Stories for the Public, 1830–1860

George Caleb Bingham (American, 1811–1879)
The Jolly Flatboatmen, 1846
Oil on canvas; 38 1/8 x 48 1/2 in. (96.8 x 123.2 cm)
Manoogian Collection

From his easel in Missouri, Bingham sent this painting to an exhibition in New York, knowing full well that it would invite his eastern audience to fantasize about the joys of frontier life. The cheerful scene shows boatmen making merry on the peaceful river: one man dances while another fiddles and a third sets the rhythm by beating on a cooking pan. Modern-day counterparts of mythical Arcadian shepherds, Bingham's men do not toil but rather spend their days drifting lazily, waiting for the moments when they need to work. Bingham thus recast the wild and dangerous frontier as a setting for an escapist narrative. The mythic West is a paradise, a realm of natural leisure far removed from the hurly-burly of the increasingly industrialized East, with its racially divided and politically fraught cities.