See-non-ty-a, an Iowa Medicine Man

George Catlin

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the chest up, a man with brown skin wears indigenous Iowa attire and looks just off to our left with heavy-lidded eyes in this vertical portrait painting. He faces us against a background mottled with pale turquoise and cream white. The sides of the man’s square face, the top of his bald head, and his neck are painted a bright orange-red. His ears, lips, and eyelids are also red. Deep lines run across his forehead and down under high cheekbones, to either side of his nose and his closed mouth. His spiky headdress fans like a fountain from around a small cap at the center of the top of his head. Beaded earrings hang from the lobes and tops of his ears. More than a dozen necklaces, perhaps of quills, hang beneath two shorter chokers, one with a wide oval shell over a round shell or medallion. Green stripes on his bare shoulders and chest create a shallow V over his chest, and there is a red hand print on his upper right arm, to our left. His torso and one shoulder are wrapped with vibrant red cloth.