Indian Party 1915

Charles M. Russell rendered this party of riders on horseback with what looks like watercolour – you can see the paper peeking through. Looking at the horizon line, you could imagine what it must have been like to be Russell, just trying to figure out how to get that feeling of endless space and big sky down on paper. The mountains in the background look very simplified, almost like the way a child might draw them, but they create an illusion of depth. The most interesting thing to me is how the horses and riders become blurry shapes; they melt into one another so that you can't quite tell where one ends and another begins, which is something that a lot of painters, like Degas, were trying to do at that time. It’s like the group is becoming one thing, and moving together, which makes you feel like you are really on the move with them.