Christmas Meat 1915

Charles M. Russell made this watercolor painting, Christmas Meat, sometime around 1910. Russell masterfully employs the fluidity of his chosen medium to bring the Western landscape to life. The washes of color evoke the crisp, cold air and the soft, insulating snow. Note how the artist uses the transparent quality of the watercolor to build up layers of depth and texture, suggesting the ruggedness of the Montana Territory. The wood of the cabin in particular is depicted with such verisimilitude; the rendering calls attention to the labor involved in hewing logs, and building a shelter. The felled tree lying in the foreground is a raw material, soon to be firewood, and a suggestion of more labor to come. With the deer carcass, Russell also reminds us where our sustenance comes from, and the effort involved in procuring it. Russell was skilled in many media. But it is in watercolor that the true spirit of the West seems to flow, bridging the gap between the wild and the made.