American Art Collaborative

George Catlin journeyed up the Missouri River in 1832. “I often landed my skiff,” he recalled, “and mounted the green carpeted bluffs whose soft grassy tops, invited me to recline, where I was at once lost in contemplation. Soul melting scenery that was about me! A place where the mind could think volumes; but the tongue must be silent that would speak, and the hand palsied that would write.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 32, 1841; reprint 1973