Traditionally, academics have studied the visual arts as objects created within a specific historical development and within specific stylistic contexts. Art history is the study of human-made products or human-created live performance pieces that express visually aesthetic or communicative ideas, emotions or even political viewpoints. In other words, academics study how the visual arts reflect time and place.
Is this the only way we can study the visual arts? When you think about it, aren’t art objects often revealing historic events? If so, can’t the arts (all forms of creative expression) also serve as a means to study history? Alan Gowans suggested that one cannot study the history of art without also studying the history in art. He based his theory on the premise that, within each work of art, there are historical elements of the society, the culture and the experience of the artist who produced it. Consider a work of art as being an expression of the artist’s ideas, thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and so on. It is that and so much more. If we agree that art is expressing someone else’s thought processes, then it follows that we accept the arts as a form of communication. As such, the arts are telling the viewer something, both aesthetically and historically.
The concept that art is a form of communication leads to the conclusion that art is a language. It is the key to unlocking the mysterious messages of the creator’s visual creation.
Art objects are the product of the historical period in which they are produced. Here are some questions to get you started on analyzing these types of resources:
What is the purpose of the object? To teach, to criticize, to advocate for change? Reflect emotion of the event?
What does the object convey about this period of history? What events may have influenced the production of the work? Think contextually beyond the battle itself. What "emotions" or subconscious themes are captured in the art work?
What does the object convey about the society which produced it?
Is this the only way we can study the visual arts? When you think about it, aren’t art objects often revealing historic events? If so, can’t the arts (all forms of creative expression) also serve as a means to study history? Alan Gowans suggested that one cannot study the history of art without also studying the history in art. He based his theory on the premise that, within each work of art, there are historical elements of the society, the culture and the experience of the artist who produced it. Consider a work of art as being an expression of the artist’s ideas, thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and so on. It is that and so much more. If we agree that art is expressing someone else’s thought processes, then it follows that we accept the arts as a form of communication. As such, the arts are telling the viewer something, both aesthetically and historically.
The concept that art is a form of communication leads to the conclusion that art is a language. It is the key to unlocking the mysterious messages of the creator’s visual creation.
Art objects are the product of the historical period in which they are produced. Here are some questions to get you started on analyzing these types of resources:
What is the purpose of the object? To teach, to criticize, to advocate for change? Reflect emotion of the event?
What does the object convey about this period of history? What events may have influenced the production of the work? Think contextually beyond the battle itself. What "emotions" or subconscious themes are captured in the art work?
What does the object convey about the society which produced it?
Perhaps the most famous of the Little Bighorn artwork, this lithograph was produced by Budweiser Beer and distributed free to bars and saloons across the country. Its wide distribution helped cement an image of the battle in the minds of many Americans. Many inaccuracies (like the Zulu war shields) did not distract from its popularity.
"Custer's Last Fight," by Otto Becker 1896
"Custer's Last Fight," by Otto Becker 1896
"Custer's Last Rally," by John Mulvany 1881
The massive print (nearly 20 feet long) was the first large scale art of the battle and moved Walt Whitman to write about it. See below.
The massive print (nearly 20 feet long) was the first large scale art of the battle and moved Walt Whitman to write about it. See below.
Walt Whitman Reacts to John Mulvany's "Custer's Last Rally"
WENT to-day to see this just-finish’d painting by John Mulvany, who has been out in far Dakota, on the spot, at the forts, and among the frontiersmen, soldiers and Indians, for the last two years, on purpose to sketch it in from reality, or the best that could be got of it. Sat for over an hour before the picture, completely absorb’d in the first view. A vast canvas, I should say twenty or twenty-two feet by twelve, all crowded, and yet not crowded, conveying such a vivid play of color, it takes a 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, over-whelming, needs good nerves to look at it. Forty or fifty figures, perhaps more, in full finish and detail in the mid-ground, 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 a hurricane of demons. A dozen of the figures are wonderful. Altogether a western, autochthonic phase of America, the frontiers, culminating, typical, deadly, heroic to the uttermost—nothing in the books like it, nothing in Homer, nothing in Shakspere; more grim and sublime than either, all native, all our own, and all a fact. A great lot of muscular, tan-faced men, brought to bay under terrible circumstances—death a hold of them, yet every man undaunted, 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 a huge cavalry pistol. Captain Cook is there, partially wounded, blood on the white handkerchief around his head, aiming his carbine coolly, half kneeling—(his body was afterwards found close by Custer’s.) The slaughter’d or half-slaughter’d horses, for breastworks, make a peculiar feature. Two dead Indians. herculean, lie in the foreground, clutching their Winchester rifles, very characteristic. The many soldiers, their faces and attitudes, the carbines, the broad-brimm’d western hats, the powder-smoke in puffs, 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, dreadful, yet with an attraction and beauty that will remain in my memory. With all its color and fierce action, a certain Greek continence pervades it. A sunny sky and clear light envelop all. There is an almost entire absence of the stock traits of European war pictures. The physiognomy of the work is realistic and Western. I only saw it for an hour or so; but it needs to be seen many times—needs to be studied over and over again. I could look on such a work at brief intervals all my life without tiring; it is very tonic to me; then it has an ethic purpose below all, as all great art must have. The artist said the sending of the picture abroad, probably to London, had been talk’d of. I advised him if it went abroad to take it to Paris. I think they might appreciate it there—nay, they certainly would. Then I would like to show Messieur Crapeau that some things can be done in America as well as others.
from Walt Whitman, Prose Works. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1892.
WENT to-day to see this just-finish’d painting by John Mulvany, who has been out in far Dakota, on the spot, at the forts, and among the frontiersmen, soldiers and Indians, for the last two years, on purpose to sketch it in from reality, or the best that could be got of it. Sat for over an hour before the picture, completely absorb’d in the first view. A vast canvas, I should say twenty or twenty-two feet by twelve, all crowded, and yet not crowded, conveying such a vivid play of color, it takes a 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, over-whelming, needs good nerves to look at it. Forty or fifty figures, perhaps more, in full finish and detail in the mid-ground, 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 a hurricane of demons. A dozen of the figures are wonderful. Altogether a western, autochthonic phase of America, the frontiers, culminating, typical, deadly, heroic to the uttermost—nothing in the books like it, nothing in Homer, nothing in Shakspere; more grim and sublime than either, all native, all our own, and all a fact. A great lot of muscular, tan-faced men, brought to bay under terrible circumstances—death a hold of them, yet every man undaunted, 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 a huge cavalry pistol. Captain Cook is there, partially wounded, blood on the white handkerchief around his head, aiming his carbine coolly, half kneeling—(his body was afterwards found close by Custer’s.) The slaughter’d or half-slaughter’d horses, for breastworks, make a peculiar feature. Two dead Indians. herculean, lie in the foreground, clutching their Winchester rifles, very characteristic. The many soldiers, their faces and attitudes, the carbines, the broad-brimm’d western hats, the powder-smoke in puffs, 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, dreadful, yet with an attraction and beauty that will remain in my memory. With all its color and fierce action, a certain Greek continence pervades it. A sunny sky and clear light envelop all. There is an almost entire absence of the stock traits of European war pictures. The physiognomy of the work is realistic and Western. I only saw it for an hour or so; but it needs to be seen many times—needs to be studied over and over again. I could look on such a work at brief intervals all my life without tiring; it is very tonic to me; then it has an ethic purpose below all, as all great art must have. The artist said the sending of the picture abroad, probably to London, had been talk’d of. I advised him if it went abroad to take it to Paris. I think they might appreciate it there—nay, they certainly would. Then I would like to show Messieur Crapeau that some things can be done in America as well as others.
from Walt Whitman, Prose Works. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1892.
Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show featured a reenactment of the battle as one of its headline acts. As such, he produced a series of posters that advertised the episode and are considered art in their own right.
This one is circa 1904
This one is circa 1904
Buffalo Bill wasn't the only person to use the battle to make money. Here, an Dr. M.A. Simmon's attempted to sell his "Liver Medicine" with imagery of the battle.
Circa 1896
Circa 1896
Here is another movie poster from only 3 years later (circa 1912). The film can be seen in its entirety on the film section of this site.
"Custer's Last Fight," by J. Steeple Davis, 1899
"Battle on the Little Big Horn River - Death Struggle of General Custer," by William M. Cary
published in the New York Daily Graphic, July 19, 1876
"Custer's Last Charge," Harry T. Peters 1876
"Last Stand," Frederic Remington 1890
"Custer's Last Charge," Frederic Remington 1896