The Encampment
Artist
Ralph A. Blakelock
(American, 1847 - 1919)
Date1869-1872
MediumOil on board with wood cradle
Dimensions10 1/2 x 13 1/2 in. (26.7 x 34.3 cm)
Other: 20.1 × 23.3 × 3 cm (7 15/16 × 9 1/8 × 1 3/16 in.)
Other: 20.1 × 23.3 × 3 cm (7 15/16 × 9 1/8 × 1 3/16 in.)
ClassificationsOil Painting
Credit LineHarriet Russell Stanley Fund
Terms
Object number1942.12
DescriptionBlakelock recorded his impressions in a number of sketchbooks during his travels in the West in 1869 and 1871. While some of these drawings later served as models for paintings, many of Blakelock's landscapes are vague and imaginative evocations of the past rather than historically accurate documents of Western scenery and people. (1) During the 1880s and 1890s Blakelock painted countless variations on the themes of the moonlit landscape and Indian encampments. "The Encampment" may have been executed during this period. (2)In contrast to many of his contemporaries, such as Frederic Remington, who painted Indian hunters and warriors, Blakelock often depicted Indians in camp, in domestic activities and settings evocative of a pastoral harmony between man and nature. In 1917 Frederic Fairchild Sherman wrote: "Blakelock is the only American painter who has adequately rendered on canvas Indian life in this country as it was prior to the final wars." (3) In the New Britain scene, five tepees stand at the edge of a small body of water, a few figures walk about, and several horses drink patiently. The warm hazy glow of the sun and the gnarled oak tree, whose lacy dark leaves trace an elegant pattern against the sky, are typical decorative elements of Blakelock's landscapes. Blakelock's bucolic interpretation of the Indian theme may reflect his familiarity with Barbizon landscapes, which were popular in America at that time. Additionally, the subdued monochromatic palette and brooding, evocative atmosphere of his works are qualities commonly associated with Tonalist painting.
The artist's generalized images, the products of nostalgic memories of his western trips, exploit the deep mythical quality that Native Americans retained in the turn-of-the-century American imagination. (4) This romanticized view of the Indian as a noble savage living in harmony with nature contrasted sharply with contemporary reality-this idealized notion enjoyed its greatest popularity only after the actual Indian was safely contained within the boundaries of reservations. Like Remington, George deForest Brush, and Edward S. Curtis, whose famous Tonalist photographs display a number of similarities to Blakelock's works, Blakelock mourned the passing of a mythical primitive past that existed only in the imagination.
MAS
Bibliography:
Elliott Daingerfield, "Ralph Albert Blakelock" (New York: Frederic Fairchild Sherman, 1914); David Gebhard and Phyllis Stuurman, "The Enigma of Ralph Albert Blakelock, 1847-1919", exhib. cat. (Santa Barbara: University of California at Santa Barbara, 1969); Norman A. Geske, "Ralph Albert Blakeloc"k, 1847-1919, exhib. cat. (Lincoln: Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska; and Trenton: New Jersey State Museum, 1975); Dorinda Evans, "Art and Deception: Ralph Blakelock and His Guardian," "American Art Journal" 19, no. 1 (1987): 39-50; Abraham Davidson, Ralph Albert Blakelock (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996). . Susielies M. Blakelock (in "Ralph Albert Blakelock, 1849-1919", exhib. cat. [New York: M. Knoedler, 1973], p. 29) was able to authenticate some Blakelock paintings by matching them up with images from sketchbooks owned by the artist's descendants. See also Norman A. Geske, "Ralph Albert Blakelock in the West," "American Art Review 3" (January/February 1976): 123-35.
Notes:
1. According to Warren J. Adelson ("A Chronology of His Works," in "Ralph Albert Blakelock", pp. 5-19), the years 1883 to 1898 frame Blakelock's mature period, which is marked by a great concern for chiaroscuro and tonal effects, decorative patterns (especially in the silhouetted and lacy effects of trees), and the central theme of solitude, seen in Indian encampments and moonlight scenes.
2. Frederic Fairchild Sherman, "Landscape and Figure Painters of America" (New York: privately printed, 1917), p. 26.
3. On Blakelock's nostalgia for the past and his conflation of Indian and Greek mythology, see Elizabeth Ewing Tebow, "Arcadia Reclaimed: Mythology and American
On View
On view
