Works of Art

This painting, an ethereal masterwork that summarizes Remington’s late style, was exhibited in the artist’s successful one-man exhibition at the Knoedler Galleries in New York in December 1908. In the painting, a cowboy has halted his horse to make a sign to a mounted Indian that his herd of longhorn cattle is approaching and that he would like permission for it to cross the Indian’s land. The Indian, with his closed fist over his heart, is giving the sign of acceptance. Although the subject of the painting is typical for Remington, the style in which it is painted is vastly different from his earlier work. The painting was to be reproduced in color in Collier’s magazine using the newly-developed color halftone process. At the time he was working on the painting, Remington wrote in his diary that hard outlines and direct, open-air color would no longer be found in his work; instead, his paintings would be “expressions of light.” This statement reflects the artist’s growing interest in the work of the impressionist painters.

The Long-Horn Cattle Sign is a prime example of a work that was intended, in Remington’s own words, “to glow and quiver until it seems to exude the palpitating quality which light holds.” Indeed, the men and horses in the painting seem to be dissolving into patches of color-laden brushstrokes, while the surrounding landscape shimmers in broad areas of vibrant hues. Overall, Remington’s scene has a dreamlike quality, as if it is happening in another time. It conveys a true sense of Remington’s own West—a world that existed only in the artist’s imagination. In this painting, he uses light and color, as he once said, to make the viewer “feel the details and not see them.” What counts in this painting is the basic visual impression, and its emotive feeling. With paintings such as this Remington felt he had turned a corner in his art. Unfortunately, he had little time to explore this further, for in less than a year he would be dead.