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                    THE MENTOR 1915.06.15, No. 85,
                       Painters of Western Life




                            LEARN ONE THING
                               EVERY DAY

                   JUNE 15 1915       SERIAL NO. 85

                                  THE
                                MENTOR

                               PAINTERS
                                  OF
                             WESTERN LIFE

                           By ARTHUR HOEBER
                           Author and Artist

                   DEPARTMENT OF           VOLUME 3
                   FINE ARTS               NUMBER 9

                          TWENTY CENTS A COPY




Play the Game

[Illustration]


“Suppose,” said Thomas Huxley, “it were perfectly certain that the life
and fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon
his winning or losing a game of chess. Don’t you think that we should
all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and
the moves of the pieces? 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?”

       *       *       *       *       *

“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. 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.”

       *       *       *       *       *

“The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play
is always fair, just, and patient. 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. And one who plays ill is checkmated--without haste, but
without remorse.”




[Illustration: COURTESY KNOEDLER & CO.

THE LAST STAND. BY FREDERIC REMINGTON]




    “THE LAST STAND,” by Frederic Remington, a strong and
    stirring picture of a dramatic incident in army life,
    is the subject of one of the intaglio-gravure pictures
    illustrating “Painters of Western Life.”

FREDERIC REMINGTON

Monograph Number One in The Mentor Reading Course


Remington’s life was as full of vigor and action as his pictures.
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; so he tried life for awhile as
confidential clerk for Governor Cornell at Albany. This job was too
quiet for him; so he threw it up and went out to Montana to “punch
cows.” Remington became a downright, genuine cowboy, and his four years
in the saddle brought him the accurate, minute knowledge of horses,
Indians, cattle, and life on the plains that marks his work.

After roughing it as a cowboy, Remington went to Kansas and started a
mule ranch, made some money at it, then wandered south, taking a turn
as ranchman, scout, guide, and in fact anything that offered. When
his money was gone his mind turned back to art. As he said, “Now that
I was poor I could gratify my inclination for an artist’s career. 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. His sketches and paintings of
soldiers, Indians, cowboys, and trappers were full of character, and
came to be known far and wide both as illustrations and as independent
works of art.

Remington brought all his subjects fresh from life straight to his
canvas. He lived an active outdoor life, worked hard, and was ever
seeking for new material. It was his dream to go to a real war, and in
1898 he got his chance. The well known playwright, Augustus Thomas, for
years a neighbor of Remington’s, states that he called the artist up
early one morning in February, 1898, and told him that the Maine had
been blown up and sunk. The only thanks or comment he got was a shout
from Remington, “Ring off!” As Thomas rang off he could hear Remington
call the private telephone number of his publishers in New York. At
that very minute the artist was in his mind already entered for war
service.

The latter years of Remington’s life were spent in various trips and
in periods of quiet work in his home studio at New Rochelle, New York.
There anyone could find him--big, simple and good-natured, modest and
plain-spoken, working out his vigorous compositions in a large roomy
studio most appropriately constructed and decorated for his purpose.

His collection of relics of all sorts and from all quarters of the
world was unique. Aside from his painting and modeling, Remington was
justly celebrated for his writing. His descriptive powers were vivid
and telling, and his stories, which fill several volumes, are full of
living interest.

Remington died very suddenly of pneumonia on December 26, 1909. His
place in American art is unique. There is no one quite like him. He
knew his power, and he exercised it with ease and confidence. His work
was his life, and his life was with strong, primitive types of men and
with animals, all of whom he loved. The epitaph he wanted for himself
was, “He knew the Horse.”

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 3. No. 9. SERIAL No. 85
    COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




[Illustration: IN THE POSSESSION OF THE ARTIST

WILD HORSE HUNTERS. BY CHARLES M. RUSSELL]




    “WILD HORSE HUNTERS,” by Charles M. Russell, a spirited
    picture of an episode in the rough life of the plains,
    is the subject of one of the intaglio-gravure pictures
    illustrating “Painters of Western Life.”

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.”

There was fine audacity in this. 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 most
interesting thing in the school curriculum to Russell was “vacation,”
and it was his habit to add to his vacation privileges whenever he
could by playing hooky. When he was fifteen he was permitted to leave
school and go out to the great wild West, the land of his heart’s
desire, and there he began his real education. He was no delinquent in
that greater school, nor was he ever truant; for when Nature became
his teacher and all outdoors his textbook he showed himself a keen and
interested student.

He went to Montana when life on the range was in its glory, and the
Indians were part of everyday existence. For eleven years he rode the
range by choice, doing night work that he might have daylight for
painting and modeling. He was ever possessed by a passion to reproduce
in color or in clay the rapidly shifting scenes about him, and so, day
after day and year after year, he was laying a splendid foundation for
the great work that was before him. He lived among the Indians and came
to know their inner life, their hopes and aspirations. He learned their
sign language and customs, and so is able to depict Indians as if he
were one of them. His great success has come not as a gift of the gods,
but as a well earned reward after years of hard and diligent work and
close application.

For several years he was known in the East just for book and magazine
illustrations, usually in black and white. Then he went to New York and
made himself known as a painter.

Mr. Russell spends little time in the East. Naturally he was gratified
that his work won for him an immediate and distinguished place; but he
was not of the mood nor had he the time to stand in the limelight. The
great West was ever beckoning him back, and every summer would find
him at some Indian reservation or roaming in the wild regions seeking
passionately for the subjects that he loved to paint on canvas or
model in clay. Other things interested him little. Russell the man is
the same as Russell the schoolboy,--indifferent to books or academic
matters, but eager for the things that have a living interest for him.
The bargain that he used to propose to his schoolmates sounded the
keynote of his life, “You get my lessons for me, and I will make you
two Indians.”

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 3. No. 9. SERIAL No. 85
    COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY CHARLES SCHREYVOGEL

MY BUNKIE. BY CHARLES SCHREYVOGEL]




    “MY BUNKIE,” by Charles Schreyvogel, a picture that made
    a great sensation and brought the artist sudden fame,
    is the subject of one of the intaglio-gravure pictures
    illustrating “Painters of Western Life.”

CHARLES SCHREYVOGEL

Monograph Number Three in The Mentor Reading Course


“Famous overnight.” In those words Charles Schreyvogel was hailed
in 1900. The sound of the words was good and cheery; but Charles
Schreyvogel knew well enough that his fame had been much longer
than “overnight” in coming. It was only after many vicissitudes and
disheartening struggles that he came into the recognition of his
colleagues and the general public. When he did win out, however, his
victory was so complete and so enduring that he will remain always one
of the most distinguished painters of American frontier life.

Charles Schreyvogel was a New York City boy, born in 1861, and was
educated in the public schools. He began life apprenticed to a
gold-beater, and later on was apprenticed in turn to a die-sinker and
lithographer. His pronounced artistic talents could not be denied, and
his private studies finally led up to an opportunity to go to Munich,
where at the age of twenty-five he studied for three years under Frank
Kirschbach and Carl Marr. On his return to America he went west, and
there lived for awhile the life of the plains, the mountains, the
Indian agencies, and the army barracks. He was fascinated with the
wild life of the frontier, and devoted himself eagerly to the study of
horses, Indians, and troopers in full action.

Then began the story of “My Bunkie.” While engaged in painting
Schreyvogel was in the habit of making sketches for lithographers as
a matter of bread winning. Being sadly in need of funds, he offered
one of his paintings to a lithographer who needed a subject for a
calendar. The painting was “My Bunkie,” and Schreyvogel set great store
by it. The lithographer rejected it because it would not cut down
well to the dimensions of his calendar. Then the artist tried it out
in one place and another, and failing to get it published, he sought
permission to hang it in an East Side restaurant in New York, in the
hope that someone might become interested in it and buy it for at least
a moderate sum. To his utter discouragement he found a short time after
that his picture was not even hung in the restaurant.

He was about to take it home and lay it away when a friend induced him
to send it to the exhibition of the National Academy of Design which
was then approaching. He did this very reluctantly; for he had no hope
in it. On the day after the exhibition Schreyvogel rubbed his eyes and
read what seemed to him a fairy tale. His picture “My Bunkie” had not
only been accepted, but was hung in the place of honor and received
the Thomas B. Clarke prize, the most important one that the National
Academy has to bestow. And so Schreyvogel became “famous overnight.”

Schreyvogel made his home at Hoboken, New Jersey, and during the years
from 1900 until his death he painted and published many vigorous
pictures of Indian and army life on the frontier, all of them fine
in action and full of sentiment. He made an arrangement with a
photographer near his home by which his paintings were issued in fine
platinum prints. In this form, as displayed in art-store windows, they
have become familiar to the public all over the world.

Schreyvogel died at his home in Hoboken on January 27, 1912, and in
the spring exhibition of that year the National Academy of Design, New
York, hung once again his celebrated painting of “My Bunkie” in a place
of honor as an affectionate memorial to the artist.

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 3. No. 9. SERIAL No. 85
    COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




[Illustration: IN THE NATIONAL ARTS CLUB. NEW YORK CITY

THE CALL OF THE FLUTE. BY E. IRVING COUSE]




    “THE CALL OF THE FLUTE,” by E. Irving Couse, an idyl of
    Indian life, is the subject of one of the intaglio-gravure
    pictures illustrating “Painters of Western Life.”

E. IRVING COUSE

Monograph Number Four in The Mentor Reading Course


Scattered here and there throughout the Southwest in unfrequented
valleys along the Rio Grande and on almost inaccessible mesa (may´-sah)
tops, buried in the sandy and waterless Painted Desert, are found the
villages and fields of a people whom the early Spaniards called Pueblos
(pooeb´-lo), to distinguish them from their roving neighbors, the
plains Indians, who had neither fields nor fixed abode of any kind.
These peaceful, home-loving people lived in great houses which they
occupied in common--terraced pyramids of sun-dried bricks--and which
were both fortress and dwelling.

It is among this interesting tribe of Indians that E. Irving Couse has
spent much of his life. He is not a native of the Far West. He was born
at Saginaw, Michigan, September 3, 1866, and went to New York for art
study in the National Academy of Design. From there he went to Paris,
and took a course in art in the Julian Academy and the School of Fine
Arts, where his masters were the great French painter Bouguereau,
T. Robert Fleury, Ferrier, and others. He returned to America and
established his studio in New York City, where he soon made himself
known. In the years from 1900 to 1902 he was elected to the American
Water Color Society, the New York Water Color Club, and the National
Academy of Design.

About this time Mr. Couse’s interest became directed toward the life of
the Great Southwest, and he made a trip there which so fascinated him
that he continued for years to visit and study the race of the Pueblos.
These were most interesting and impressionable years. He found a life
new and full of fascination among the Pueblos of Taos (tah´-ose).

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. As a result the Indians of Taos became the most
warlike of the Pueblo tribes, and when the Mokis (mo´-ki) of northern
Arizona, long before the coming of the Spaniards under Coronado in
1640, found even their rocky mesa tops to be insufficient protection
against the marauding Navajos (nav´-a-ho) and Apaches, it was to Taos
they sent for aid. Taos planted a colony on a mesa top near them and
called it Tewa (tay´-wah). This colony exists today, and speaks the
Taos language, not that of its Moki neighbors.

But for all that the barbaric chant of the happy worker in the
cornfields, or at evening the low flute note of the love call springs
more easily to his lips than the harsh war cry; for the Taos Indian’s
heart is in his fields and his home tucked away in a canyon of the
Sangre de Christo (sahn´-gray day kris´-to) Mountains not far from the
Rio Grande in northern New Mexico.

Mr. Couse has followed the Indians in their hunts through the mountains
they loved so well. He has listened to the call of the flute in some
mountain glade or the player’s prayer to the god of the waters beside
some rushing stream. He has learned the Pueblos’ ways of thought and
action, and has recorded much of it on canvas. Living in such close
touch with the Pueblos, gaining and holding their faith and confidence,
watching with deep understanding the growth of his models from boyhood
to manhood, he has come as close to the spirit of the Indian as white
man ever can.

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 3. No. 9. SERIAL No. 85
    COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




[Illustration: FROM THE PAINTING IN THE COLLECTION OF DR WALTER B. JAMES

COURTESY KNOEDLER & CO.

THE SILENCE BROKEN BY GEORGE DE F. BRUSH]




    “THE SILENCE BROKEN,” by George de Forest Brush, which
    pictures the poetry of the primitive Indian nature, is
    the subject of one of the intaglio-gravure pictures
    illustrating “Painters of Western Life.”

GEORGE DE FOREST BRUSH

Monograph Number Five in The Mentor Reading Course


Mr. Brush is known as a painter of other subjects than those to be
found in the Far West. His portraits have great distinction. It is,
however, as one of the painters of the Great West that he is considered
here, and in that field of art he ranks among the very first.

He was born at Shelbyville, Tennessee, in September, 1855. He studied
in Paris, and was a pupil of the great Gérôme. Some say that his work
shows the influence of his master, especially in the trim finish of
his technic and in his fondness for embodying a story in his pictures.
Unlike Gérôme, however, Brush did not search the classics nor the
life of the Far East for subjects. We find no Roman chariot races nor
scenes from Scripture on his canvases. His thoughts were always of
his country, and he found his material in the North American Indians.
In doing so he took a position among painters of western life that is
peculiarly his own.

Mr. Brush is a thoughtful student, with a fine, poetic imagination.
Interest drew him to the Indians. His desire was to discover “in their
present condition a clue to their past.” As one appreciative critic has
put it, “he attempted to recreate the spacious, empty world in which
they lived a life that was truly primitive, unmixed with any alloy
of the white man’s bringing; and to interpret not only the externals
of their life, but its inwardness, as with mingled stolidity and
simplicity these men-children looked out upon the phenomena of nature,
fronted the mystery of death, and peered into the stirrings of their
own souls.”

Take the very picture that accompanies this description, “The Silence
Broken,” for example. A swan has burst from a bank of foliage
immediately above the head of an Indian in a canoe. 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.

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 3. No. 9. SERIAL No. 85
    COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, 1912

COURTESY THE SNEDECOR GALLERIES, N. Y.

AN ARGUMENT WITH THE SHERIFF. BY W. R. LEIGH]




    “AN ARGUMENT WITH THE SHERIFF,” by W. R. Leigh, a
    mortal encounter between a sheriff and horse thieves,
    is the subject of one of the intaglio-gravure pictures
    illustrating “Painters of Western Life.”

WILLIAM R. LEIGH

Monograph Number Six in The Mentor Reading Course


As the Irish would say, the best way to tell about a man is to let him
tell about himself. Mr. Leigh, who was born in West Virginia in 1866,
has been well known for years as a magazine and book illustrator,
and has lately come into a new renown as a painter of great western
pictures. He tells his own story in a very simple, straightforward way:

“On my father’s plantation my earliest recollections,” he says, “are of
drawing animals on slate or cutting them out of paper. For one of the
latter I was awarded a prize of a dollar at a county fair, when four or
five years old. I began drawing from nature at ten, and at twelve was
awarded $100 by the great art collector, Mr. Corcoran, of Washington,
after he had seen a drawing I had made of a dog. At fourteen I went to
Baltimore and studied in the Maryland Institute for three years. I got
first awards each year in the school, and in the winter of the third
year was appointed teacher of drawing in the night school. At this time
Mr. Corcoran gave me another $100.

“At seventeen I went to Munich, Bavaria, and worked one year under
Professor Rouffe in the antique class, then two years under Professor
Gyses in the nature class, and one year in what was called the
‘painting school,’ gaining three bronze medals altogether.

“At this time I was forced to go back to America and start to make my
living. I spent a year in Baltimore, and saved up $300, with which I
returned to Munich and the ‘painting school.’ In the middle of the
winter when my funds were exhausted I went out looking for employment.
It was not to be had for months; but during the following spring I was
engaged by an artist to help him with some mural pictures. He did me
out of almost everything I had, and left me destitute and in debt.

“However, sometime after this I got work with Philip Fleisch to help
him on a cyclorama which represented the Battle of Waterloo. Fleisch
found me useful enough to advance me sufficient money to get through
the year so that I might help him the following season on another
cyclorama. I entered the composition school of the Academy, painted
a picture which gained me a silver medal, the highest award in the
Academy, and an honorable mention in the Paris Salon. I sold that
picture for $1,000, and it is now in Denver, Colorado. Five more years
were occupied in painting five more cycloramas and some pictures in
between, one of which gained me a second silver medal from the Academy.

“Overwork had by this time got me into bad health, and I returned to
New York, where I soon recovered. I worked for several years in New
York, painting many portraits, two of which hang in Washington Lee
University, also many pictures both landscape and figure, and a great
deal of magazine and book illustrating. Latterly I have turned my
attention to the Far West in response to a desire that has been in me
since boyhood.”

    PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
    ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 3. No. 9. SERIAL No. 85
    COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.




_PAINTERS of WESTERN LIFE_

By ARTHUR HOEBER

_Author and Artist_

[Illustration: Copyright by E. Irving Couse

THE DRUMMER, by E. Irving Couse]

_MENTOR GRAVURES_

    THE LAST STAND
    _By Frederic Remington_

    WILD HORSE HUNTERS
    _By Charles M. Russell_

    MY BUNKIE
    _By Charles Schreyvogel_

    THE CALL OF THE FLUTE
    _By E. Irving Couse_

    THE SILENCE BROKEN
    _By George de F. Brush_

    AN ARGUMENT WITH THE SHERIFF
    _By W. R. Leigh_

[Illustration]

THE MENTOR · DEPARTMENT OF FINE ARTS · JUNE 15, 1915

Entered at the Post-office at New York, N. Y., as second-class matter.
Copyright, 1915, by The Mentor Association, Inc.


The present generation has taken its pictures of life in the Far West
mainly through the paintings of such artists as Frederic Remington,
Charles M. Russell, Charles Schreyvogel, and others who will be
referred to in this article. And yet two of these men--Remington and
Schreyvogel--who were our contemporaries are already dead, and it was
only about eighty-four years ago that the first American artists went
to the land of the setting sun to paint the Indian in his native lair.
This artist was a young Philadelphian named George Catlin, a lawyer
by profession, who was born in 1796 and died in 1872. Though trained
for the bar, his artistic tendencies were too strong for him. He set
forth in 1830, with practically no knowledge of the technic of art,
going as a guest of Governor Clark of St. Louis, then United States
superintendent of Indian affairs. Governor Clark went for the purpose
of arranging treaties with the Winnebagos, Menominees, Shawanos, Foxes,
and others, and the opportunities for young Catlin were unusual.


CATLIN AND CARY, THE PIONEER PAINTERS

[Illustration: ONE OF CATLIN’S INDIANS]

A second trip the next season inspired Catlin to still a third, in
1832, when he ascended the Missouri on a steamer, to the mouth of
the Yellowstone. He returned some two thousand miles in a canoe
with a companion, and on the trip sketches were made of the Crows,
Blackfeet, Sioux, and Iowas. It was all a revelation to Catlin, who
made a serious study of the savage as far as his artistic equipment
permitted. Subsequent trips followed, and in 1836 he accompanied a
detachment of the first regiment of Mounted Dragoons to the Comanches
and other tribes. These visits of course were at a time when the
Indians were in a primitive and picturesque condition, before the
change that was to come subsequently through association with the
whites. The result was an enormous collection of drawings and
paintings, together with many written accounts and descriptions of
manners and customs, and for years Catlin reigned supreme in a field
that no one had hitherto explored.

Catlin, however, was far more interesting from a historical standpoint
than from any artistic conception he gave to his theme. With his
indifferent training, unfortunately, he lacked imagination. He
recorded what he saw, then a great novelty to the public; but his work
now arouses little emotion. For years, however, engravings of his
drawings, colored reproductions, and photographs were the only data for
reference, and as the artist was scrupulously correct in all details
of adornment, local color, costume and implements, manner of life and
ceremonials, his work still has considerable value. 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. His sketches were well
received and appreciated.


GEORGE DE FOREST BRUSH

Some years ago George de Forest Brush gave considerable attention to
the life of the Indian, and signed many pictures that remain classics
in American art. Some of the themes were of the early Aztecs. Among
the titles were “The Sculptor and the King” and “Aztec Sculptor.” More
modern works were “The Silence Broken,” “Mourning Her Brave,” “Indian
Hunter,” and many more, all of them works of fine imagination and
admirable composition lines. Mr. Brush, who was born in Tennessee in
1855, was a pupil of the Paris government art school under the late
J. L. Gérôme (zhay-romé), and is a distinguished draftsman as he is
a commanding figure in American art. Of recent years, however, he has
chosen other fields in which to exploit his talent; but of all the
native painters, he has brought to his work on the Indian the best
artistic equipment of any, and of the dozen subjects of the aborigines
all are unusual, and of the highest excellence.

[Illustration: Copyright by W. de la M. Cary

“FORTY-NINERS” CROSSING THE PLAINS

By William de la M. Cary]


REMINGTON AND THE SPIRIT OF THE WEST

The painters of the Great West, however, were yet to come. Men were
to arrive who would catch something of the spirit of the life there,
who were to record the romance of the savage, the soldier, the cowboy;
the latter in particular,--a picturesque group of men the outcome of
peculiar conditions, men who rounded up the cattle, and were apparently
a race apart, of prodigious recklessness, hardihood, and bravery, who
lived in the saddle almost continuously, save when occasionally they
strayed into the frontier town to squander their pay. These were, as
the late Frederic Remington quaintly phrased it, “Men with the bark
on.” Remington (1861-1909) was himself to be the first of the modern
group to treat the West with artistic sympathy, and his name rises
instantly when any mention is made of the plains. First of all, the
man himself was a genuine lover of the open, of nature in its wildest
aspects. For him the horse, the prairie, the blue sky! He should have
been an army officer. He was, almost; for he accompanied the troops on
many of their campaigns and was as well known to the captains as he was
to the troopers and many of the Indians.

[Illustration: Photo by Davis & Sanford

FREDERIC REMINGTON]

Somewhere about the middle ’80’s he began to send illustrations to the
various periodicals; crude affairs, as he admitted later and himself
characterized as “half-baked.” But they had that vital, convincing
touch to them that meant subsequent success. Somehow, even in his
tentative efforts, he had a vim and go that held the spectator. The
man knew his Indian, soldier, cowboy, hunter, from the ground up.
They had in them plenty of red blood, even though the first drawings
were crude. There was that about them which disclosed astonishing
feeling, clear insight into character, distinct sympathy. The public
was profoundly interested, and saw great promise. Nor was there any
disappointment; for the man made rapid progress. His Indian fairly
reeked of savagery; his soldier was an epitome of the hard-working,
modest, simple, splendid man of action; his cowboy was a picturesque
and vital character.

It is almost pathetic to realize that so commonplace and commercial an
invention as a wire fence was the means of doing away with the cowboy.
This introduction of a cheap and effective means of coralling the
animals at one fell swoop put the cowboy out of business, destroyed
forever the usefulness of this race of picturesque, hard-riding,
reckless youth of the plains. Mr. Cowboy rides on his raids but seldom
now.

Remington knew these cowboys well. He had mingled with them, ridden
after the herds, joined in their boisterous revels, and there came from
his brush and pencil a picturesque lot of out-of-door characters, to
the very life. Remington had camped in the open, had ridden hard and
long, had been with the United States cavalry in its expeditions, was
the intimate of the officers and men of the then little army of this
nation, and he saw history made. In all this crowd there was no more
picturesque figure, whether cowboy, Indian, or soldier, than Remington
himself. He wrote as entertainingly as he painted, and before his death
(he was stricken untimely) was to follow his beloved comrades in the
army as war correspondent to Cuba, in the Spanish War. It is nowise to
the disparagement of the men who followed Remington to say that they
were all under an everlasting debt of gratitude to him for his initial
insight into the breezy outlook on life in the Far West, and for his
way of presenting his facts.

Remington was an indefatigable worker, constantly filling his
sketch-book with notes, and making mental memoranda of the happenings
about him. And he showed steady progress in the technic of his art,
each succeeding picture disclosing genuine advance. Nor was he content
simply with painting and drawing. He sought artistic expression in
sculpture too, modeling much during the later years of his life with
great success. Personally, the man was a delight to a host of friends,
with his inimitable stories, his genial manner, and his thorough
naturalness. One of the best known of his sculptural works is “The
Broncho Buster,” which has long been a public favorite, and been
reproduced in bronze.


RUSSELL, THE COWBOY ARTIST

[Illustration: Copyright by C. M. Russell

A DANGEROUS CRIPPLE

By Charles M. Russell]

There followed Remington an artist very distinctive of the soil, one
who was of the land in that he had been a veritable cowboy, knew his
West thoroughly, had lived with the Indians, spoke several of the
tribal languages, and, still more useful accomplishment, was familiar
with that picturesque, poetic, universal means of communication among
savages of the Great West, the sign language. 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.

[Illustration: 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. Artistically, like Topsy, he _just
grew_. He cannot recollect the time when a lead pencil did not seem
part of his equipment, and he filled sketchbooks with notes. Somewhere
about 1892 he concluded to take up seriously the profession of artist,
and turned his attention to illustrative work. Among his efforts in
this direction were drawings for Stewart Edward White’s delightful
“Arizona Nights,” Emerson Hough’s “Story of the Outlaw,” and Wheeler’s
“Trail of Lewis and Clark.”

Russell went from St. Louis, his birthplace, to Montana when he was
but a lad, so that he learned much of woodcraft and the ways of the
plainsman. Today there are few who excel him in throwing the lariat; he
is an adept with the pistol; horses are second nature to him; buffaloes
he hunted and killed by the hundred in earlier days. So it will be seen
that when Mr. Russell started in to paint the West he was reasonably
well equipped and rendered whereof he knew.

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. No one was more surprised at his sudden success than the
artist himself, who had drawn these pictures because of his great love
of the work and to whom financial gain was the last consideration.

So it came about that Mr. Russell turned his attention to compositions
of various sorts,--the lassoing of cattle, the intimate glimpses of
Indian life, the ways of the cowboys, and occasionally episodes of
army life. They were all true transcripts, painted with considerable
sympathy and enthusiasm. Many of his pictures found favor in England,
titled people of that nation hunting in the West regarding these
canvases not only entertaining but as remarkably faithful. He has
been spoken of as the painter of the “West that has Passed.” Like
Remington, Mr. Russell has attempted with no little success the task of
representing by sculpture some of the Indians and animals of the plains.


SCHREYVOGEL’S “MY BUNKIE”

[Illustration: CHARLES SCHREYVOGEL]

During the exhibition at the National Academy of Design in New York in
1900 a young painter awoke one fine morning to find himself famous. He
was a youth of German extraction by the name of Charles Schreyvogel
(1861-1912), and his painting, “My Bunkie,” was the sensation of the
display. It was an episode of the United States army campaign against
the Indians, a cavalryman rescuing his chum, whom he had drawn up on
his horse. Another painter of western life had appeared, and had made
astonishingly good. Schreyvogel followed this picture with many more
of no less excellence. He painted the life of the plains,--the Indian
hunting the buffalo, attacking settlers, at his war dance, the fighting
of the American trooper,--in short, he disclosed a fine pictorial
insight in that wild and stirring life that has now practically passed
away.

[Illustration: Copyright, 1900, by Charles Schreyvogel.

A HOT TRAIL

By Charles Schreyvogel]


E. IRVING COUSE

Trained in the Paris schools, E. Irving Couse (1866-), after doing some
decorative work, devoted his attention entirely to painting the Indians
of the Southwest, depicting rather the intimate life out of doors, or
at the peaceful occupation of weaving, hunting, and other distractions.
He gives these canvases a decorative treatment, and they disclose an
intimate knowledge of his subject. Mr. Couse has a studio at Taos, New
Mexico, and is represented in many public collections throughout the
country. Besides he has had many medals and honors.


PAINTERS OF PLAIN AND FOREST

Another artist to paint the same sort of subject with distinguished
success is Ernest L. Blumenschein (1874-), who began as an illustrator,
and after work at portraiture became interested in the life of the
Indian. He too went some years ago to Taos, where quite a colony of
painters assembled. His first important picture to attract attention
was his “Wiseman, Warrior, and Youth,” a group of three characteristic
red men. Both Mr. Couse and Mr. Blumenschein may be said to represent
the “tame” Indian; for all their canvases depict the savages at
peaceful occupations.

W. Herbert Dunton is still another of the Taos colony, where he paints
much of the year; though he gives attention to illustrative work
as well. He has seized upon the characteristics of the Indian with
artistic fidelity.

[Illustration: E. IRVING COUSE

In His Studio]

In a similar manner N. C. Wyeth, both in painting and in illustrative
work, has been no less successful. Mr. Wyeth was a pupil of the late
Howard Pyle, whose influence is felt strongly in his work.

Other pupils of that noted illustrator have attained distinctive
positions in portraying varied forms of Western life. 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.

At Cody, Wyoming, for a large part of the year lives William R. Leigh.
He was born in West Virginia in 1866. He was a pupil of the Munich art
schools, and received medals in Paris. He has painted much of the West
that has passed,--of Indian and soldier, of settler and cowboy, of some
of the battles of the ’60’s between the United States troops and the
savages,--and has given some of the wonderful landscape backgrounds,
devoting no less attention to the extraordinary local color than to the
figure.

[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF E. IRVING COUSE

At Taos, New Mexico]

Edward W. Deming, who has both painted and modeled the Indian, executed
some years ago a large decoration for the home of Mrs. 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.

[Illustration: 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.
Another who began as illustrator is J. N. Marchand, who now paints the
story-telling picture of the prospector and the cowboy. He knows well
his types and the color of their setting. The name of De Cost Smith is
frequently signed to strong Indian pictures. His “Defiance,” a group
of Indian warriors on the crest of a hill, shown a dozen years ago,
had great vitality and beauty. Louis Aitken was one who had much of
that vitality and beauty--but he passed away too early for great fame.
Another who is now known in mural work, W. de Leftwith Dodge, began
his career in Paris by showing in the Salon the “Death of Minnehaha”
and “Burial of a Brave,” subjects novel to that old art center. 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.

[Illustration: E. L. BLUMENSCHEIN]

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.

Some of these later men bring to their work a technical skill perhaps
not possessed by the earlier men. Yet with this they lack some of
the convincing quality of the pioneers. For remaining traces of the
picturesque the painter of today goes to New Mexico, where he finds
even more color than farther north; but there he has to portray the
arts of peace rather than those of war. Who shall say his theme is no
less satisfactory and inspiring? Certainly not we who have lived to see
the art of combat brought up to the nth power!

[Illustration: Copyright, The Knapp Company, N. Y.

CUSTER’S LAST STAND

By W. H. Dunton]

[Illustration: W. H. DUNTON

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. In but little of the mural work has
this opportunity been used, though some of the decoration of state
capitols has included isolated instances--Douglas Volk in the Minnesota
capitol being one. Lawrence C. Earle has decorated a bank building with
scenes of pioneer days. Ralph Blakelock, one of the most individual
of painters, in his best period pictured the Indian. Elbridge A.
Burbank has made many paintings of types and representatives of
various tribes--since 1897 over 125 portraits. H. F. Farny, who did
fine illustrative work in the ’80’s, has been one of the most prolific
painters of the Indian subject. Two of his best are “The Silent Guest”
and “Renegade Apaches.” Joseph Henry Sharp has also been a tremendous
producer of the western life picture. He has painted nearly one
hundred portraits of Indians and Indian pictures for the University of
California and eleven Indian portraits for the Smithsonian Institution,
Washington.

Sculptors have made ample use of the Indian as a subject. His muscular
development, as well as his stoicism, is a monumental quality akin to
certain aspects in the Egyptians.

[Illustration: Copyright, 1914

Courtesy Snedecor & Co.

THE ROPING

By W. R. Leigh]


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

    CROOKED TRAILS _By Frederic Remington_

    JOHN ERMINE OF THE YELLOWSTONE _By Frederic Remington_

    MEN WITH THE BARK ON _By Frederic Remington_

    PONY TRACKS _By Frederic Remington_

    STORIES OF PEACE AND WAR _By Frederic Remington_

    SUNDOWN LEFLARE, Short Stories _By Frederic Remington_

    THE WAY OF AN INDIAN _By Frederic Remington_

All of these books are descriptions and stories of life in the Great
West as Remington saw it. They are all illustrated by the artist and
author.

    GOOD HUNTING AND PURSUIT OF BIG GAME IN THE WEST _By
    Theodore Roosevelt_

    HUNTING TRIPS OF A RANCHMAN _By Theodore Roosevelt_

    RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING TRAIL _By Theodore Roosevelt_
    Illustrated by Frederic Remington

    MY BUNKIE AND OTHERS A volume of pictures by Charles
    Schreyvogel

    RECOLLECTIONS OF FREDERIC REMINGTON _By Augustus Thomas_
    Century Magazine, July, 1913.




THE OPEN LETTER


[Illustration: BUFFALO HUNT. By George Catlin]

In the art of “The Painters of Western Life,” the artist himself plays
an important part. Remington, Schreyvogel, Russell, and the rest
were explorers and discoverers. Someone has said that Remington was
essentially a reporter, that he never became a “painter’s painter,”
but that he was the people’s favorite through the subjects he chose.
The phrase, “art for art’s sake,” fades into the background as these
vivid pictures of life in the Great West blaze out on the canvas.
Every stroke of the brushes of these men shows that they lived and did
things, and that they were more concerned about reporting results than
about methods.

       *       *       *       *       *

Some of the earlier attempts to picture the West are crude, and
scarcely to be classed as art. The name of Catlin is not even mentioned
in two of the leading standard works on American painting. He was not
a professional artist: he was a lawyer, and he set out to explore
the West and to report on the conditions that he found there. His
pictures, therefore, though not reckoned with as art productions, are
most valuable records. The accompanying illustration, showing an Indian
buffalo hunt, is an example. The scene itself is now a part of past
history. We don’t _hunt_ buffaloes any more: we _collect_ them, and we
regard ourselves as very fortunate today in possessing herds of buffalo
gathered and fostered by the public spirited liberality of Mr. William
C. Whitney and Mr. Austin Corbin.

Catlin was followed into the West by men who knew much more about art
than he; but the object they all sought was the same. Each one of them
had stories to tell of the Redman and his life and habits, of the
fights and friendships of cavalrymen, of the adventures of cowboys,
and in their pictures these subjects were more to them than the purely
artistic qualities displayed in their representation. There is, of
course, much to admire in their art. Their execution is vigorous,
direct and sure. But the historical value of their paintings makes
fully as strong an appeal to us as their art interest.

       *       *       *       *       *

The eminent art critic, Samuel Isham, characterized Remington as an
illustrator rather than a painter. “The authoritative chronicler,”
he said, “of the whole western land, from Assiniboine to Mexico, and
of all men and beasts dwelling therein, is Frederic Remington. He,
at least, cannot be said to have sacrificed truth to grace. The raw,
crude light, the burning sand, the pitiless blue sky, surround the
lank, sunburned men who ride the rough horses, and fight, or drink, or
herd cattle, as the case may be.” Mr. Isham points out that the work
of these men might actually lose something of their force if their
pictures were completer and more finished. Their paintings are bold,
brilliant records, and their assembled works might well be classed
under the title that Russell gave to his own collection: “Pictures of a
West That Has Passed.”

[Illustration: W. D. Moffat

EDITOR]




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