Charlie Russell’s Wall

Sun shines on the Montana State Capitol as it rains on me.

After a morning in Bozeman, we took a long pause along Canyon Ferry Lake, the first major impoundment of the Missouri River after its formation from the Jefferson, Gallatin and Madison rivers. For all the boat trailers at one stop, the lake was placid, mountains forming its eastern shore, while ducks and pelicans bobbed in the clear water.

 With a little time before our hotel was ready, we took to the steps of Montana's state capitol in Helena. I had seen its copper dome before, passing through at twilight and catching the building with a full palette of colors streaking the sky behind it.

Western shore, Canyon Ferry Lake

The capitol housed one item I didn’t want to miss yet could not find. We peeked into the old Supreme Court chambers and the Senate chambers, but could not find the House chambers.

 For once I asked the right man about the location of the painting. He was a capitol tour guide and in absence of a noon tour, agreed to show us the painting. First he walked us through the Senate chambers, the old Supreme Court chambers. The Montana House of Representatives chamber is hidden down a series of corridors behind the Senate chamber on the capitol’s third floor that we missed in our first pass through the capitol.

Above the speaker’s desk stands the largest painting ever completed by Western artist Charlie Russell, perhaps the most famous Western artist, a cowboy artist if you will. Western art sometimes draws a dim view, but it’s hard to argue with the works of Russell and others in capturing events of the frontier before it closed in the 1890s and shaping the Western myths that followed.

Lewis & Clark Meeting the Flatheads

 Lewis & Clark Meeting the Flatheads depicts the explorers meeting the Salish (also called Flathead) Indians at Ross’ Hole. Russell painted the massive 12x25 canvas in three months, using Lewis & Clark’s journals to describe to set the scene in the Bitterroot Mountains. It was then mounted in the House chamber, where it still presidents.

At first glance, the name seems misplaced. Several Flathead horsemen, appearing to be a war party, occupy the center of the painting. Other warriors prepare to ride out from a Salish tepee village. Russell gives the horseman a regal, expressive look. If the painting’s name were unknown, no one would spend time looking for Lewis & Clark.

Between the bighorn sheep skull, the majestic mountain range and the wolves patrolling the edge of the Indian party, you can miss the Corps of Discovery. Off to the side, Lewis and Clark Sacajawea speak to Salish envoys through an interpreter. Sacajawea sits in the grass while York, the Corps of Discovery’s lone African-American member, tends to their pack animals. The Corps became lost and were looking for a pass to cross the Bitterroot Mountains before winter trapped them. The Salish agreed to give them much-needed horses.

The Corps would have been among the first whites encountered by the Salish, something they likely regarded as an aberration. They might have heard of white men, but few tribe members would have seen them.

Montana capitol rotunda

Russell seems to indicate that this small event portended massive changes ahead for the tribes of what became Montana – the change that would end of their very way of life. This were the first white men, not the last. In Russell’s painting, the history of Montana elbows us to remember people lived here before trappers then settlers flocked here. For art based on American history, it’s arguably among the greatest pieces ever committed to canvas.

Walls of the House chamber’s lobby were lined with paintings from Edgar Paxson. His Western art differs from Russell but was still striking. Despite the exquisite work, the use of Montana artists was controversial at the time of construction. Looking at the finished products, it’s hard to see how they could have better represented the state. The renovated capitol is pretty marvelous, bringing out period flourishes, painted in shades of red and green seldom seen in modern décor. Under the rotunda, a poignant art show displayed works highlighting the plague of prescription drug abuse. The rotunda’s four corners include paintings of the four groups most important to the state – Native Americans, fur trappers, miners and cowboys.

Restored stain-glass ceiling, Montana Capitol

A 2001 renovation restored many features once lost to bureaucracy. One flourish was an arches ceiling of stained glass panels that ended with a depiction of union of the railroads at Promontory Point in 1869. The panels were removed in the 1960s when extra office space was added to the capitol. The beauty of the panels makes this an utterly mystifying decision – fortunately, when the state undertook a renovation, they recovered almost all the original panels, stored in a railroad boxcar. Some replacements were necessary, but they are not easy to pick out. The glass casts a delicate yellow glow on the staircase.

We walked out into day divided by sun and showers, amorphous storm clouds reach down to douse Helena. The storms continued through the day, and from our hotel room, the copper dome cut a sharp contrast with the vernal mountains rising to its south.

The Herd Bull

One day and one half-marathon later, I was not done with the state capitol. As dashes of pink and orange flecked the clouds drifting over Helena, I wanted to see the Saturday sunset. Depending on your view, it was apocalyptic or kaleidoscopic. The colors defied description and no photo delivered justice to the developing sunset.

By the time I reached the capitol, lights illuminated the sandstone levels below the copper dome. I expected a state trooper or county sheriff to drive by to inquire about my intentions. But there was no one about. Not a soul. Complain as you might about government, I enjoy government’s strange beauty when the politicians and bureaucrats are away. Absent of people, the buildings take on a different magnificence.

I reveled in the scene. Alone I circled the capitol and admired The Herd Bull, a giant metal bison skull sculpture on the state historical society lawn. Daylight still holding on, I stopped at the lounge run by our hotel. It was older but well-kept and quiet except for the occasional bleeps from slot machines. I drank two Big Horn Bourbons, a blend from Dillon, Mont.

 As I wandered inside, more tired from the morning half-marathon than anything else and my wanderlust sated after walking around Helena, I noticed the day had not ended, that pale orange and yellow patches persisted among the clouds and the bluer tones of night. The lights had lowered on the state capitol, even if the day was not finished with Helena.

It was much more brilliant in person.