A Wounded Grizzly 1906

Charles M. Russell made this watercolor of a grizzly attack sometime around 1906, and boy, can you feel the scene’s energy. The composition is a jumble of bodies—human, bear, and tree—all fighting for space, painted in a flurry of browns, blues, and the white bursts of gunpowder. I imagine Russell, with his brush, trying to capture not just the look but the feel of the chaos. He’s probably thinking about how to convey the bear’s brute force, the men’s desperate defense, and the forest’s silent witnessing. Look at the way he renders the figures, they’re not just standing still, they’re mid-action, muscles strained, faces contorted. Russell’s work reminds me of Remington’s, but with a bit more looseness, more willingness to let the watercolor do its own thing. This painting shares a vision with Homer’s seascapes. The way he uses color and form to create a sense of drama and movement is so immediate. It's like they're all in conversation across time, adding their voices to the ongoing story of painting.