1896
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Ghost Dance (The Vision of Life) is a 1896 oil by Ralph Albert Blakelock, a Hudson River School Movement work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
You see a dark forest at night, moonlight cutting through the trees like silver knives. Tiny figures dance in a circle, their bodies almost swallowed by shadows. Blakelock painted this around 1890, when the U.S. government was trying to stop Native American Ghost Dance ceremonies. The dances were a way to resist oppression and hope for a better future. The painting feels quiet, like a secret moment. If you like how the light and dark play here, look up *chiaroscuro*.
The Ghost Dance, or “Messiah Craze” as the press called it, fused elements of Native American religions and Christianity to express ideas about the resurrection and rejuvenation of indigenous cultures. An assertion of Native American pride and empowerment in the late 1880s, these ceremonies drew the attention of ethnographers and aroused the suspicions of United States government and military officials. After the murders of Big Foot and Sitting Bull and the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, the Ghost Dance became part of the mythology of the vanishing Indian. In Ralph Blakelock’s murky,…
Ralph Albert Blakelock and Cora Bailey Blakelock (1857–1950); sold to William S. Hurley, New York and Brooklyn, NY, by 1909 [“Masterpiece by Blakelock to Be Sold by Anderson Galleries,” American Art News 20, no. 21 (Mar. 4, 1922), 6; Seattle 1909, cat. 358]; Moulton & Ricketts, Chicago, about 1911 [ American Art News 20, no. 21 (Mar. 4, 1922), 6]; Charles P. Pinckard (1864–1920), Chicago, by Oct. 1912 [James William Pattison, “The Art of Blakelock,” Fine Arts Journal 27, no. 4 (Oct. 1912), 641]. Joseph G. Snydacker (1865–1920), Chicago, by Dec. 1913 [Elliott Daingerfield, “Ralph Albert…
Seattle, Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, June 1–Oct. 16, 1909, cat. 358, as Ghost Dance . Chicago, Moulton & Ricketts Galleries, Loan Exhibition of Important Works by George Inness, Alexander Wyant, Ralph Blakelock , Mar. 10–22, 1913, pl. 52, as The Ghost Dance . Art Institute of Chicago, Friends of American Art, Loan Exhibition of American Paintings , Jan. 8–28, 1914, cat. 99. Chicago, Galleries of Henry Reinhardt & Son, Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Ralph Albert Blakelock , Apr. 24–May 6, 1916, cat. 17. Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress: Exhibition of Paintings and…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Ralph Albert Blakelock was a romanticist American painter known primarily for his landscape paintings related to the Tonalism movement.
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