An Indian Encampment

Ralph Albert Blakelock

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In his early twenties, Blakelock, a native New Yorker best known for his moonlight scenes, made a trip to the West that stimulated his interest in the American wilderness and indigenous peoples. In this later painting, tiny figures of men and horses are set intimately in a rough clearing around an encampment. The coarse textures of the trees and scrubby bushes derive from Blakelock’s experimental practice of painting in thick layers that were later smoothed down with a pumice stone. This unusual technique contributed to the enigmatic mood of the artist’s work.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art