In this artwork, how is the Description discussed?
Dangers of the Mail portrays the ambush and violent attack by Native Americans on a mail stagecoach and its occupants. Researcher Jessy Ohl describes the central painting as showing three "naked white women (being) scalped in a sexually explicit manner" in the bottom right hand of the artwork, where they are shown kneeling and bent awkwardly toward the sky and ground by three Native Americans. The Washington Post in 2000 reported a critic saying of the scene, "That so much plays into the stereotype of the sexually violent savage. He's going to either rape her or scalp her or both". Art historian Karal Ann Marling describes the figures of the women as "clearly female, to be sure, thanks to volumetric mass".Along with the main painting, there are five vignettes below the main painting and simpler designs along the top and side borders. The mural is 7 by 18 feet (2.1 by 5.5 m).
The Washington Post mail stagecoach Native Americans Karal Ann Marling mural ambush