Bodmer, Karl b. February II, 1809; Zurich, Switzerland d. October 30, 1893; Paris, France
Best known for the depictions he created of native peoples and lands while accompanying Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied (1782-1867) on an expedition along the upper Missouri frontier in the early nineteenth century.
The artist rendered Native Americans, flora, fauna, settlements, and topography with a wealth of realistic detail unprecedented prior to the invention of the camera, thus transforming images into “exquisite representations of life and landscape” (Wood, Porter, and Hunt 2002, 14). Historians and anthropologists value Bodmer’s drawings, paintings, and prints as a visual documentary of a rapidly changing young country experiencing the emergence of an industrial society and the destruction of its natural resources and Indian cultures. Bodmer also portrayed towns such as Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Gnadenhutten,
Mouth of the Fox River (Indiana), painting by Karl Bodmer, ca. 1834. Bodmer is best known for the depictions he created of native peoples and lands while accompanying Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied (1782—1867) on an expedition along the upper Missouri frontier in the early nineteenth century. (New York Public Library)
Ohio, which had been founded by German Moravians; Prince Maximilian visited these places to learn the fate of Germans who had fled persecution in their native country. After the expedition, Bodmer supervised the production of eighty-one aquatints (prints made from etched or engraved images on a metal plate) for an atlas published with the German, French, and English editions of Travels in the Interior of North America, 1832—1834. This two- volume work contained Maximilian’s scientific observations and travel notes on topics such as slavery, politics, the environment, and the frontier.
At age thirteen, Bodmer began receiving instruction in watercolor, sketching, and engraving from his uncle, the painter Johann Jakob Meier (1787—1858). He moved to Koblenz, at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle rivers, in 1828. His drawings and watercolors of this region, which were published in scenic folios popular with tourists, caught the attention of Prince Maximilian; the German aristocrat, who had studied the natural sciences, needed an artist to illustrate his exploration of the American frontier. A Prussian officer recommending the young Swiss artist for the adventure found him to be healthy, aptly talented, enthusiastic about the journey, and undemanding; he had only to hone his hunting skills. Bodmer’s contract with Maximilian provided for a modest salary, expenses, paper, and art materials; the artist would supply his own drawing instruments. In preparation for the journey, both Bodmer and his patron examined expeditionary and ethnographic art available at that time, including the works of American artist George Catlin.
Prince Maximilian and Bodmer left Rotterdam on May 17, 1832, arriving in Boston on July 4. En route to the Missouri River, they spent the winter at New Harmony, Indiana, a town founded in 1814 by the German religious leader Georg Rapp. While staying in this frontier scientific community, Bodmer and Maximilian used the extensive library of natural history and discussed Native Americans with eminent scientists. Bodmer also completed a large series on the town’s environs. The documentary value of his work is evident in Confluence of the Fox River and the Wabash. Depicted in the watercolor are several Carolina parakeets; the only parrot native to the United States, this species is now extinct. In January 1833 Bodmer traveled alone to New Orleans, where he made his first drawings of Native Americans— Choctaws, Cherokees, and Chickasaws.
The actual expedition, which was fraught with the perils and hardships of frontier life, began in early April 1833, when Maximilian and Bodmer departed from St.
Louis on a steamboat. Their journey extended to Fort McKenzie in Great Falls, Montana, and took them into territories that had hardly been explored. When Assiniboines and Crees attacked the Pie- gans outside Fort McKenzie on August 28, 1833, Maximilian and Bodmer grabbed their weapons and joined the battle. Bodmer’s later sketch of the event and Maximilian’s notes are considered among the most exceptional non-Indian eyewitness accounts of intertribal warfare. Afterward, armed guards often accompanied Bodmer when he left the fort to paint. The five winter months spent at Fort Clark (Bismarck, North Dakota) proved to be the most significant and productive phase of the expedition for both Maximilian and Bodmer, in part due to their contact with the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes. Bodmer spent time with Mandan warrior friends, and his portraits of Four Bears, a prominent Mandan chief, and Two Ravens, a warrior from the Hidatsa tribe, are among his best-known works. Once again, his renderings proved to be timely historical documents. Less than one month after they left Fort Clark, two of three Hidatsa villages were destroyed by Lakotas, and in 1837 a smallpox epidemic killed all but about 120 Man- dans, including Four Bears.Although Maximilian often mentions in his journals a painting that his Swiss companion had made, no record exists of how the artist went about his work or selected particular subjects or scenes. Bodmer probably worked independently, choosing his subject matter from his own field studies and, in some cases, from Maximilian’s sketches; in New Harmony and at Fort McKenzie and Fort Clark he was able to set up studios. The Native Americans he portrayed often spent hours dressing themselves for sittings, in order to show their family position or wealth. Depicting his subjects as strong and dignified, Bodmer focused on the details of their physiognomy, clothing, weapons, and decoration. He strove to produce the visual representation for his employer’s scientific observations; absent in his portraits are the sentimental exaggerations often found in nineteenth-century paintings of Native Americans or the nationalist motives apparent in works of his contemporary, Thomas Cole.
Bodmer didemploy European conventions for his landscapes, however; romantic elements can be found in his paintings of the eastern woodlands or geological formations on the upper Missouri.
After returning to Europe in late August 1834, Bodmer established a studio in Paris in 1836 and spent nearly ten years supervising the production of the copperplate and steel engravings to illustrate Prince Maximilian’s text. Both the text and the plates used for the atlas were sold by subscription; the date given in the German edition was 1839—1841, although the final installments did not appear until 1843. The prints were issued on at least three different weights and finishes of paper, in colored and also black-and-white editions (or combinations thereof). After completion of the atlas, Bodmer ended his business relationship with Maximilian, although they maintained their friendship and continued to correspond. Before relinquishing most of his American art to his employer, as stipulated in his contract, Bodmer exhibited his works in 1845. He married, became a French citizen, and in 1849 moved to Bar- bizon, where he associated with French landscape artists such as Jean Baptiste Camille Corot and Jean Francois Millet. He collaborated with Millet on an American commission for a series of lithographs of early frontier life; the project was discontinued, but four prints entitled Annals of the United States Illustrated: The Pioneers did appear. Bodmer won the third-prize medal at the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1855 and received honorable mention at the Salon of 1863.
Lorie A. Vanchena
See also Indians in German Literature; Pietism; Wied-Neuwied, Maximilian Alexander Philipp Prinz zu
References and Further Reading
Gallagher, Marsha V, and John F. Sears. Karl Bodmers Eastern Views: A Journey in North America. Omaha: Joslyn Art Museum, 1996.
Hunt, David C., and Marsha V. Gallagher, eds. Karl Bodmer’s America. Omaha: Joslyn Art Museum and University of Nebraska Press, 1984.
Wood, W. Raymond, Joseph C. Porter, and David C. Hunt. Karl Bodmer’s Studio Art: The Newberry Library Bodmer Collection. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002.