Freedom of the Heart

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Hello Folks,

wow!!! I’m really overwhelmed by your great respond. It is a great feeling that you like my work.
For me it is always a very interesting experience to get into the history of a person, when I sculpt and paint them.
In this case it was a long journey. My first contact with Cynthia Ann was the novel written by St. Claire Robbson about Cynthia Ann “Ride with the Wind”. The story is very good according to the relation of Cynthia Ann and Peta Nokona. But unfortunately she overtakes all the “horror stories” invented by white authors, like T.E. Fehrenbach about the Comanche which are today very much questioned by modern historians.
The best information I got about Cynthia Ann was from the book “Cynthia Ann Parker” by Margaret Schmidt Hacker , by Robert Neeley’s excellent book “The Last Comanche Chief” and by Prof. Gary Clayton Anderson “The Conquest of Texas – Ethnical cleansing in the Promised Land”. Step by step I got an imagination of Cynthia Ann and Peta Nokona.

A big problem was the dress of the Comanche around 1850. Not much is left of this period, as the Texas Ranger destroyed everything they get from the Comanche to annihilate the remembering of this people. A first help was the book of the French naturalist Berlandier “The Indians of Texas 1830”, but the biggest support comes from the Museum of Anthropology in Washington, which provided me with photos of original leggings, robes and other things. Additional I got support from a private French collector and painter Mr. Antoine Zsapoff, who provide a painting of the Cap with the feathers and the robe from his collection.

I wanted to create a very romantic scene, as a counterpart to all the figurines of “grime Indian warriors”. The Comanche are so often defamed by white authors as “bloodthirsty warriors”, a judgement which doesn’t do justice to this people.
When Berlandier or Catlin were in the Comancheria, they were never hurt or attacked. But generally I love to show this part of the Indian life: family, children, camp-live and so on.

I add a photo of Cynthia Ann with little Topsanah after she was captured. She had cut her hear in mourning for her slaughtered Comanche friends and family members, as well as a photo of Quanah Parker, who is told had looked much like his father. The portrait head was sculpted by Benoit according to this photo.

CynthiaAnnParker22.jpg


QuanahParker222-1.jpg


Again thank you very much for your comments and motivation.


Bruno
 
Hello Marcel, Denes and Stephen,

thank you very much for your friendly comment. It is great to see that my worke is appreciated by fellow figurine friend.

Many greetings from Germany

Bruno
 
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