idle gentlemen
filled all the lower rooms and were encamped around the fireplace with
their legs up in the air and their hands clasped behind their necks. .
. . Here, as in all the cities of the United States, elegance is a primary
concern of the residents. They place great importance on money and fine
clothes, while they suffer boredom and lean their mostly empty heads against
the walls as though they were very heavy.
- -MAXIMILIAN, OCTOBER 9, 1832
-
-
- Rockport on the Ohio
- watercolor on paper
-
-
- Ohio River near Rome
- watercolor on paper
-
- As the steamboat made its way downriver toward the destination of Mount
Vernon, Bodmer sketched watercolor studies of the river, including the
banks near Rome, Indiana, and the rocky shoreline at Rockport.
-
- In the afternoon we reached . . . a village bearing the name Rome.
. . . As it is a dark night, one anchors near the bank until the stars
come out, since the moon does not rise until late. In the cabin various
games begin; all the while great heat and innumerable cockroaches, which
run around in all the beds and fall down on the table.
- -MAXIMILIAN, OCTOBER 17, 1832
-
-
- View of New Harmony
- watercolor on paper
-
- One of Maximilian's principal destinations in North America was the
small utopian colony of New Harmony, Indiana, located on the Wabash River.
The German pietist George Rapp founded New Harmony as a religious colony
in 1814. The colony was later redeveloped as a social utopia and then
as an important center for scientific research. Maximilian was forced
by illness to spend five months there during the winter of 1832-1833.
He took advantage of the unusual learning opportunities available in the
tiny colony, including numerous consultations with the distinguished scientists
in residence there. Bodmer's superb view of New Harmony features Rapp's
imposing church that had been converted into a theater.
-
- New Harmony was built here by Mr. Rapp (now at Economy) in a flat,
wooded region, on the Wabash. . . . Since Rapp wished to move to another
area, a rich Scot, [Robert] Owen, bought the entire property, which
was very substantial. This [Mr.] Owen had his own unique religious
and philanthropic views. . . . He did not have a high regard for religion;
therefore the church constructed by Rapp remained empty and is now used
as an amateur theater.
- -MAXIMILIAN, OCTOBER 29, 1832
-
-
- Confluence of the Fox River and the Wabash
- watercolor on paper
-
- While Maximilian was convalescing in New Harmony, Bodmer explored nearly
every day along the Fox and Wabash Rivers. From such forays, he produced
several magnificent landscapes. The present is one of his best, created
during an excursion by boat with Maximilian in December to the mouth of
the Fox River. Bodmer's art is also a document: his brilliantly observed
rendering preserves a long-vanished environment that includes faint smoke
rising from a keelboat, cattle drinking from the river, and-perched in
a foreground tree-a half-dozen of the brightly colored, once numerous and
now extinct Carolina parakeets.
-
- The banks were covered with lofty, beautiful forest in which tall,
huge Platanus [sycamore trees], with their broad branches, gleam
snow-white in the densely entangled thicket. [Wintergreen cane]
shoots upward in a dense mass, but here is grazed off by the cattle, which
browse all around here day and night. . . . Mr. Bodmer searched for the
location, already discovered earlier, where he had begun a beautiful view
of the stream.
- -MAXIMILIAN, DECEMBER 5, 1832
-
-
- Lesueur, the Naturalist at New Harmony
- watercolor on paper
-
- Bodmer's portrait of Charles-Alexander Lesueur (French, 1778-1846)
shows the eminent scientist about to hunt specimens for his natural history
collection. Lesueur had a wide range of zoological interests and was highly
respected for his studies in Australia as well as North America. He was
also a scientific illustrator, who taught drawing in New Harmony and painted
scenery for the local theatrical productions.
-
- [Lesueur] is a unique person, already rather old, with a very deeply
lined face. . . . His studio, a hall on one side of the empty church, is
most curious. Directly before the entrance there is a view of New Harmony,
painted after the manner of a theater setting that, with curtains, forms,
so to speak, a small theater. . . . Elsewhere the owner's drawing and painting
equipment and the various cartons he had collected on his journeys around
the world. . . . We richly enjoyed looking over the sketches of various
kinds.
- -MAXIMILIAN, OCTOBER 21, 1832
-
-
- The Fox River Near New Harmony
- watercolor on paper
-
- Since arriving in the United States, Bodmer had been looking for vistas
unlike any he had seen in Europe. In the early months of his travels,
he had been disappointed by the similarity of American and European scenery.
But the wild forest around New Harmony, Indiana, was distinctly un-European-it
was the type of landscape that he and Maximilian had come to America to
record. This is another of the artist's superb renderings of the tangled
sycamore trees along the Fox River.
-
- Today Mr. Bodmer had made a beautiful sketch of the Fox River in
a true wilderness area, and wild ducks had landed close to him while he
was sketching, especially [wood ducks] and [mergansers].
- -MAXIMILIAN, NOVEMBER 29, 1832
-
-
- The Wabash near New Harmony
- watercolor on paper
-
- The wild environment of the Fox and the Wabash Rivers was not far from
the civilized village of New Harmony, Indiana. Many foreign visitors,
Maximilian among them, were struck by the sudden transitions in the American
landscape from the civilized to the wild. Perfectly echoing Maximilian's
observations, the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in his travel
diary Journey to America (1831-1832):
-
- Just round a wood one sees the elegant spire of a clock tower, houses
striking in their whiteness and cleanness, and shops. Two paces further
on, the primeval and apparently impenetrable forest reclaims its dominion.
. . . Those who have passed through the United States will find in this
picture a striking emblem of American society. Everything there is abrupt
and unexpected; everywhere, extreme civilization borders and in some sense
confronts nature left run to riot. That is something one cannot conceive
in France . . . [where] there is no district so thinly populated
and no forest so completely left to itself, that the trees, when they have
quietly come to an end of their days, fall at last from decay.
- -ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
-
-
- Backwoods Man and Woman on Horseback
- pencil on paper
-
-
- Courthouse at Mount Vernon
- watercolor on paper
-
- The prince's notes contain a wealth of detail about the inhabitants
of the region around New Harmony, including the numerous settlers or "backwoodsmen."
Bodmer may have made the sketch of a backwoods couple when settlers came
to town to vote in the presidential election of 1832 (in which Andrew Jackson
was re-elected). The second sketch shows the startling contrast between
the formal red courthouse building of Mount Vernon and the settlers' simple
cabins around it.
-
- Since voting for the new president took place today, all the nearby
planters were in Harmony on horseback. . . . Everywhere one saw the dirty
farmers riding about in the rain in their ridiculous attire. Many wore
plaid coats. . . . After these crude individuals had registered their votes,
they did ample justice to the whiskey; it was asserted that there would
be no lack of brawling and disorderly conduct.
- -MAXIMILIAN, NOVEMBER 5, 1832
-
-
- Bon Pas on Green's Prairie
- pencil on paper
-
-
- Albion, Edwards County, Illinois
- pencil and wash on paper
-