"The Right of the Road" -- A Hazardous Encounter on a Rocky Mountain Trail, 1900
Oil on canvas
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
1961.246
In October 1900 Remington turned thirty-nine, and he grew restless for travel. He negotiated a free fare and accommodations from the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad for a sketching excursion through Colorado, including a 300-mile journey of the Rocky Mountains and south along the Uncompahgre Plateau. At some point during his travels, he witnessed the scene depicted in this painting. Remington was not much for modernity and this type of subject was very rare for him. In the end, he didn’t find his western trip as rewarding as he thought it would be, in part because he felt the West had become too civilized. Upon his return to the East he told a friend that he might never travel to the West again. “It is all brick buildings, derby hats, and blue overalls,” he groused. He then added tellingly: “It spoils my early illusions—and they are my capital.” Remington would always see himself as an artist of the Old West, not a new one.
