Artwork of the Day - 23 November 2004
 

George Caleb Bingham
Fur Traders Descending the Missouri
1845
Oil on canvas
29 x 36 1/2 in. (73.7 x 92.7 cm)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/b/b...ur_traders.jpg

Bingham was famous for his paintings of frontier life and this is perhaps one of his best known works. There is something exhilarating about American art of the 19th century and, alongside Homer, Bingham best exemplifies this (in my mind at least). As an aside, if you like American art I highly recommend the PBS series American Visions (and the book of the same name) where the renowned art critic Robert Hughes gives a sweeping analysis of US art.

I love this picture. The cat at the bow of the canoe; the two traders gazing at the viewer; the mysterious, almost primative, background with all its potential and danger... Like all great pictures, this tells a story.

Mr Mephisto