Indian War Party 1901

Charles M. Russell made "Indian War Party" with watercolor paint. I'm thinking about all those washes of warm tans and yellows, how Russell layered them to create a feeling of immense space. You can almost feel the heat rising off the plains. I wonder what he was thinking, depicting this scene. Did he see himself as documenting a vanishing way of life? Or was there a more romantic, even troubling, vision at play? Notice the lone figure on foot—the vulnerability of that figure against the vastness of the landscape. Then the war party, a cluster of figures on horseback, poised and ready. The whole scene feels cinematic, like a freeze-frame from a Western. The watercolor paint is thin. It is allowing the paper to breathe. It's not overworked, but capturing a fleeting moment. Painting is like that sometimes, trying to pin down something that's always moving, always changing. It is a conversation across time, with artists responding to artists, and to the world around them.