Works of Art

A writer for the April 27, 1889 issue of Harper’s Weekly reported that Remington had recently traveled to Mexico on assignment to paint typical soldiers of various regiments of the Mexican army. “He was thus enabled, through the courtesy of the Mexican Minister of War, to make a most complete series of military sketches,” the writer noted. One of these was the painting seen here, a strikingly vivid study of a Mexican army horseman in dress uniform astride his mount, with a row of military stables in the background. Remington spent more than six weeks in Mexico gathering material for a series of stories, including one he hoped to write himself. The following year an unsigned article in Harper’s Weekly traced the fortunes of a Mexican cavalry unit in a setting very reminiscent of Remington’s painting.

“The scene is an arid upland in a white glare of sunlight beneath an unchanging blue sky,” the article began. It went on to describe the “strikingly picturesque” figure of a horseman sitting erect in his saddle, “with all the esprit of his profession,” a soldier who was not likely to be prevented from “carrying out to the letter the orders of his official superiors or his individual ideas of military duty. These qualities are evident in Remington’s respectful portrayal of the cavalryman, whose unit was efficient enough to be a dreaded enemy even to the fierce Apaches. Remington’s depiction of the dappled horse in this painting is particularly accomplished, the result of much careful study in the field. Mexican horses were smaller than their American counterparts but also “wiry, fleet, enduring animals, light of foot and very effective for a short dash,” the writer for Harper’s Weekly observed. “They can live upon little, and pick up subsistence where larger, more carefully trained horses would starve.”