The Attack 1903

This is Charles Russell’s ‘The Attack,’ painted in watercolor, and look how he makes it move! I mean, it is an attack, horses galloping, the ground they pound dissolving into dust and speed. I love to look at a painting and imagine the artist making it. I picture Russell, standing at his easel, thinking fast and loose. He’s not painting each detail so much as he is conjuring the feeling, the adrenaline of the charge. You can almost feel the heat of the sun on the riders' backs, can’t you? Notice how the foreground is all these warm browns and tans, and then, look at the horses—their bodies have a kind of fluidity. Russell’s not afraid to let the colors run, even to let the horses dissolve a little. He’s saying: this is about speed and motion; it’s about a moment, not perfection. He’s in conversation with painters like Delacroix and Gericault and all the history painters, but he’s doing it his own way, out on the range, in watercolor. That's what makes painting so cool: these artists keep talking to each other across time.