Beautiful Savannah in the Pine Woods of Florida

About this artwork

“Florida is, in a great degree, a dark and sterile wilderness, yet with spots of beauty and of loveliness, with charms that cannot be forgotten. Her swamps and everglades, the dens of alligators, and lurking places of the desperate savage, gloom the thoughts of the wary traveller, whose mind is cheered and lit to admiration, when in the solitary pine woods, where he hears nought but the echoing notes of the sand-hill cranes, or the howling wolf, he suddenly breaks out into the open savannahs, te...

Art Historical Context

George Catlin's *Beautiful Savannah in the Pine Woods of Florida* (1834-1835) captures a mesmerizing moment in Florida's wild interior, painted during the artist's winter visit to the region. Renowned for his portraits of Native Americans and Western landscapes, Catlin here turns his keen eye to the Southeast, depicting the dramatic shift from shadowy pine woods—haunted by wolves and cranes—to open savannahs bursting with wildflowers and palmettos. This oil painting evokes the thrill of discovery amid a "dark and sterile wilderness," as Catlin himself described it. In his *Letters and Notes* ...

About the Artist

George Catlin · 1796–1872

George Catlin (1796–1872), born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to Putnam Catlin and Polly Sutton—who had been captured by Native Americans during the 1778 Battle of Wyoming—initially pursued a legal career. Trained at Litchfield Law School, he was admitted to the bar in 1819 but abandoned law after two years to study art in Philadelphia in 1823. Self-taught as a portraitist, Catlin quickly gained ...