A Slick Rider 1905

Charles M. Russell made this watercolour painting, A Slick Rider, with real freedom. I can see that art-making for Russell was a real process of letting go. Look at the way he's captured the drama of the cowboy struggling to stay on a bucking bronco. The horse’s body is all tensed muscle, kicking up dust as the rider strains back, hat flying off. There's a rawness here, a lack of fussiness. The surface almost feels dry and chalky, soaking up the pigment. The sandy hues give it a sense of place, like you can feel the grit underfoot. It’s the white of the horse’s flank I keep coming back to, though. It’s not a clean, pure white but a stained, earthy colour, reflecting the dust and sweat of the scene. You can almost feel the horse's energy radiating through it. Russell’s earlier works were more detailed, precise, but in this painting, he's really found a way to distill the essence of the Wild West into a few expressive strokes. It feels like he’s in conversation with painters like John Singer Sargent, who could conjure a whole world with just a few masterful brushstrokes.