Half-Breed 1901

Frederic Remington made 'Half-Breed', and what strikes me is the pastel palette, the ochres and reds and oranges that glow like embers, and the light sketchy quality of the whole piece. I can imagine the work of the artist, Remington, a little impatient maybe, blocking in the tones and colors, building up the image in layers, smudging, blending, and layering, working quickly, intuitively, spontaneously. He’s caught a figure on horseback, somewhere between stillness and movement, lost in thought or looking into the distance, and I wonder what Remington was thinking as he made this work, what kind of atmosphere he was trying to evoke, what kind of emotional response he was hoping to elicit from his viewers. The more I look, the more the horse and rider seem to merge together. I keep thinking about how the material qualities of the artwork—the powdery texture of the pastel, the earthy pigments, and the way they’re applied to the surface—shape our understanding and feeling toward the painting. And somehow that connects me to other painters, through time, all of us working with images and materials, and in constant exchange with each other’s ideas.