When the Plains Were His 1906

Charles M. Russell made this painting with oils sometime around 1914. Russell’s marks are super direct – very little blending, and a whole lot of dry brush effects. He really lets the texture of the canvas do some of the work. Look at the main figure, sitting upright on his horse, the ground is really moving as we follow the party, but the sky and mountains are muted. It feels like those background elements were made to be suggestive of a wide open territory. The color palette is mostly earth tones, lots of ochre and brown with some pale blues and whites. The figures are placed in the foreground so that we can inspect them up close, they seem calm, yet very aware of their surroundings, ready to pounce. Russell reminds me of Frederic Remington, another artist painting similar scenes of the American West. But where Remington can feel theatrical, Russell feels more immediate. It is this directness that sets his painting apart. There is an easy confidence in his markmaking, and I think it is what gives his work such a distinctive feel.