Miller Artwork

[crockett]

I have read the 1837 Sketchbook of the Western Fur Trade and just got my hands of The West of Alfred Jacob Miller- which has 200 water colors. I thought this last work was his complete works but then I got looking around and found some oil on canvas Miller paintings. I also saw one version of the Trapper's Bride where the groom looks like he has a striped canvas bag. In any event, does anyone know of any other good books containing Miller artwork?

 

[Mike Moore]

Crockett,
You might try to find Braves and Buffalo, plains Indians in 1837 by Michael Bell and Alfred Jacob Miller, artist on the oregon trail. These
are two which I have in my library. The last one mentioned has a good reference section in the back on his art work.
mike.

 

Crockett,

Mike may chime back in here, but I think the concensus is that Miller's watercolor field sketches tend to me more accurate sources of Fur Trade detail than his oils. Most of the oils were done from the field sketches up to 20 years after he did the field sketches in 1837. There were several significant details in dress etc. that seem to have been updated to more current styles in the later oil versions. Of course, I'm not saying they aren't worth looking at.

Also, check out ABE books on the web for the titles Mike mentions and search for AJ Miller.

Sean

 

[Mike Moore]

Sean,
Yes, you are right! I enjoy his artwork
(and have even given a few copies to friends), but until you get to see a few of his field sketches, you really don't get to see what he did while in the field. They can be very rough and hard for us to imagine how he took one of these and made his final works from them.
He is a good source, but like a few of the time- small details were not what he was going after. I hope people view him as he probably would like to be known as: a person who painted scenes that were not done before, for a individual who appreciated the American west. He did paint them to sell or to be what his beneifactor liked, but it still gives us a view into the west that no one else did.
Rex Norman and I had few discussions on Miller and we both agree that what he did was to take "pictures" of a traveling fur company before the camera was used in the region.
mike.
p.s. I have a signed piece of artwork by Rex on the wall in my den. You can see the influence that Miler had on Rex's works. Some of these are still availible, I think mine is 25 of 100. You might look around for others!

 

[crockett]

Okay, I am going to probably start some arguments but I have always questioned some of the Miller artwork. Every mountain man has a fringed, soft skin hunting pouch. Every mountain man has a buffalo powder horn. No mountain man has any accoutrements hanging from the straps of his hunting pouch. No mountain man has a tomahawk or hatchet. No mountain man has a bedroll on his horse. No mountain man has a trap sack on his horse. Now according to the journals kept by some of the mountain men- this doesn't fit. I agree with the notion Miller painted scenes and then filled in all the details in a similar manner- just a thought. What do you think?????

 

[Doc Arroyo]

I think that Lord Drummond Stewart had a fringed buckskin shooting bag in his collection, and when he saw that AJM was putting a shooting bag in the picture the Lord said, "Use this one as a model!". Many items in the Stewart collection show up in AJM's paintings like that.

Other people wanted copies of the Lord's paintings, and AJM painted what they wanted. He wasn't a rich guy with disposable income out to document the west. He was a guy making his living painting pictures...and the buyers wanted a certain look. He gave it to them.

On the other hand, the field sketches were made to capture the ideas composition, colors and main important details. That is why they are quickly drawn in pencil to capture composition. Watercolor washed to remind the artist of the base colors, and then filled in with ink for main shadows and line details. They were wonderful "notes to self"!

 

[crockett]

Doc: I agree. I think the Miller artwork is highly valuable for an overall impression of the times. For example there are several half breeds or Metis, Antoine Clement, Auguste, Pierre, etc. and they are indistinguishable from the mountain men of pure European ancestry (as far as clothing and equipment). I had previously thought these half breeds may have worn a combination of White and Indian attire. ON THE OTHER HAND you read a lot about eastern Indians who went along with the trappers, such as Iroquois and Delaware. Kit Carson, in his big fight with the Comanches said half his outfit were Delaware. Now I thought these eastern Indians had probably took on a lot of the White man's garb but Miller shows them as 100% Indians with feathered head dresses and bows and arrows.
My only criticism( if it is even that) is that we get too bogged down in all the Miller details. After a while I questioned if all the mountain men really had virtually identical powder horns, bags, etc. Maybe Miller roughly sketched in figures on the trail and then finished them off in detail later. I believe he had correspondence with Ruxton on some details- why correspond at all if he had painted all the details while on the trail?
I think what this means is that Miller has to be combined with the verbals descriptions in some of the mountain men's journals to arrive at a true picture IMO.

 

Here is a ink drawing of James Secondine (Sagundai)a Delaware trapper and scout/hunter for the Fremont Expeditions to California. As you see in this image, he is not wearing headdresses or other clothing common to the western Indians. Miller may have been a little inclined toward the romantic. Although, on the other hand, he shows no white trappers in NDN clothing either. That is strange to me given the period diaries and journals of some of the other trappers I have read describe the trappers clothes as leggins and breechclout, fringed jackets etc....

This image was drawn in the field by Fremont's illustrator and is in "Memoirs of my Life" by John Charles Fremont and his wife Jesse. Other period descriptions of Delaware and Shawnee trappers in the mountains or returning to the reservation around present day Kansas City are described as wearing bright colored turbans and frocks and leading mules laden with furs. Ruxton, Gerrard, Parkman. Sometimes carrying their women with them dressed in bright colored blouses and wearing silver and ribbons.

 

[David Sbur]

I am researching blue capotes and have seen 3 versions of Miller's 'Trapper's Bride' and 3 different capotes on the future groom! One version of blue capote even has leather fringe hanging off the arms. The field sketches of course were to help him crank out x-numbers of copies in later years to paying customers.

I vote for the field sketches, and favorably those that may have some watercolor/wash on them...

 

[3crows]

my buddy just picked up a book by rex allen norman in which they duplicated the fashions of the schetches exactly and took photos of them in the gear in the same poses as the originals. it gives you a chance to see a lot of detail. i believe the book is fairly new and im not sure of the title.

 

[crockett]

Okay, I think I am learning something here. The book I referenced was, "The West of Alfred Jacob Miller" containing 200 watercolors. It sounds like what I need is images of his orginal sketches. Someone told me in orginal skteches there are mountain men with knee length britches, implying leggings were worn, and Joe Walker is clean shaven. Besides Norman's 1837 Sketch book, is there some source that has these Miller sketches? Thanks.

 

[Doc Arroyo]

I got to see about 15 of AJM's field sketches when the were on display at a local art museum a number of years ago.

Walker is clean shaven, and there is no bead work on his clothing, as there was in a later version of the painting.

The field sketch that became "Picketing the Horses" can be interpreted as a amn wearing knee breeches. But it could also be artistic shorthand for the shape of the muscles and the wrinkles in the clothes. But knee breeches were still being worn, as were leggings. They just can't be reliably documented in AJM's work.

 

Doc, my take on 'picketing the horses' is that those two guys in front are definitely wearing breeches (buckskin or cloth, unsure). They're also stockingless, sans leggings, and barefoot. I doubt you'd take this stuff off before diving into setting up camp after a long day of travel, however they do have a tent up in the back already. Who knows if they were just laz-ing around camp or if that's the way they normally went about. The guy with the wolf-ear cap is in a pair of pantaloons and the guy driving the picket may be wearing drop-front trousers or pantaloons. There's also folks in the sketch in typical plains indian garb. That sketch really tells me that there was no strict uniform, but a variety of options.

I agree that some get a little too caught up in the details, and that Miller may have had a tendency to display people as AFU'd (all fringed up) for romanticism. Store bought clothing appears to have been rather common in the rockies from trade records, but it may have been to everyday to be deemed paintable. Still there are interesting details like cruppers, saw-buck packsaddles, and some clothing issues that can be taken from these. Like anything else, pulling conclusions from just one source is always sketchy.

Sean

 

[Desert Rat]

They're also stockingless, sans leggings, and barefoot. I doubt you'd take this stuff off before diving into setting up camp after a long day of travel, however they do have a tent up in the back already.

One thing to remember is that there were probably some boys that grew up on the farm or were poor and didn't wear shoes before heading into the mountains. It stands to reason one or two would have shunned wearing anything on their feet in adult hood if they didn't have to. They may or may not have been trappers, they could have been camp keepers or such.

Don't ask about the coincidence of them being next to each other in the same picture, this is just a theory on my part.

 

An ex-neighbor of mine grew up in the hills of TN and is now in his 70's. He told me once that his mail carrier back when he was a kid never owned a pair of shoes in his life. The guy walked miles every day, rain, snow, or blistering heat. Ray said the fellow's soles were covered with 1/2-3/4" of callous and he could walk right through hot tar on a road in the summer without flinching. I can see it. Wish I was that tough. I have 2 pair of $300 boots for work up here in the mountains. Just had to have one pair rebuilt to the tune of $120. It'd sure save me a lot of $$, but I'm a wuss and hate shoving splinters in my feet and tearing off my toenails.

Sean