Customer Reviews

Karl Bodmer's America

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm fortunate to have a couple volumes on Karl Bodmer's work with this one, in my opinion, being the more complete. The other volume is entitled "People of the First Man" subtitled: Life Among the Plains Indians in Their Final Days of Glory. Bodmer was a Swiss born artist who accompanied the Prince Maximillian of Wied expedition of 1832 as the prince coursed the Missouri River country.

When one opens this book the reader is immediately transported to the Upper Missouri country of 1832-34. With the paintings and sketches taking the reader among the Indian tribes of this area: Lakota (Sioux), Mandans, Hidatsas, Blackfeet, Assiniboins, Kickapoo, Pawnee-Omaha, Cheyenne, Crow, Cree-Gros Ventres, Piegan-Blood, Siksika, Kutenai-Shoshoni, among other tribes. Here for the first time 349 plates with 257 in full color have been given us by the University of Nebraska press. A truly marvelous book.

Soon after Bodmer's passing through this area a smallpox epidemic riddled all these tribes with some, especially the Mandan Indians, being wiped out of existence. This book not only represents an unusual artifact of the times it illustrates as well people who were very soon to pass out of existence. In all Karl Bodmer had traveled approximately 5,000 miles while executing these priceless works of historical art.

Cannot recommend this volume highly enough!

Semper Fi.

Browsing through this tome transports one to the expedition Bodmer depicts. Accompanying commentary helps place the works in an historic context. The beauty of the works stand alone, but are made especially poignant with 20th century perspective that many of the Native American subjects will soon be destroyed through disease. A stunning collection.

Karl Bodner's America
This is amazing, not only in terms of watercolor technnique but depictions of native American life before the impact of the white man. you will be transported to an earlier time and the watercolors are hauntingly beautiful I have seen the exhibit at the Joslyn in Omaha and never bought the book because of the price, but keep coming back to it in memory, so must have a copy now.

This is one of my favorite books. Karl Bodmer's illustations, depicting the journey with Maximilian, are very detailed and gorgeous. The books contains some copies of his illustrations as he is working on them, from sketching, modifying, detailing and coloring to completion. This is a must-have book for all lovers of the American Indian culture, and the expedition.

This fascinating volume, written for the scholar or interested lay reader, is a rare glimpse into history, and is unique in that it presents the North American Mandan people as they were before the dreadful smallpox epidemic that decimated the tribe in 1837 after Bodmer's visit of 1834-5. My maiden name is Bodmer, and as a young child, I was often told by my father (who worked for 37 years as a draftsman like his relative Karl)that I was related to a famous painter, Karl Bodmer. My mother tried to keep me from finding out how I was related, but after the death of both parents, I found that Bodmer spent his evenings with the younger Mandan men going after the young women. I met several Mandan ladies in 2009 - the tribe does live on - who told me that Bodmer was so good looking that all the young women in the tribe wanted to sleep with him, and that there were a number of little Bodmers running around Mandan country! They survived the smallpox epidemic because they had immunity from half European blood. So this book was like coming home for me, and I am so grateful to have it published for all to read. How my father, George Bodmer, would have loved to see this book, but he died in 1971, before he could find any Bodmer books in the US. The Mandan ladies also told me how the Wied/ Bodmer expedition saved the Mandan culture, because Bodmer and Prince Maximilian took tribal artifacts back to Europe, which are now in museums in Germany; the tribe now sends the Cultural Committee Chairman over to Germany each year to study and view the collection. They assured me they are grateful to Bodmer for saving these artifacts, as the tribe would have had no other hands-on items left from their history. So this volume promises to be of high interest to the Mandans as well as anyone interested in culture of the Northern plains. And now when I go back to Mandan country, I'll know ahead what to expect since I have been invited to stay in a restored earth lodge! We need more culturally relevant historical works like this book to be re-published, and hopefully the second Wied/Bodmer volume will be released in affordable paperback as this interesting, highly readable one is.

Like most people, I was familiar with Karl Bodmer from his iconic prints that show up in general accounts of the American Age of Exploration. "Karl Bodmer's America" is a collection of the many images Bodmer prepared for Prince Maximilian's 1832-34 expedition up the Missouri River. While most famous for his Native American portraits, Bodmer's beautifully crafted pencil and water color sketches range from exquisite maritime scenes to ethnographic images of Jacksonian America. The quality of his draftsmanship is first rate and stands in marked contrast to his contemporary, George Catlin. It is easy to see how Bodmer became accepted as a member of the Barbizon school of painters and a close friend of Corot and Millet. Talent knows talent.

Karl Bodmer's expeditionary prints are one of the hallmark collections of the Josyln Art Museum in Omaha and consequently the Museum put the time and resources into producing a very high quality art book. The images are beautifully printed on very fine paper. "Karl Bodmer's America" is everything you could want in a high quality art book. It even smells great. Highly recommended.

Karl's artistic pieces are some of the best I've seen. He shows the life behind the scenes and people he paints. This is an account of his travels through America when it was still young. If you like watercolor and breathtaking scenery, this book is for you