Water Colors,

River
Runs
In the many renderings he made of the Buffalo
River, artist Thomas Hart Benton left an indelible
mark on the landscape for generations to come—
but we have to wonder: What remains?
Photos and words by
D on House &
Sabine Schmidt

COURTESY OF CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, BENTONVILLE, ARKANSAS, PHOTOGRAPHY BY DWIGHT PRIMIANO.;
© 2018 T.H. AND R.P. BENTON TESTAMENTARY TRUSTS / LICENSED BY VAGA AT ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NY

OCTOBER 2018 62 Arkansas Life OCTOBER 2018 63 Arkansas Life

/
T They were
not the most
approachable.
Unlike many of their
fellow floaters, the
knots of young people
bare to the waist, possibly
inebriated and destined
to have weird burns, D on
House and Sabine Schmidt
wore dirty long-sleeve
shirts and pants to blunt
the sun's rays, their hair
dirty and tangled.
Sabine catches up on journal notes with a cup of
river water “cowboy coffee” on an early morning
/

at Arnold Bluff.

Still drifting forward, they stared out through dark glasses,
their canoe crammed with gear and tied down with straps
to ward against spills.
For the past several days, they had been on the Buffalo.
Their route had started at Mount Hersey, a quiet spot
between two creeks that flow into the river, and would end
at Grinder’s Ferry just below the U.S. Highway 65 bridge.
All told, it would be 25 miles. They could have done it
faster, of course, or they could have taken a different leg of
the roughly 150-mile stretch, but that wasn’t the point. In
this case, the point was to experience the river as someone
else had many years before, someone whose life had been
inextricably wound with the river itself, who had left a
lasting impression, even though there was no mark to see:
Thomas Hart Benton.
Although his name is far from a household one nowadays,
the Missouri-born regionalist was a force to be reckoned with
for much of the early and mid 20th century. As recounted
in his 1937 autobiography, An Artist in America, he’d traveled
the country, seeking to capture the often overlooked forces
of ordinary American life that he found in fields, steel
mills and the mad rush toward industrialization. For his
efforts, he was richly rewarded, securing no small amount
of fame and fortune, including an appearance on the cover
of Time magazine in 1934. While squabbles with the art
establishment and the rise of post-war artists diminished
the artist’s star in his later years, Benton’s efforts to save
what he saw as the country’s great treasures can’t be
overstated enough: He knew of the efforts of Dr. Neil
Compton, Ken Smith and the Ozark Society, to save the
Buffalo from damming, but his own love of the river—so
beautifully expressed in his paintings—and his tireless
efforts to involve journalists, filmmakers, and influential
friends like John Callison, Fred McGraw, Bernie Hoffman
and others in his Arkansas adventures, helped immensely
in the successful campaign to have the Buffalo proclaimed
the first National River in 1972.
And in no small part, it’s the reason Don and Sabine were
able to embark on their own float this past May.
When the Northwest Arkansas-based photographers and
writers first pitched us the story, it was with the aim of seeing
the place as Benton had experienced it—and to see what, if
anything, had changed since Benton’s time. They explained that
their photography would not “mimic his work, but the things
that made him take out a pencil are the same things that make
us take out cameras, and it will show in the images.”
In revisiting the photos and the journal entries from those four
days on the river, it becomes clear that this was indeed the case. To
be sure, there are instances when the duo recalls Benton in both
their imagery and their writing, but more often, it’s about their
own experience: to see fireflies dancing up and down the bluff face
as sleep overtakes you beneath the stars; to wake to the sound of
a beaver slapping its tail on the mirror surface of the water, its
head slicing the mirror in two; to see so many others enjoying
the river in their own way, all on the river for the same
reason. In that sense, this trip and the photos that resulted
are as much about the landscape that passed them by as it is about
connections—to the place, to the many who’ve maneuvered its
shoots and banks, shallow beneath the waves, to everything. —jph

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 There is a Peter Cave Bluff, one of Benton’s favorite spots
to camp, where the evening sun paints shadows
state of mind associated reflected in the river’s still waters.

with the river, a mental

river time, a river
attitude, a river rhythm,
and for me it starts to
develop as soon as I
leave my home in Hazel When I discovered the
Buffalo River in 1986, it felt like the fight was
Valley and turn east over, the river had been saved from the Corps of
Engineers’ dam-building hysteria. People like Dr.
on Highway 16. It has Neil Compton and Ken Smith and the Ozark
Society had fought the good fight and won, so
something to do with that I, coming a decade later, could float and camp
and rest assured that it would be protected forever.
small communities Those early warriors would laugh
at my naiveté. If we have learned

and no traffic and anything about the sacred and

beautiful, the magical and spiritual
places of this country, it’s that they
dense vegetation and are in constant peril.
Thomas Hart Benton knew it, and
foggy hollows and a friend of his told me that the Sports
Illustrated article "The Old Man and
slow driving. Before I the River," and a short film by the
same name, and several articles that
make Kingston, I will Benton wrote were all designed to
help with the efforts to save the river.
have driven through a They knew that the Buffalo was on
the cusp of development—they had
dozen towns, a litany seen it first hand in Missouri. In his
handbook, Ken Smith reproduces
of wonderful names: part of Benton’s impassioned letter
to the Corps begging them not to
destroy the river, ending with: “I say,
Durham, Crosses, and I intend it emphatically, let the
river be.” -dh
Delaney, Patrick
Combs, Brashears, St.
Paul, Witter, Aurora,
Wharton and Loy. I am
already on the river. -dh

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"There is something
about flowing water that
makes for easy views,” Thomas
Hart Benton famously said.
“Down the river is freedom
from consequence. All one
has to do is jump in a skiff at
night and by the morrow be
beyond the reach of trouble.
In the past this was a sure
method of ridding oneself of
difficulty, and fellows who had
been too handy with the knife
or gun or who found their
children too many or their
wives too troublesome could
float off into a new world and
begin again.” Usually when
that paragraph is quoted, the
writer only puts in the first
two sentences and leaves out
the rest, perhaps in an effort
to highlight the romantic
and downplay the crudely
practical.
I have no intention of
skipping out on my family or
social obligations, and have
committed no felonies, but
this river time that I refer to,
that I seek as often as I can,
involves an unburdening,
or in river freight terms, an
unladening. Priorities shift,
thoughts refocus, and all
OCTOBER 2018
Sabine photographs the willows and native
mussels of a gravel bar at Roughedge Ford
near Skull Bluff.
of the things that are part of
our lives: bosses, work, friends,
family, neighbors, art critics,
gallery owners, teachers, social
obligations, national news,
deadlines, chores, traffic, email,
Facebook, Twitter, are dropped
overboard, and we watch them
float ahead of us, move out of
sight and continue downstream,
Back in the canoe, we are free to notice the
eventually to the White River,
then to the Mississippi, down to
New Orleans and out into the
Gulf of Mexico, never to be seen
mudslides along the banks that indicate beaver
again.
And back in the canoe, we
are free to notice the greens of
spring, the incredible variety of
and otter, the clumps of bluestar, rock geranium,
hue that will in summer months
blend into homogeneity, and
the mudslides along the banks
that indicate beaver and otter,
the clumps of bluestar, rock
geranium, bergamot and ninebark
in flower, the Northern water
snake swimming a meter off the
bergamot and ninebark in flower, the Northern
starboard bow and the clouds
moving in low and dark that
might portend a surprise or two.
water snake swimming a meter off the starboard bow
I have good reason to believe that
Benton had the same things in
mind. -dh and the clouds moving in low and dark that might
portend a surprise or two. I have good reason to
believe that Benton had the same things in mind.
68 Arkansas Life OCTOBER 2018 69 Arkansas Life
Benton once said: " Composition was my long
suit. Hundreds can paint better than I can, but
damn few can see better." All I can do is swear at
uncooperative cloud cover, and promise to come back
at another time, another season.
OCTOBER 2018 70 Arkansas Life OCTOBER 2018 71 Arkansas Life
 Right: Skull Bluff, the site of one of Benton’s paintings.
Top left: Ancient irises spread around gravesites, including that
of William Arnold (1822-1898), the first member of the Arnold
family to settle in the area. Middle left: Evening view downriver
towards Arnold Island (center back) and the beginning of
Arnold Bend (on right).

Studying photos and reading accounts of

Benton’s river trips between 1938 and 1974, I marvel at his and
his companions’ blithe insistence on maintaining their regular
levels of grooming and creature comforts. Money spent on a canoe
outing went to purchasing steaks, wine, perhaps a tablecloth, not
high-priced moisture-wicking outfits, sandals and name-brand
coolers. The pictures show canoeists—both local and from outside
the region—in slacks and dress shirts, skirts, cardigans and suede
Clarks. The more casual ones wear polo shirts and tennis shoes.
Dinner is served on upturned canoes using china and silverware.
Wine, 7up and bourbon come in glass bottles. During Benton’s
1940 visit with several of his students from the Kansas City Art
Institute, a wild boar got into the trunk of his parked car and ate
the dozen raw steaks Benton had stored there for a celebratory
dinner. -ss

On this trip, I am reminded

that it is the waking up that makes all the
difference, the first light on the gravel bar,
Jupiter still visible in the western sky, the
warmth you can see before you can feel it,
glancing off the top of the bluff across the
water, the sight and sounds of a free flowing
river. Then stumbling out of your sleeping
bag, walking barefoot down to the edge
and dipping a pot into the cold water to fill
for coffee, the collecting of driftwood for a
quick fire—just enough to boil water—the
dawn chorus of birds too numerous to
identify, each acting as a nail in the coffin
of misplaced priorities and self-inflicted
burdens, then the reaching for camera and
tripod. -dh

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 I walk along the shore
As I set up the camera to photograph
the bluff that makes up the Narrows, a thin
ribbon of solid rock that once separated the
Buffalo from Richland Creek before the creek

and up and down several

decided to move across the valley, I also envy a
painter’s luxury of being able to paint to vision,
regardless of reality, to eliminate vegetation
that obscures details, to modify the way light

inlets, looking for Benton's is glancing off limestone. Ken Smith describes
Benton’s painting of Welsh Bluff: “… The overall
scale and proportions of the bluff are true to
reality while smaller elements are expressed as

spot. Sand, rocks, and the curvilinear forms. Such curvilinear lines are a
recognizable feature of Benton’s landscapes.” On
a trip to Joplin, Benton once said: “Composition
was my long suit. Hundreds can paint better than

river have all shifted in I can, but damn few can see better.” All I can do is
swear at uncooperative cloud cover, and promise
to come back at another time, another season. -dh

the 50 years since. The Since we're close to

bare sandbars in the

Skull Bluff (or Bat House), one of our main
destinations, we only travel half a mile on the
second day and decide on a campsite shaded
by willows. A turkey flies over from the bluff

painting are overgrown

and lands a few feet away to check us out, then
wanders off. Three green herons chase one another
down the river. We see great blue herons, ducks,
swallows and hear a frog close to the waterline,

with trees and brush. The bleating like a lamb. We try to match what we see
around us with a photo of Benton’s 1968 painting
of Skull Bluff. It is one of my favorites by him.
Six men are busy setting up camp, another one is

tallest tree in Benton's bathing. The visit was Benton’s first since suffering
a stroke and a heart attack in early 1966. I want to
believe that I see his exuberance and relief to be
back on the Buffalo in the painting. I walk along

piece is still there-or at the shore and up and down several inlets, looking
for Benton’s spot. Sand, rocks, and the river have
all shifted in the 50 years since. The bare sandbars
in the painting are overgrown with trees and

least its skeleton is. brush. The tallest tree in Benton’s piece is still
there—or at least its skeleton is. -ss

Don House photographing a

tree at Arnold Bluff at sunset.

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