Days on the Range 1902

Frederic Remington captured this scene on canvas with visible brushstrokes that convey a sense of immediacy. I wonder if he worked on it outdoors, *en plein air*. Remington’s palette is restricted, mostly monochrome, but this isn’t a photograph, it’s a painting, so it's full of gestures that make up for the lack of color. Look at the build-up of paint around the horses' hooves, kicking up dust. You can almost feel the motion. The artist is dealing with the problem of how to represent speed, how to evoke action. I sympathize with Remington because painting horses in motion is difficult. It requires a unique understanding of animal anatomy and movement. The riders are secondary, kind of ghostlike. This piece reminds me of Muybridge’s motion studies and of Franz Marc’s paintings of horses, even though they are very different artists. Painters are in a constant conversation across time and place; they are always taking something from each other, it’s like an endless game of telephone, where ideas evolve.