Bierstadt & Bison: An Ecocritical Approach

Known as Bierstadt’s last great western painting, The Last of the Buffalo, was in many ways a critical failure. Tastes of the time were shifting away from romanticized visions of the West. Today, distaste for these kinds of fantasies is even stronger. Bierstadt’s painting, meant to represent the eradication of American bison, depicts a bison herd at battle with Plains Indians – highlighted through the central violent clash of a loinclothed warrior spearing a bull while on horseback. Despite the large herd, the landscape is dotted with bison skulls reminding viewers of their impending destruction. The painting is clearly a problematic one, making claims for the lasting of indigenous Americans alongside the bison, as theorized by Jean O’Brien. Create the year after the Dawes Act, the painting is practically a visual incarnation of the intertwined destructive federal bison and Indian policies.

It is hard to argue that Bierstadt’s painting references anything other than settler colonial logic. While the painting teaches little about actual Plains Indian culture, it may still reveal something about the ecology of the Great Plains. Hiding within the bison herd are coyote and deer. A game trail, likely used for decades by generations of bison, leads viewers into the frame. As problematic as it is, Bierstadt’s painting also speaks to the ecological importance of bison to the Plains ecosystem. This paper asks what lessons can be learned about the painting, about bison, about the Plains, and about settler colonial logic when looked at through an ecocritical lens.