Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1881-09-08
Helena, Montana, Thursday September 8, 1881.
CUSTER'S RALLY.
Walt. Whitman's Description of Null
yany's Picture.

| went to-day to see this just-finished
painting by John Mulvany , who has been
out in far Montana on the spot. at the forts
and among the frontiersmen, soldiers and In
dians for the past two or three years on pur-
pose to sketch it from reality or the best
that could he got of it, l sat for over an
hour before the picture, completely absorbed
in the first view. A vast canvas, should
say twenty or twenty-five feet by twelve
all crowded and yet not crowded, conveying
such vivid play of color, it takes q little
time to get used to it. There are no tricks
there is no throwing of shades in masses it
is all at first painfully real overwhelming
and needs good nerves to look at it. Forty
or fifty figures, perhaps more, in full finish
and detail, life size, in the underground, with
three times that number, or more, through
the rest-swarms upon swarms of savage
Sioux in their war-bonnets frantic, mostly
on ponies, driving through the background,
through the smoke like hurricane of dem
Ons A dozen of the figures are wonderful
Altogether, a western, autOchthOnic phase of
America, the frontiers, eliminating typical,
deadly, heroic to the uttermOst nothing in
the books like it, nothing in Homer, nothing
in Shakespeare; more grim and sublime than
either, all native, all our own, and all fact
"a great lot of muscular, tan-faced men
brought to bay under terrible circumstances
Death ahOld OF them, yet every man un-
daunted, not one losing his head, wringing
out every cent of the pay before they sell
their lives.
Custer (his hair cut short stands in the
middle with dilated eye and extended arm,
aiming huge cavalry pistol. Capt. Cook is
there, partially wounded, blood on the white
handkerchief around his head, tut aiming
his carbine coolly, half-kneeling (his body
was afterward found close by Custer's). The
slaughtered or halfslaughtered horses for
breast-works make a peculiar feature. Two
dead Indians, herculean, lie in the foreground
clutching their Winchester rifles-very char
acteristic. The many soldiers. their faces
and attitudes, the carbinestheb broad -brimmed
western hats, the powder smoke in putfs, the
dying horses with their rolling eyes, almost
human in their agony; the clouds of war
bonneted Sioux in the background, the figures
of Custer and Cook, with, indeed, the whole
scene, inexpressible, dreadful, yet with an
and beauty that will remain for
ever in my memory With all its color and
fierce action certain Greek confluence per-
vades it. A sunny sky and clear light en-
velOp all. There is an almost entire absence
of the stock traits OF European war pictures.
The physiOgnomy of the work is realistic
and western. | only saw it for an hour or
so, but it needs to be seen many times-needs
to be studied over and over again. l could |
look ON such a work at brief intervals all my |
life without firing. 1t is very tonic to me.
Then it has an ethic purpose below all, as all .
great art must haye. The artist said the .
sending of the picture abroad, probably to
London had been talked of. | advised him
if it went abroad to take it to Paris. | think
they might appreciate it there nay, they
certainly would. Then ! would like to show
Messieur Crapeau that some things can be
lone in America as well as others. Altogether,
Clusters Last Rally is one OF the very few
attempts at deliberate artistic expression for
our land and people, on a pretty ambitious
standard and programme that impressed ne
Is filling the bill