Ghost Dance (The Vision of Life)

Arts of the Americas

1895/97

Ralph Albert Blakelock
American, 1847–1919

The Ghost Dance, or “Messiah Craze” as the press called it, fused elements of Native American religions and Christianity to express ideas about the resurrection and rejuvenation of indigenous cultures. An assertion of Native American pride and empowerment in the late 1880s, these ceremonies drew the attention of ethnographers and aroused the suspicions of United States government and military officials. After the murders of Big Foot and Sitting Bull and the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, the Ghost Dance became part of the mythology of the vanishing Indian. In Ralph Blakelock’s murky, deliberately ambiguous composition, the dancing figures appear as ghosts or shadows—insubstantial fragments of a memory or a dream. Indeed, the artist’s understanding of such performances was drawn from accounts in newspapers and magazines. He had not traveled to the West since the early 1870s, more than 20 years before painting this work.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Ralph Albert Blakelock
Title: Ghost Dance (The Vision of Life)
Place: United States (Artist's nationality)
Date: c. 1895–1897
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed, lower right: "R. A. Blakelock"
Dimensions: 53.7 × 100 cm (21 1/8 × 39 3/8 in.)
Credit Line: Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection
Reference Number: 1947.55
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James William Pattison, “The Art of Blakelock,” Fine Arts Journal 27, no. 4 (Oct. 1912): 641 (ill.).
Elliott Daingerfield, “Ralph Albert Blakelock,” Art in America 2 (Dec. 1913): 57, fig. 1 (ill.).
Elliott Daingerfield, Ralph Albert Blakelock (New York, 1914).
Elizabeth Tebow, “Ralph Blakelock’s The Vision of Life/Ghost Dance: A Hidden Chronicle,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 16, 2 (1990), 167–172.
Abraham A. Davidson, Ralph Albert Blakelock (Pennsylvania State Universtiy Press, 1996).
Glyn Vincent, The Unknown Night: The Madness and Genius of R.A. Blakelock, An American Painter (Grove Press, 2003).
Norman A. Geske, Beyond the Madness: The Art of Ralph Blakelock, 1847–1919 (University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 38, fig. 31 (ill.).

Seattle, Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, June 1–Oct. 16, 1909, cat. 358, as Ghost Dance.
Chicago, Moulton & Ricketts Galleries, Loan Exhibition of Important Works by George Inness, Alexander Wyant, Ralph Blakelock, Mar. 10–22, 1913, pl. 52, as The Ghost Dance.
Art Institute of Chicago, Friends of American Art, Loan Exhibition of American Paintings, Jan. 8–28, 1914, cat. 99.
Chicago, Galleries of Henry Reinhardt & Son, Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Ralph Albert Blakelock, Apr. 24–May 6, 1916, cat. 17.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–Nov. 1, 1933, cat. 435.
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, Survey of American Painting, Oct. 24–Dec. 15, 1940.
Lake Forest College, Ill., Durand Art Institute, A Century of American Painting: Masterpieces Loaned by The Art Institute of Chicago, June 10–16, 1957, cat. 12.
Springfield, Illinois State Museum, Nineteenth–Century American Paintings: a Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, Mar. 5–Apr. 24, 1966; Iowa, Davenport Municipal Art Gallery, May 19–June 5, 1966; Muscatine, Iowa, Laura Musser Art Gallery and Museum, July 24–Oct. 2, 1966; Peoria, Illinois, Lakeview Center for the Arts and Sciences, Nov. 30, 1966–Jan. 8, 1967.
The Art Galleries, University of California Santa Barbara, The Enigma of Ralph A. Blakelock, Jan. 7–Feb. 2, 1969; San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Feb. 15–Mar. 16, 1969; Phoenix Art Museum, Mar. 24–Apr. 27, 1969; Huntington, New York, the Heckscher Museum, May 17–June 23, 1969, cat. 88.
Grey Art Gallery, New York University, American Painting & Symbolist Aesthetics, Jan. 20–Mar. 2, 1980.
Art Institute of Chicago, Window on the West: Chicago and the Art of the New Frontier, 1890–1940, June 28–Oct. 13, 2003.
Lincoln, Nebraska, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, The Unknown Blakelock, Jan. 29–Aug. 24, 2008; New York, National Academy of Design, Sept. 25, 2008–Jan. 4, 2009 (Lincoln only).
Detroit Institute of Art, The Art of American Dance, Mar. 20–June 12, 2016; Denver Art Museum, July 10–Oct. 9, 2016; Bentonville, Arkansas, Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, Oct. 22, 2016–Jan. 16, 2017, cat. 21.

Ralph Albert Blakelock and Cora Bailey Blakelock (1857–1950); sold to William S. Hurley, New York and Brooklyn, NY, by 1909 [“Masterpiece by Blakelock to Be Sold by Anderson Galleries,” American Art News 20, no. 21 (Mar. 4, 1922), 6; Seattle 1909, cat. 358]; Moulton & Ricketts, Chicago, about 1911 [American Art News 20, no. 21 (Mar. 4, 1922), 6]; Charles P. Pinckard (1864–1920), Chicago, by Oct. 1912 [James William Pattison, “The Art of Blakelock,” Fine Arts Journal 27, no. 4 (Oct. 1912), 641]. Joseph G. Snydacker (1865–1920), Chicago, by Dec. 1913 [Elliott Daingerfield, “Ralph Albert Blakelock,” Art in America 2 (Dec. 1913), 57]; sold at Anderson Galleries, NY, to Charles H. Worcester (1864–1956) and Mary F. S. Worcester (1861–1954), Chicago, through John Levy Galleries, NY, and Woodruff J. Parker (agent), 1922 [“49 Paintings Bring $72,647 at Auction,” American Art News, Mar. 25, 1922, 1]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1947.

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