BOUTELLE’S WORRIED HUNTER by Joan K. Yanni

BOUTELLE’S WORRIED HUNTER

by Joan K. Yanni

The Indian Hunter (84.47), by DeWitt Clinton Boutelle, is a landscape painting with a message. It tells the story of the “noble savage” watching his treasured wilderness disappear.

Boutelle, though little known today, was quite successful in his time. He was born in Troy, New York, in 1820, at a time when the Erie Canal held the attention of the young nation. His family obviously admired New York Governor DeWitt Clinton, who was instrumental in having the canal built, since they named their son after him.

This was a time of change for the country.  The canal brought excitement and expectation as well as some apprehension. The first leg of the canal, between Rome and Utica, New York, had been opened in 1817, bringing an ease of transportation but cutting deeply into the wilderness revered by most of the country.

The romantic stories of Washington Irving, and especially James Feni Cooper ‘s Leatherstocking Tales, such as The Last of the Mohicans, had brought the struggle of the American Indian to keep his land to the attention of the nation. The Hudson River School of painters had begun to exhibit their pictures of a lush, untouched landscape, almost religious in their  feeling. Since Americans had no cathedrals to paint as European painters had, the wilderness, which was unknown in Europe, became the American cathedral.  It was in this atmosphere that Boutelle grew up.

As an artist, Boutelle was self-educated.  At an early age, however, he came under the influence of Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand. His first picture was painted in 1839 when he was 19. As he continued to paint, he found patronage in New York City and maintained a studio there from 1846 through the 1850s. He regularly exhibited at the prestigious National Academy of Design.

Landscapes were popular, and his sales gave him funds to go on sketching trips up and down the Hudson River, the Catskills, New Jersey and the Susquehanna.  Like Cole and most of the Hudson River painters, he then took his sketches into his studio to paint.

Many of his works were purchased by the Art Union, an organization that was in existence in New York from 1839-1853.  The Art Union bought paintings, exhibited them to the public, and then sold the works on a lottery system. The Art Union also occasionally commissioned prints to be made from paintings, and distributed these to the membership as a whole. Thus paintings had wide distribution.  Boutelle’s works, which were mostly the popular landscapes, benefited greatly from this exposure. By 1839 he had settled in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he continued to paint until his death in 1884.

Boutelle was invited to  show The Indian Hunter at the annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design in 1846. The painting shows the influence of Cole in its depiction of the land. It is not a specific New York State view, but a romantic, imaginary site which includes the treasured wilderness and the enigmatic Native American. It produces a sensitive, sympathetic social commentary as well as a striking scene.

The painting is composed of two parts: a dark, lush forest and a light blue area. The Indian hunter is on the lower right, leaning against a rock. He holds a tomahawk in his left hand, and a bow and quiver of arrows are strapped to his back.  His face is sad, pensive. Why?  What is he thinking?  Does he know what is going to happen to him and his fellows?

Are there any animals in the picture?  Birds?  The gnarled tree trunks and stumps are beautifully painted in lush greens and browns. There is a stream in the picture, and on the left, a path or steps going down into a valley below. A light coming from the left falls across the painting, illuminating the part of the canvas in which the Indian is standing.  The trees on a hill in the background form a clear diagonal in the painting.

On the left are a light blue sky and a valley. Can the Indian see the valley? What is happening there? Look closely and you  can see a clearing in the distance, with small houses and the spire of a church—one of the first buildings to go up in a new settlement. The settlers are here to stay, and they threaten the Indian’s hunting grounds which he uses for food and shelter.

When the painting was first displayed, it was described in the catalogue by the following poem by a Miss Eliza Cook:

Oh! Why does the white man follow my path, like the hound on the tiger’s track?

Does the flush on my dark cheek waken his wrath?

Does he covet the bow of my back?

He  has rivers and seas, where the billows and  breeze Bear riches for him alone;

And the sons of the wood never plunge in the flood Which the white man calls his own.

Then, why should he come to the streams where none But the red skin dare to swim?

Why, why should he wrong the hunter, one

Who never did harm to him?

Though the poem is overly sentimental and saccharine, the painting is an example of the concerns of America’s first landscape painters.  It is also an important part of the Genesee Journey tour.

Source: Curatorial files, particularly essays by Patricia Junker, Susan Nurse, and E.J. Searl.