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June 26, 2007

Taming the Wild West

hile in Cody, Wyoming, last weekend, I spent some time at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, a marvelous museum of ... well, just about everything. It is five museums in one: a museum of Native American cultures, a museum of the natural history of the greater Yellowstone area, a museum preserving the history of Buffalo Bill Cody's western shows, a museum of firearms, and a museum of the art of the American West.

The piece that really captivated me was a very large painting by Irving R. Bacon entitled "The Conquest of the Prairie."

Painted in 1908, the large canvas depicts Buffalo Bill Cody as a guide on horseback bringing "modern life" to the West.

A somewhat dazed-looking group of American Indians look on as buffalo run from an oncoming line of covered wagons. In the middle distance, a train belches smoke as it crosses a bridge westward.

Far in the distance, over Buffalo Bill's shoulder, an urban skyline breaks the horizon.

Buffalo Bill so loved the painting that he bought it from the artist and displayed it in his Irma Hotel in Cody, Wyoming. To him, and I suppose to his hotel guests, the painting celebrated "progress."

To my eye, and I suspect to many modern eyes, the painting is just unfathomably sad.

Posted by Eric at June 26, 2007 9:56 PM