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Paul Kane

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Artists

   Self-portrait, c. 1845
   Enlarge
   Self-portrait, c. 1845

   Paul Kane ( September 3, 1810 – February 20, 1871) was an
   Irish-Canadian painter, famous for his paintings of First Nations
   peoples in the Canadian West and other Native Americans in the Oregon
   Country.

   A largely self-educated artist, Kane grew up in Toronto (then known as
   York) and trained himself by copying European masters on a study trip
   through Europe. He undertook two voyages through the wild Canadian
   northwest in 1845 and from 1846 to 1848. The first trip took him from
   Toronto to Sault Ste. Marie and back. Having secured the support of the
   Hudson's Bay Company, he set out on a second, much longer voyage from
   Toronto across the Rocky Mountains to Fort Vancouver and Fort Victoria
   in the Columbia District, as the Canadians called the Oregon Country.

   On both trips Kane sketched and painted Aboriginal peoples and
   documented their lives. Upon his return to Toronto, he produced more
   than one hundred oil paintings from these sketches. Kane's work,
   particularly his field sketches, are still a valuable resource for
   ethnologists. The oil paintings he completed in his studio are
   considered a part of the Canadian heritage, although he often
   embellished them considerably, departing from the accuracy of his field
   sketches in favour of more dramatic scenes.

Early life and formative years

   Kane was born in Mallow, County Cork in Ireland, the fifth child of the
   eight children of Michael Kane and Frances Loach. His father, a soldier
   from Preston, Lancashire, England, served in the Royal Horse Artillery
   until his discharge in 1801. The family then settled in Ireland.
   Sometime between 1819 and 1822, they emigrated to Upper Canada and
   settled in York, which would later, in March 1834, become Toronto.
   There, Kane's father operated a shop as a spirits and wine merchant.
   An early portrait (ca. 1834–36) attributed to Paul Kane, showing Mrs.
   Eliza Clarke Cory Clench.
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   An early portrait (ca. 1834–36) attributed to Paul Kane, showing Mrs.
   Eliza Clarke Cory Clench.

   Not much is known about Paul Kane's youth in York, which at that time
   was a small settlement of a few thousand people. He went to school at
   Upper Canada College, and then received some training in painting by an
   art teacher named Thomas Drury at the Upper Canada College around 1830.
   In July 1834, he displayed some of his paintings in the first (and
   only) exhibition of The Society of Artists and Amateurs in Toronto,
   gaining a favourable review by a local newspaper, The Patriot.

   Kane began a career as a sign and furniture painter at York, moving to
   Cobourg, Ontario, in 1834. At Cobourg, he took up a job in the
   furniture factory of Freeman Schermerhorn Clench, but also painted
   several portraits of the local personalities, including the sheriff and
   his employer's wife. In 1836 Kane moved to Detroit, Michigan, where the
   American artist James Bowman was living. The two had met earlier at
   York. Bowman had persuaded Kane that studying art in Europe was a
   necessity for an aspiring painter, and they had planned to travel to
   Europe together. But Kane had to postpone the trip, as he was short of
   money to pay for the passage to Europe and Bowman had married shortly
   before and was not inclined to leave his family. For the next five
   years, Kane toured the American Midwest, working as an itinerant
   portrait painter, travelling to New Orleans.

   In June 1841, Kane left America, sailing from New Orleans aboard a ship
   bound for Marseilles in France, arriving there about three months
   later. Unable to afford formal art studies at an art school or with an
   established master, he toured Europe for the next two years, visiting
   art museums wherever he could and studying and copying the works of old
   masters. Until autumn 1842 he stayed in Italy, before trekking across
   the Great St. Bernard Pass, moving to Paris and from there on to
   London. In London he met George Catlin, an American painter who had
   painted Native Americans on the prairies and who now was on a promotion
   tour for his book, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and
   Conditions of the North American Indians. Catlin lectured at Egyptian
   Hall at Piccadilly, where he also exhibited some of his paintings. In
   his book Catlin argued that the culture of the Native Americans was
   disappearing and should be recorded before passing into oblivion. Kane
   found the argument compelling and decided to similarly document the
   Canadian Aboriginal peoples.

   Kane returned in early 1843 to Mobile, Alabama, where he set up a
   studio and worked as a portrait painter until he had paid back the
   money borrowed for his voyage to Europe. He returned to Toronto late
   1844 or early 1845 and immediately began preparing for a trip to the
   west.

Travels in the Northwest

   Ojibwa camp at the shores of Georgian Bay; a typical field sketch of
   Kane's from his first trip 1845
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   Ojibwa camp at the shores of Georgian Bay; a typical field sketch of
   Kane's from his first trip 1845

   Kane set out on his own on June 17, 1845, travelling along the northern
   shores of the Great Lakes, visiting first the Saugeen reservation.
   After weeks of sketching, he reached Sault Ste. Marie between Lake
   Superior and Lake Huron in summer 1845. He had intended to travel
   further west, but John Ballenden, an experienced officer of the
   Hudson's Bay Company stationed at Sault Ste. Marie, told him of the
   many difficulties and perils of travelling alone through the western
   territories and advised Kane to attempt such a feat only with the
   support of the company. After the Hudson's Bay Company had taken over
   its competitor, the North West Company of Montreal, in 1821, the whole
   territory west of the Great Lakes until the Pacific Ocean and the
   Oregon Country was Hudson's Bay land, a largely uncharted wilderness
   with about a hundred isolated outposts of the company along the major
   fur trade routes. Kane returned to Toronto for the winter, elaborating
   his field sketches to oil canvases, and in spring of the next year, he
   went to the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company at Lachine (today
   part of Montreal) and asked company governor George Simpson for support
   for his travel plans. Simpson was impressed by Kane's artistic ability,
   but at the same time worried that Kane might not have the stamina
   needed to travel with the fur brigades of the company. He granted Kane
   passage on company canoes only as far as Lake Winnipeg, with the
   promise of full passage if the artist did well until then. At the same
   time, he commissioned Kane to do paintings of Indian lifestyle for him,
   with some very detailed instructions as to the subjects.

Going west

   Canoe brigade preparing camp on the Winnipeg River while being visited
   by some Saulteaux. Field sketch by Kane, June 10, 1846.
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   Canoe brigade preparing camp on the Winnipeg River while being visited
   by some Saulteaux. Field sketch by Kane, June 10, 1846.

   On May 9, 1846, Kane departed by steamboat from Toronto with the intent
   to join a canoe brigade from Lachine at Sault Ste. Marie. After an
   overnight stop, he missed the boat, which had left in the morning
   earlier than advertised, and he had to race after it by canoe. Arriving
   at the Sault, he learned that the canoe brigade had already left, so he
   sailed aboard a freight schooner to Fort William on Thunder Bay. He
   finally caught up with the canoes about 35 miles beyond Fort William on
   the Kaministiquia River on May 24.

   By June 4 Kane reached Fort Frances, where a pass from Simpson for
   travelling further was awaiting him. His next stop was the Red River
   Settlement (near modern-day Winnipeg). There, he embarked on a
   three-week excursion by horse, joining a large Métis hunting band that
   went buffalo hunting in Sioux lands in Dakota. On June 26 Kane
   witnessed and participated in one of the last great buffalo hunts that
   within a few decades decimated the animals to near-extinction. Upon his
   return he continued by canoe and sailing boats by way of Norway House,
   Grand Rapids, and The Pas up the Saskatchewan River to Fort Carlton.
   For variety, he continued from there on horseback to Fort Edmonton,
   witnessing a Cree buffalo pound hunt along the way.
   Jasper's House as painted in a field sketch by Kane in 1846.
   Enlarge
   Jasper's House as painted in a field sketch by Kane in 1846.

   On October 6, 1846, Kane left Edmonton for Fort Assiniboine, where he
   again embarked with a canoe brigade up the Athabasca River to Jasper's
   House, arriving on November 3. Here he joined a large horse troop bound
   west, but the party soon had to send the horses back to Jasper's House
   and continue on snowshoes, taking only the essentials with them,
   because Athabasca Pass was already too deeply snowed in that late in
   the year. They crossed the pass on November 12 and three days later
   joined a canoe brigade that had been waiting to take them down the
   Columbia River.

In the Oregon country

   The interior of a ceremonial lodge in the Columbia River region painted
   by Paul Kane in 1846.
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   The interior of a ceremonial lodge in the Columbia River region painted
   by Paul Kane in 1846.

   Finally, Kane arrived on December 8, 1846, at Fort Vancouver, the main
   trading post and headquarter of the Hudson's Bay Company in the Oregon
   Territory. He stayed there over winter, sketching among and studying
   the Chinookan and other tribes in the vicinity and making several
   excursions, including a longer one of three weeks through the
   Willamette Valley. He enjoyed the social life at Fort Vancouver, which
   at that time was being visited by the British ship Modeste, and became
   friends with Peter Skene Ogden.

   On May 25, 1847, Kane set out by canoe to Fort Victoria, which had been
   founded shortly before to become the new company headquarter, as the
   operations at Fort Vancouver were to be wound down and relocated
   following the conclusion of the Oregon Treaty of 1846, which fixed the
   continental border between Canada and the United States west of the
   Rocky Mountains at the 49th parallel north. Kane went up the Cowlitz
   River and stayed for a week among the tribes living there in the
   vicinity of Mount Saint Helens before continuing on horseback to
   Nisqually (today Tacoma) and then by canoe again to Fort Victoria. He
   stayed for two months in that area, travelling and sketching among the
   Native Americans on Vancouver Island and around the Juan de Fuca Strait
   and the Strait of Georgia. He returned to Fort Vancouver in mid-June,
   from where he departed to return back east on July 1, 1847.

Crossing the Rockies again

   By mid-July Kane had reached Fort Walla Walla, where he made a minor
   detour to visit the Whitman Mission that a few months later would be
   the site of the Whitman massacre. He went with Marcus Whitman to visit
   the Cayuse living in the area and even drew a portrait of Tomahas (Kane
   gives the name as "To-ma-kus"), the man who would later be named as
   Whitman's murderer. According to Kane's travel report, the relations
   between the Cayuse and the settlers at the mission were already
   strained by the time of his visit in July.
   Kane crossed the Rocky Mountains twice in winter. (Field sketch by
   Kane, 1846.)
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   Kane crossed the Rocky Mountains twice in winter. (Field sketch by
   Kane, 1846.)

   Kane continued with one guide by horseback through the Grande Coulée to
   Fort Colville, where he stayed for six weeks, sketching and painting
   the natives who had set up a fishing camp below Kettle Falls at this
   time of the Salmon run. On September 22, 1847, Kane assumed command of
   a canoe brigade up the Columbia river and arrived on October 10 at Boat
   Encampment. There, the party had to wait for three weeks until a badly
   delayed horse trek from Jasper arrived. Then they switched, the horse
   team taking over the canoes and going down the Columbia river again and
   Kane's group loading their cargo on the horses and taking them back
   over Athabasca Pass. They managed to bring all 56 horses safe and
   without loss to Jasper's House despite the heavy snow and intense cold.
   As the canoes that should have been awaiting them had already left,
   they were forced to set out on snowshoes and with a dog sled to Fort
   Assiniboine, where they arrived after much hardship and without food
   two weeks later. After a few days' rest, they continued to Fort
   Edmonton, where they spent the winter.

   Kane passed the time at the fort with Buffalo hunting and also sketched
   among the Cree living in the vicinity. In January he undertook an
   excursion to Fort Pitt, some 200 miles down the Saskatchewan River, and
   then returned to Edmonton. In April he visited Rocky Mountain House,
   where he wanted to meet Blackfoot. When these did not turn up, he
   returned to Edmonton.

Going back east

   The second Fort Edmonton was constructed on the high ground above the
   North Saskatchewan River after the first fort, which had been located
   on the river banks, had been flooded several times.
   Enlarge
   The second Fort Edmonton was constructed on the high ground above the
   North Saskatchewan River after the first fort, which had been located
   on the river banks, had been flooded several times.

   On May 25, 1848, Kane left Fort Edmonton, travelling with a large party
   of 23 boats and 130 people bound for York Factory, led by John Edward
   Harriott. On June 1 they met with a large war party of some 1,500
   warriors of Blackfoot and other tribes who were planning a raid against
   the Cree and Assiniboine. On that occasion Kane met the Blackfoot chief
   Big Snake ( Omoxesisixany). The canoe brigade stayed as briefly as
   possible and then continued hastily down the river. On June 18 they
   arrived at Norway House, where Kane stayed for a month, waiting for the
   annual meeting of the chief factors of the Hudson's Bay Company and the
   arrival of the party with which he was bound to travel further. On July
   24 he departed with the party of one Major McKenzie; they travelled
   along the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg to Fort Alexander. From there
   on Kane followed the same route he had taken two years earlier going
   west: by the Lake of the Woods, Fort Frances, and Rainy Lake, he
   travelled by canoe to Fort William and then along the northern shore of
   Lake Superior until he reached Sault Ste. Marie on October 1, 1848.
   From there he returned by steamboat to Toronto, where he landed on
   October 13. He noted in his book on this last leg of his journey: "the
   greatest hardship that I had to endure [now] was the difficulty in
   trying to sleep in a civilized bed".

Life in Toronto

   Paul Kane, c. 1850
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   Paul Kane, c. 1850

   Kane now permanently settled in Toronto; he went west only once more
   when he was hired by a British party in 1849 as a guide and
   interpreter, but they only went as far as the Red River Settlement. An
   exhibition of 240 of his sketches in November 1848 in Toronto met with
   great success, and a second exhibition in September 1852 showing eight
   oil canvases was also received favourably. George William Allan took
   note of the artist and became his most important patron, commissioning
   one hundred oil paintings for the price of C$20,000 in 1852, which
   effectively enabled Kane to live a life as a professional artist. Kane
   also succeeded in 1851 to convince the Canadian Parliament to
   commission twelve paintings for the sum of GBP500, which he delivered
   in late 1856.

   In 1853, Kane married Harriet Clench (1823–92), the daughter of his
   former employer at Cobourg. David Wilson, a contemporary historian of
   the University of Toronto, reported that she was a skilled painter and
   writer herself. They had four children, two sons and two daughters.

   Until 1857, Kane fulfilled his commissions: more than 120 oil canvases
   for Allan, the Parliament, and Simpson. His works were shown at the
   World's Fair at Paris in 1855, where they were reviewed very
   positively, and some of them were even sent to Buckingham Palace in
   1858 for consideration by the Queen. By that time Kane had also
   prepared a manuscript derived from his travel notes and sent to a
   publishing house in London for publication. When he did not hear back
   from them, he travelled to London himself, and with the support of
   Simpson got the book published the next year. It had the title
   Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America from Canada
   to Vancouver's Island and Oregon through the Hudson's Bay Company's
   Territory and Back Again and was originally published by Longman,
   Brown, Green, Longmans & Roberts in London in 1859, beautifully
   illustrated with many lithographies of his own sketches and paintings.
   Kane had dedicated the book to Allan, which upset Simpson considerably
   such that he broke off his relations with Kane. The book was an
   immediate success and had appeared by 1863 in French, Danish, and
   German editions.

   Kane's eyesight was failing rapidly in the 1860s and forced him to
   abandon painting altogether. Frederick Arthur Verner, who had been
   inspired by Kane and himself an artist of "western" scenes, became an
   acquaintance and friend. Verner did three portraits of the ageing Paul
   Kane, one of which is today also at the Royal Ontario Museum. Kane died
   unexpectedly one winter morning in his home, just having gotten back
   from his daily walk. He is buried at the St. James Cemetery in Toronto.

Works

   Field sketch of a Flathead baby     Field sketch of a Cowlitz woman (Caw
                                       Wacham)
   Two field sketches of Paul Kane.
   (Click the images for larger views.)
   Flathead woman and child (Caw Wacham), 1848–53, and the two field
   sketches Kane combined in this painting, illustrating the artistic
   liberties he allowed himself when elaborating the sketches into oil
   canvases.
   Enlarge
   Flathead woman and child (Caw Wacham), 1848–53, and the two field
   sketches Kane combined in this painting, illustrating the artistic
   liberties he allowed himself when elaborating the sketches into oil
   canvases.

   The bulk of Kane's oeuvre are the more than 700 sketches he made during
   his two voyages to the west and the more than one hundred oil canvases
   he later elaborated from them in his studio in Toronto. Of his early
   portraits done at York or Cobourg before his travels, Harper writes,
   "[they] are primitive in approach but have a direct appeal and a warm
   colouring that make them attractive". The rest are an unknown number of
   paintings from his time as an itinerant portraitist in the United
   States, plus a number of copies of classic paintings he did while in
   Europe.

   Kane's fame rests in his depictions of Native American life. His field
   sketches were done in pencil, watercolour, or oil on paper. He also
   brought back from his trips a collection of various artefacts such as
   masks, pipe stems, and other handicrafts. Together, these formed the
   basis for his later studio work. He drew on this pool of impressions
   for his large oil canvases, in which he typically combined or
   reinterpreted them to create new compositions. The field sketches are a
   valuable resource for ethnologists, but the oil paintings, while still
   truthful in the individual details of Native American lifestyle, are
   often unfaithful to geographic, historic, or ethnographic settings in
   their overall compositions.

   One well-known example of this process is Kane's painting Flathead
   woman and child, in which he combined a sketch of a Chinookan baby
   having its head flattened by being strapped to a cradle board with a
   later field portrait of a Cowlitz woman living in a different region.
   Another example of how Kane elaborated his sketches can be seen in his
   painting Indian encampment on Lake Huron, which is based on a sketch
   taken in summer 1845 during his first trip to Sault Ste. Marie. The
   painting has a distinct romantic flair accentuated by the lighting and
   the dramatic clouds, while the scene of the camp life depicted is
   reminiscent of a European idealized rural peasant scene.
   Indian encampment on Lake Huron, 1848–50. Oil painting after the field
   sketch from 1845 shown above.
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   Indian encampment on Lake Huron, 1848–50. Oil painting after the field
   sketch from 1845 shown above.

   Indeed, Kane often created completely fictitious scenes from several
   sketches for his oil paintings. His oil canvas of Mount St. Helens
   erupting shows a major and dramatic volcanic eruption, but from his
   travel diary and the field sketches he made, it is evident that the
   mountain had only been smoking gently at the time of Kane's visit. (It
   had, however, erupted three years earlier.) In other paintings he
   combined river sketches taken at different times and places into one
   painting, creating an artificial landscape that does not exist in
   reality. His painting of The Death of Big Snake shows an entirely
   imaginary scene: the Blackfoot chief Omoxesisixany died only in 1858,
   more than two years after the painting was completed.

   His models were the classic European paintings, but Kane also had plain
   economic reasons for composing his oil paintings in the more mannered
   style of the European art tradition. He wanted and had to sell his
   paintings to make a living, and he knew his clientele well enough: his
   patrons were unlikely to decorate their homes with unadorned copies in
   oil of his field sketches; they demanded something more presentable and
   closer to the generally Eurocentric expectations of the time.
   Assiniboine hunting buffalo, 1851–56, an oil painting exemplifying the
   strong influence of European classic art conventions on Kane's studio
   work.
   Enlarge
   Assiniboine hunting buffalo, 1851–56, an oil painting exemplifying the
   strong influence of European classic art conventions on Kane's studio
   work.

   Kane's embellishment is evident in his painting Assiniboine hunting
   buffalo, one of the twelve done for the parliament. The painting has
   been criticized for its horses, which look more like Arabians than any
   Indian breed. The composition has even been found to be a based on an
   1816 engraving from Italy showing two Romans hunting a bull. Already in
   1877, Nicholas Flood Davin commented on this discrepancy, stating that
   "the Indian horses are Greek horses, the hills have much of the colour
   and form of those of [...] the early European landscape painters, ..."
   And Lawrence J. Burpee added in his introduction to the 1925 reprint of
   Kane's travel book that the sketches were "truer interpretations of the
   wild western life" and had "in some respects a higher value as art".
   Twentieth century and later art theory is less judging than Burpee but
   agrees insofar as Kane's field sketches are generally considered more
   accurate and authentic. "Kane was the recorder in the field and the
   artist in the studio", write Davis and Thacker.

   Kane is generally considered a classic and one of the most important
   Canadian painters. The eleven surviving paintings done for the
   parliament were transferred in 1955 to the National Gallery of Canada.
   The large Allan collection was bought by Edmund Boyd Osler in 1903 and
   donated to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto in 1912. A collection of
   229 sketches was sold by Kane's grandson Paul Kane III for about
   US$100,000 to the Stark Museum of Art in Orange, Texas, in 1957.
   The Surveyor: Portrait of Captain John Henry Lefroy, ca. 1845, sold at
   a record price of more than 5 million Canadian dollars in 2002. The
   painting is sometimes also called Scene in the Northwest.
   Enlarge
   The Surveyor: Portrait of Captain John Henry Lefroy, ca. 1845, sold at
   a record price of more than 5 million Canadian dollars in 2002. The
   painting is sometimes also called Scene in the Northwest.

   A rare painting of his showing British surveyor John Henry Lefroy,
   which had been in possession of the Lefroy family in England, garnered
   a record price at an auction at Sotheby's in Toronto on February 25,
   2002, when Canadian billionaire Kenneth Thomson won the bid at
   C$5,062,500 including the buyer's premium (US$3,172,567.50 at the
   time). Thomson subsequently donated the painting as part of his Thomson
   Collection to the Art Gallery of Ontario. The Glenbow Museum in Calgary
   has a copy of this painting that is thought to have been done by Kane's
   wife Harriet Clench. Another auction at Sotheby's on November 22, 2004,
   for Kane's oil painting Encampment, Winnipeg River (after the field
   sketch shown above) failed when bidding stopped at C$1.7 million, less
   than the expected sale price of C$2–2.5 million.

   Kane's travel report, published originally in London in 1859, was a
   great success already in its time and has been reprinted several times
   in the twentieth century. In 1986 Dawkins criticized Kane's work based
   mainly on this travel account, but also on the "European" nature of his
   oil paintings, as showing the imperialistic or even racist tendencies
   of the artist. This view remains rather singular among art historians.
   Kane's travel diary, which formed the basis for the 1859 book, does not
   contain any pejorative judgements. MacLaren reported that Kane's travel
   notes were written in a style very different from the published text,
   such that it must be considered highly likely that the book was heavily
   edited by others or even ghostwritten to turn Kane's notes into a
   Victorian travel account, and that it was thus difficult at best to
   ascribe any perceived racism to the artist himself.

Legacy and influence

   As one of the first Canadian painters who could earn a living from his
   artwork alone, Kane prepared the ground for many later artists. His
   travels inspired others to similar journeys, and a very direct artistic
   influence is evident in the case of F. A. Verner, whose mentor Kane
   became in his later years. According to Harper, the early Lucius
   O'Brien was also influenced by Kane's work. Kane's 1848 exhibition of
   his sketches, which included 155 watercolour and 85 oil on paper
   paintings, helped establish the genre in the minds of the public and
   cleared the way for artists like William Cresswell or Daniel Fowler,
   who both were able to make a living from their watercolour paintings.

   Both his 1848 exhibition of the sketches and the later 1852 show of
   some of his oil paintings were great success and lauded by several
   newspapers. Kane was the most prominent painter in Upper Canada in his
   time. He frequently entered his paintings at art exhibitions and won
   numerous prizes for his works. He dominated the scene throughout the
   1850s, even to the point where an art jury all but presented their
   excuses when they did not award him the prize in the category for
   historical paintings at the annual exhibition of the Upper Canada
   Agricultural Society in 1852. (Kane won that prize consecutively in all
   years until 1859, though.)

   Kane was one of the first, if not the first, tourist to travel across
   the Canadian west and the Pacific north-west. Through his sketches and
   paintings, and later also his book, the public at large in Upper and
   Lower Canada for the first time caught a glimpse of the peoples and
   their lifestyles in this vast and barely known territory. Kane had set
   out with a sincere desire to accurately portray his experiences—the
   landscape, the people, their tools. Yet it was primarily his
   embellished studio work that gained public appeal and made him famous.
   His idealized oil paintings and the similarly transformed travel notes
   that became his book were both a factor in the establishment and
   spreading of the perception of the North American indigenous people as
   Noble savages, contrary to what the artist had intended. The more
   truthful field sketches were "rediscovered" and valued by a wider
   audience only in the twentieth century.
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