Indian Attack

Eugene Benson's Indian Attack is an imagined scene of assorted figures engaged in fighting off an attack by Indians from within a rustic structure. A bearded, manly figure, his arm upraised as he rams powder down the barrel of a rifle, dominates the group. On his left, a woman and a black man aim their weapons through a low window that offers a glimpse of a nearly naked warlike figure rushing by on horseback, his spear uplifted. On the leader's other side, a boy draws up a bucket of water handed to him by a figure in a frontiersman's raccoon-skin cap, seen from the back as he emerges from below by means of a ladder. At the far left, another man is ready with a similar bucket as he glances overhead toward an unseen fire from which sparks shower down. A crouching, baying dog seconds their efforts and adds to the scene's evocation of tense excitement. The walls of the crude interior are hung with weapons and animal antlers as well as a shelf bearing cooking implements, all suggesting the struggling existence of settlers in the American wilderness.

In mid-nineteenth-century America, fantasies of the remote frontier were fueled by such histrionic portrayals. Like travel accounts and fiction, engraved images (often based on paintings) were circulated in the popular press to an eager, urbanized readership. Side by side with romanticized notions of a "dying race," stereotypes of Indians as bloodthirsty and merciless bolstered the dogma of Manifest Destiny, by which white citizens of the United States justified their claims to control and occupy the West regardless of native peoples' prior claims. Benson's painting reflects on other, equally pressing issues in the late 1850s, however. It focuses not on the Indian attackers but on the united efforts of those contained within the beleaguered frontier outpost. They represent a cross-section of the American population: the bearded stalwart leader and his fair-haired son are of northern European stock; the man at the far left is marked by his clothing as a newly arrived immigrant; and the African origins of the black man are underscored by his stereotypical earring and bare chest. The courageous frontier wife, meanwhile, is an active participant in the battle—indeed, the only one actually firing a weapon. Painted at a time when controversy over the extension of slavery into Western territories was paving the way to civil war, Benson's evocation of America's diverse races, generations, and genders united in a common struggle is an allegory of national union.

Indian Attack was a product of Benson's student days in New York City. During that period, when he was also beginning to write the art criticism for which he would be best known, he undoubtedly was well-versed in the kind of subjects and style in demand for illustrations in the popular press. Indeed, Indian Attack may have been made in response to a text and with an eye to publication. It follows the conventions of popular narrative art of its day: easy "readability," high drama, and a clear moral stance. The shallow, stage-like interior space into which the figures are crowded is a common setting for mid-nineteenth-century American genre painting (scenes of everyday life). This work also demonstrates Benson's awareness of art history in the pose of the commanding central figure, which is derived from Renaissance precedent.

New Faces, New Places: Recent Additions to the Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, October 14–December 31, 2000.

Héroïque et le quotidien: les artistes américains, 1820–1920 (The Extraordinary and the Everyday: American Perspectives, 1820–1920), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–November 30, 2001. [exh. cat.]

American Classics: Selections from the Terra Foundation for the Arts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, July 12–September 1, 2002.

A Place on the Avenue: Terra Museum of American Art Celebrates 15 Years in Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 16, 2002–February 16, 2003.

Home Front: Daily Life in the Civil War North, Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois and The Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venue: The Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois, September 26, 2013–March 24, 2014. [exh. cat.]

The Magazine Antiques 153:5 (May 1998): 658. Ill. p. 658 (color).

Brownlee, Peter John, Sarah Burns, Diane Dillon, Daniel Greene, and Scott Manning Stevens.Home Front: Daily Life in the Civil War North with a foreword by Adam Goodheart.(exh. Cat., Terra Foundation for American Art and Newberry Library). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. Text pp. 10, 48-50, 51, 159 (checklist); Fig. 26, p. 49 (color).