Danger on the Frontier: Alfred Jacob Miller's A Narrow Escape. A MONA Moment By Ron Roth Director Museum of Nebraska Art

The next time you find yourself somewhere along the Platte River, perhaps you will find yourself in a place much like the one two fur trappers found themselves in our painting, A Narrow Escape, painted 163 years ago by Baltimore artist Alfred Jacob Miller.

This is a small painting, no more than inches, and it is the kind of painting one might easily overlook in a gallery in favor of its larger neighbors. But in the world of art, small is good. And if you stop a moment, and look at this painting closely, there is a lot going on.

For within its small confines, Miller has created a tense, compelling, moment in time-a real window on the past; not the fake, Hollywood past of cowboys and Indians, but the real thing, danger on the frontier.

Crouching behind a curtain of prairie grass, the barrel-chested trapper in the red blouse has his rifle cocked and ready. There is real fear in his eyes. Next to him, his companion in the blue frock coat and the red cap has his rifle poised and ready.

Through the composition of this painting, Miller cleverly directs our eyes to two horsemen in the distance on the far left of the painting. They are very small, and we might miss them if our eyes were not carefully led to them by by a strong, invisible, horizontal line which begins with the barrel chested trapper's fearful eyes. His eyes point us in the direction of the rifle barrel of his companion; which in turn leads us to these two little specks on the horizon, images we could easily miss were it not for this directional device in the painter's composition.

And I love the mystery Miller creates by those two horsemen. Are they part of a Pawnee war party? Are they buffalo hunters? Rival trappers? We don't know for sure. What we do experience is something of that state of continual apprehension, the animal instinct for survival that was the norm at the outer reaches of the American frontier.

I'm also struck by Miller's economical but brilliant use of color. Take a look at that gray, stunted tree trunk rising vertically in the center of the painting. Yes it does provide cover for the trappers, but it also provides balance to the painting. To the left of it the sky is pink, with subtle daubs of yellow. To the right of it the sky is gray and billowing. And look what Miller does so effectively with color here: the blue frock coat contrasts so beautifully with the pink sky in the background on the left; and on the right of the tree trunk, the red blouse of the trapper is greatly richened against the background of the gray sky and the blue coat of his companion.

He contrasts these colors for maximum effect, and, dare I say it, maximum beauty, right down to the blue and red blooms on the wildflowers in foreground.

Wow! There is a lot going on in this little painting.

Alfred Jacob Miller received his artistic training in Rome and Paris. He was the first American artist to travel the route, which became known as the Oregon Trail. Some of his paintings are actual scenes and events he witnessed; others are stories he heard told around the campfire.

This is one of these stories, a story you can see at the Museum of Nebraska Art, MONA to its friends, and at the NPR or MONA websites. This has been Ron Roth. . . .