Catlin's North American Indian portfolio. : Hunting scenes and amusements of the Rocky Mountains and prairies of America. : From drawings and notes of the author, made during eight years' travel amongst forty-eight of the wildest and most remote tribes of savages in North America. |
TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC. |
 | Catlin's North American Indian portfolio. : |  |
TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC.
A young American artist ventures to challenge for his works that encouragement which has hitherto been ministered too sparingly to American productions.
As a nation, we have so long been reproached with inability to produce pictorial embellishments equal to the European, that, although a mistaken, it has become
a received opinion.
The enthusiastic author of the London Edition of this splendid and talented work has practically succumbed to the prevailing yet unjust prejudice, and has
carried the results of his daring genius and enterprise to a foreign mart; sending from abroad, and from the hands of European artists, an American production
in foreign habiliments to be patrouized in the author's own native land.
The Artist and publisher of the republication on this side of the water, evineing through this, his enterprise, of American Art, an abiding confidence in
the taste, judgment and liberality of his countrymen, has ventured (with a mere change of dress), to offer a cheaper, and he trusts, a better edition than the
costly London copy.
Fully equal, or greatly superior, the critical justice of the country may decide it to be. Of this favorable result, hope may tell the Artist a "flattering
tale," yet he would plead enthusiasm, without which the life and spirit of all art dies. At all events, the greater cheapness of this edition is as unquestionable, as
that its purely "American fabric" recommends it to patronage.
In fact, the Artist would contest the received opinion, that nothing pictorial can be executed in this country equal to the European productions, and would
leave his countrymen to carry out the experiment, whether it be not that patronage is alone wanting to produce originals—or republications equal if not superior
to those of all Europe.
This venture, receiving no impulse from the powerful arm of an overflowing government treasury, starts on an "Exploring Expedition" of its own, into
the waters of criticism; and, if but prosperous gales attend its return, the grateful Artist pledges his unwearied efforts to produce nothing but the best specimens
of American delineative art, wherewith to acknowledge the patronage and indulgence of his countrymen and to vindicate the capacity of our native artists.
| Catlin's North American Indian portfolio. : | |