Bodmer_Publication

The production of the prints leads to frictions between Bodmer and Wied, who
signals clearly that Bodmer is spending his, Wied’s, money too freely. The financial
disputes last for years. Bodmer, on his part, claims, at least occasionally, that the
project has hindered him in the development of his artistic career. The two paths
that had merged in the North American journey, thus, separate again. Wied writes
smaller works on natural history, making use of the observations on his travels.
He takes a lively part in scientific discussions on the results of his two expeditions
and similar enterprises by other explorers. He leads the contemplative life of an
aristocratic scholar – one should not forget that he was fifty when he set out for
North America, and sixty when the series of illustrations was being published.
Bodmer, more than a quarter century younger, still has to make his mark as an
artist, beyond the topic of “America.” He settles in Paris, where he establishes himself
as a realist painter of landscapes and animals, and gains acclaim as an illustrator
of books. He lives in Barbizon, but remains on the margins of the Barbizon
School itself. His painting is popular in ways that perhaps strike us to day as conventional
or even trite. At the same time, we cannot exclude the possibility that,
presently, nineteenth-century realistic painting may actually be undergoing
a revaluation. This would entail a revaluation of precisely that appeal to the
audience’s sentiments that sometimes strikes us as sentimental. Should this be
the case, we might ultimately learn to see the late Bodmer with different eyes.
At present, however, the most highly prized Bodmer is still the “Indian Bodmer.”
It is in this role that he had his greatest impact and it is in this capacity that he is
inextricably linked with the development of the image of the American Indian, the
historical consequences of which we are so aware of today – often critically. His
prints were reissued more than once, they were often markedly altered and sometimes
unscrupulously exploited. But it would be wrong to say that all reprints were
mere vulgarizations. In some cases they served serious scientific pursuit and
knowledge mediation such as in the case Hans Rudolf Schinz’s Natural History,
which was produced and printed in Zurich. 6
Notes
1 Wied [-Neuwied] 1820 – 1821
2 Wied 1850: 98 – 99
3 Not “Meier” as he is often spelled
in the literature on Bodmer.
4 For the distinction between
tableaux and vignettes, see below.
5 See the contributions by Peter Bolz
and Sonja Schierle in this
volume.
6 See the contribution on Schinz
by Peter Bolz in this volume.
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