Settlement of the West

Dublin Core

Title

Settlement of the West

Eric Bransby

1948

Fresco

Mural 

Cossitt Hall Rotunda

Written by McKenna O’Toole, Class of ‘26

Subject

“Settlement of the West”, a fresco painted in 1948 by Eric Bransby in the rotunda of Cossitt Hall, captivates viewers upon first glance. But the longer you look, the more the dark history of the mural comes to light. Depicting goldseekers, migrating settlers, the cattle industry, and trappers and traders on the Native American land in which Colorado College is built on, it has a complicated legacy.


When does art become more problematic than educational?

Description

“Settlement of the West”, painted in 1948 in the rotunda of Cossitt Hall, catches the eyes of those who glance above. But does the art itself outweigh the problematic

pro-colonial message it portrays? Eric Bransby, the artist of “Settlement of the West”, was born in 1916 in Auburn, New York. He spent his childhood in Pittsburgh and Council Bluffs, Iowa where his father was a preacher. Bransby’s parents hoped he would find interest in subjects such as medicine or being a part of the church, but Bransby felt differently. After drawing a realistic sketch of the ship he and his family traveled on at the age of 10, Bransby knew he had a passion for art. During the Great Depression Bransby started art school. He attended and received his diploma at the Kansas City Art Institute in the 1940s, and was a student under Thomas Hart Benton and Fletcher Martin. Bransby excelled in classical techniques such as figure drawing in anatomy classes patterned after the European academies. He also, under the direction of Boardman Robinson and Jean Charlot, studied at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. During Bransby’s years at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, he learned how to paint frescoes from the French-American muralist Jean Charlot. This is where Bransby gets the education for the technique he used to paint his mural, “Settlement of the West”. Finally, Bransby received a bachelor's and master's degree at Colorado College. Bransby went on to teach at Yale University, the University of Illinois, Western Illinois University, and the University of Missouri.

 

In 1948, artist Eric Bransby painted a mural in the entrance of the rotunda of Cossitt Hall. “Settlement of the West” depicts goldseekers, migrating settlers, the cattle industry, and trappers and traders. However, on a campus that is located within the unceded territory of the

Nuùchi (Ute) peoples, on land that was also utilized by the N’de (Apache), Hinono’eino (Arapaho), Numinu (Comanche), and Tsitsistas(Cheyenne) peoples, a mural depicting white settlement on such a sacred land upsets many of its viewers. White colonization of lands, with little regard for its original inhabitants, plagues history. This mural, to some, seems to glorify this process, and in turn silences the struggles the natives had to endure. In 2002, Bransby, then in his eighties, returned to restore his mural in Cossitt’s rotunda. “Settlement of the West” earned Bransby his master’s.

WAITING ON A RESPONSE FROM PROF RYAN PLATT