Deer Grazing 1912

Charles M. Russell made this painting of deer grazing with oils, and you can really feel the crisp mountain air. The color palette is dominated by blues, with hints of oranges and yellows. I can just imagine Russell out in nature, trying to capture the essence of the American West on his canvas, trying to get the way the light hits those majestic mountains in the background. I bet he mixed those blues himself, layering them to create a sense of depth and atmosphere. You can almost feel the coolness of the fog hanging in the valleys. That central deer is really great. It's got a stillness, but also a sense of being ready to run at any moment. Painters build on what has come before; maybe Russell was inspired by earlier landscape artists or his contemporaries doing similar work. Painting is a language that artists speak to each other across time. Each brushstroke here is a little piece of that conversation.