March 7, 2012
John Taylor vs. Howling Wolf Treaty Signing at Medicine Creek Lodge
When looking at the two images of John Taylor and Howling Wolf’s views on the way the treaty signing of 1867 happened we can begin to see the way both represented their own view. In my opinion, John Taylor represented the treaty signing better in the eyes of all of us. He may of used only black and white for his painting, but the distinguishing lines that help form both the figures and nature are much clearer. In John Taylor’s picture I can tell that it is a meeting of some kind. The way that all the men are sitting around as one man stands in the middle with his hand up almost as if he is addressing the group with some serious news. Taylor allows you to see the faces of these men and the different facial looks of interest they all had. Howling Wolf on the other hand showed the backs of those watching and only a poor side view of the men standing. Wolfs painting looks more like the end of a meeting gone bad. You can see two men trying to get a horse to come to them. The horse standing firm as not to go near them, almost to say even the horse was standing its ground away from the men. Then you see two other men with something, maybe a pen, in his hand. From the face of this man with the object he looks like he is handing the pen off to a man that we cannot see the face of. To me I wonder if Howling Wolf had problems with the signing of the treaty and used his abstract ways to show it. I believe that Howling Wolfs drawing was much more abstract than that of John Taylor. From his bright colors to his use of lines on his painting was much more abstract. From the green trees that are not defined with any detail to the outlines of the back of women. Only to those that know about the culture would even now that the red line in the hair meant that the figures were women that Plain warriors had committed to. There is not much definition to the drawings of the