A Surround

Miller repeated this scene for his patron Alexander Brown in 1867.  It was essentially the same as his watercolor, A “Surround” of Buffalo by Indians (CR# 352F) painted about a decade earlier for William Walters, except here he has omitted a group of Indian women viewing the activity from a promontory in the lower left corner of the composition.  These interlocutor figures somehow assist the viewer in making sense of the scale of the pictured scene were as this variation, because of its complexity of multiple independent actions taking place makes it more difficult for the viewer to find an easy starting point to enter the pictorial melee.  

In his summary account for the Brown version, Miller recounts the excitement of what he had beheld. “The activity, native grace, and self-possession of the Indians, the intelligence of their well trained horses, and the thousands of Buffalo moving in every direction over the broad and vast prairies, form a most extraordinary and unparalleled scene.” (Bell, 160)          

Peter H. Hassrick