Ralph Albert Blakelock (1847–1919) was an American artist. Blakelock's landscapes are often discussed within American Romantic painting and Tonalism. Woodland settings, subdued colour and concentrated light recur in that broader context. The museum's account of Ghost Dance cautions against treating it as a direct record made at the event: the painting drew on imagery circulating after the artist's western travels. That distinction allows the picture to be considered as an imaginative painted construction, with its atmosphere and arrangement carrying the encounter.
Blakelock’s Ghost Dance draws on images of the American West circulating in papers and magazines. He had last travelled west in the early 1870s, more than twenty years before this painting. The scene joins remembered and mediated imagery with a strongly atmospheric painted landscape.
The selected pictures
Ghost Dance: A wooded landscape glows around a gathering beneath the trees. Blakelock uses deep foliage, warm light and indistinct figures to give the scene its visionary atmosphere.
A painted surface offers more than a collection of depicted objects. Changes in the density of colour, the direction of a brush mark and the softness of an edge help establish where the eye pauses and where it moves on. A dark passage can give a neighbouring light greater presence; a barely stated form can connect two more solid ones. Compare the main subject with one quieter area around it, then return to the whole arrangement. This approach makes colour and handling part of the encounter, alongside the narrative or landscape that the painting brings into view.
Looking closely
Woodland, warm light and figures that emerge gradually from deep surrounding colour.
Begin with the largest forms, then follow the smaller marks that connect them. In Ghost Dance, compare the subject with the space around it and the way light moves between them. Return to the complete picture after looking at a detail: its effect depends on the relationship of those parts, and the arrangement often reveals something different on a second visit.
Art to live with.
Fine-art prints on 200 gsm paper. Choose unframed or explore the available frame finishes, in a size that suits your space.
