Nishnabottana Bluffs, Upper Missouri

George Catlin, born Wilkes-Barre, PA 1796-died Jersey City, NJ 1872 · 1832

George Catlin often adopted an aerial vantage point for his landscapes. During his Missouri River voyage of 1832, Catlin stretched out “in the grass on a favourite bluff” and envisioned the world from above: “I was lifted up upon an imaginary pair of wings, which . . . held me floating in the open air, from whence I could behold beneath me the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans---the great cities of the East, and the mighty rivers.”