George Caleb Bingham

1811 - 1879 • American • Painter • Romantic/Genre

"... in dress, habit, costume, association, mind, and every other particular, [the boatmen] are an anomaly . ... Mr. Bingham has struck out for himself an entire new field of historic painting, if we may so term it. He has taken our western rivers, our boats and boatmen, and the banks of the streams for his subject. The field is as interesting as it is novel." - Missouri Republican, Nov. 27, 1847

Twenty years before Mark Twain wrote his famous stories, Bingham chronicled life on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. In luminous color and lively scenes, Bingham portrayed the fur traders and bargemen who transported raw materials and produce to market. It was, as the reviewer quoted above remarked, a new subject. That was also true of The Country Election ( 1851-52), a crowded scene of activity where men (there are no women, as they did not yet vote) jostle one another, drink alcohol, electioneer, and carry on as a cross section of the population is wont to do in a carnival-like atmosphere. Whether Bingham meant the painting as an accolade, a CARICATURE or an objective look at democracy in operation is left to the viewer to decide.