Spearing by Torchlight 1854 - 1869

George Catlin made this painting, Spearing by Torchlight, sometime in the 19th century with oil on canvas. It depicts a Native American hunting scene at night, illuminated by the glow of a torch. Catlin was an American painter who dedicated much of his career to documenting the lives and customs of Native American tribes during a period of intense westward expansion in the United States. His work is fraught with the politics of imagery. On one hand, it provided a visual record of cultures facing displacement and assimilation. On the other, it participated in the romanticization of the "noble savage," a trope that was often used to justify colonial policies. To truly understand the image, it is crucial to consider the historical context in which it was created. Scholarship and archival research into government documents, personal letters, and other primary source materials would shed more light on the social conditions that shape artistic production. We see art's meaning as contingent on its time.