Arthur Hoeber

“ The man who had never taken a lesson in an art school and had had very little opportunity to see fine art work, who had no critic more severe than himself, took one of the big galleries in New York City for a “one-man exhibit.” Russell had the courage of his convictions, and his convictions were soon shared by art lovers; for he took his place at once among the best painters of the West.
Charles Russell was born in St. Louis in 1865, and, like Remington, had a deep-seated objection to the rules and routine of schools. ”

“ The legends and traditions of the Indian have attracted Remington Schuyler. The pictorial aspect of his active life in the open, together with his contact with wild animal life, has supplied subjects for Philip Goodwin; while the life of the frontiersman and the pioneer has inspired the sturdy work of Allen True and Harvey Dunn. These five men have pictured the West in the same large spirit in which their master worked in rendering the buccaneers of the sea and the continental soldier. Most of the painters of the West have been illustrators first and painters later. ”

“ We are conscious of the rush of sound, vibrating through the vast isolation. The Indian looks up, but does not cease his paddling. He kneels in the boat, “a figure of monumental composure.” It is in pictures like this that Brush conveys in eloquent terms on canvas an impression of the solemn romance of those primitive human creatures.
Mr. Brush has his studio in New York City, and usually spends his summer in New Hampshire. His work will receive attention again in The Mentor when the portrait painters of America are considered. ”

“ The Painter of the Plains at Work
THE INDIAN AS AN ART SUBJECT
There is still infinite opportunity to make the subject of the Indian an important factor in American art. His decorative costume gives an element of color, while his life of action gives rhythm and movement, and the background of prairie and mountain provides dignity and grandeur for the composition. ”

“ All painters of the West regard that country and its life with a deep reverence, and this feeling shows in their work. “God’s Country,” though the familiar phrase of all, expresses their enthusiasm and their devotion. In subject it is the most distinctly American of all themes, and enthusiasm for the theme will go on producing the technical skill to render it adequately. ”

“ Since some years now stern men in blue and khaki have seen to it that the Indian is kept on his reservation; business men with the wire fences now look after the interests of investors in ranch property; life in the West has lost much of its picturesqueness; civilization and order control affairs. But Russell’s memory of all these earlier conditions remains. So distinctly were his first illustrations of the soil that they attracted the attention of some of the English weeklies, which made arrangements for his work. From this to painting was an easy transition. ”

“ In recent water color exhibitions still another illustrator, Frank Tenney Johnson, has had many distinguished showings of the present day Indian. His oil paintings, too, are full of the poetry of the open. Moonlight and sun-glare are to him equally alluring. Two painters who glory in showing vast sketches of the open, who use the human figure, but minimize it in their pictures, are Frank Vincent Du Mond and Fernand Lungren, both permanent residents of the Southwest. ”

“ It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. ”

“ Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and more or less of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. ”

“ CHARLES M. RUSSELL Monograph Number Two in The Mentor Reading Course
Mr. Russell belongs to no established school of art. His work is distinctly his own, and he is known as the “cowboy artist.” This does not mean, however, that there is anything careless or hasty about his art. He works with great care. His hand is trained to note every detail of his subject, and he has a memory that never lets go. Several years ago Russell had an exhibit in a gallery in New York City which he called “Pictures of the West That Has Passed.” ”

“ Do you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn upon the father who allowed his son, or the State which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight? ”

“ Outdoor life and athletic sports were always a hobby of his. When he was at Yale he was on Walter Camp’s original football team, when Camp was practically inventing the American game, and Remington assisted him.
Frederic Remington was born at Canton, a little village in St. Lawrence County, New York State, in 1861. His father, a newspaper man, wanted to train him to follow the same profession; but Remington’s taste for dabbing at art was too strong. In the Yale Art School he picked up a little about art and a great deal about football. He could not accommodate himself to college routine ”

“ The modern men do not by any means scorn taking a hint from him. In the Centennial Exhibition in 1876, a great showing of Catlin’s work was more or less in the nature of a sensation.
The next painter of the West was William de la M. Cary, who in 1861 made a trip across the plains with an army officer. There was still plenty of excitement, and the traveler had to be prepared against both wild man and beast. Mr. Cary made many sketches in the manner of Catlin, and sent home illustrations to the magazines, occasionally recording the humorous side of his adventures. ”

“ In art, to be conventional, one must start out penniless.” So he made some drawings which the Harpers accepted. The material was fresh and full of spirit; so Remington got an order to go west and get up illustrations for a series of articles on the life of the plains. He was lucky enough to strike in on an Indian campaign. His success as an illustrator was so great that he never after lacked for commissions. He even went as far as Russia in 1892. Gradually people came to know that a new and vigorous personality had taken his stand in the field of art, and that his name was Frederic Remington. ”

“ But also we know to our cost that he never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity which with the strong shows delight in strength. ”

“ Taos is the northernmost of the Pueblos, and consequently became the “buffer state” between the fierce Apaches and the no less warlike plains tribes. Warrior bands from either side, returning from a raid into the other’s country, were sure to fall upon the inoffensive Pueblos of Taos, either to remove the sting of defeat or to increase the glory of victory. ”

“ This was Charles M. Russell (1865) . In Great Falls, Montana, where he lives and has a home and studio, he is one of the institutions. Few travelers in that part of this country fail to pay him a visit. They call him the “Cowboy Painter,” and with reason; for during several years he followed that profession. Also he lived long among the Indians, sharing their camps, their food, riding after game, winter and summer, dwelling with them as a brother.
CHARLES M. RUSSELL
The Cowboy Artist
Though he always drew pictures, he never saw the inside of an art school, nor had he ever a teacher. ”

“ E. H. Harriman, at Arden, New York, with the title “The Hunt,” showing the red men after big game. Similarly Maynard Dixon has executed decorative work of the Indian for some California homes. His training was through several years of illustrative work for the magazines, and in this work he always had a distinctly decorative composition of his subject, though his rendering was realistic and virile.
WISEMAN, WARRIOR, YOUTH
By E. L. Blumenschein
Howard McCormack, who studied the Southwest as far as Mexico, has also given attention to decorative work with the Indian for his theme. ”