Running Buffalo 1918

Charles M. Russell made this painting of running buffalo with what looks like oil paint. The gestures are full of sweeping movement, a wild melee of bodies rendered in shades of brown, gold, blue and white. I imagine Russell, brush in hand, trying to capture the drama of the hunt, the chaos of the chase, all that dust and muscle. Did he feel a sense of urgency, trying to keep up with the energy of the scene? I look at how he's rendered the buffalo's fur with such thick strokes, each dab of paint conveying texture and volume, and then contrasted this with the smoother rendering of the sky. It’s a powerful push and pull between detail and abstraction. This feels like it's in conversation with painters like Delacroix who also loved to depict wild action. When we look at paintings of the past, we see how artists build upon each other's discoveries. It reminds us that making art is a process of call and response. There is no single way to represent the world; each painting is a new way of seeing.