A Wild West Saddled by Snobbery

To some viewers, the term “Western art” conjures up images of classic Greek statues, medieval altarpieces, Renaissance portraits and modern abstractions. To others, the same words bring to mind romanticized pictures of cowboys and Indians.

Although these two outlooks seem to belong to different universes, they collide in “Remington, Russell and the Language of Western Art,” a corny exhibition at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana. Organized for the Trust for Museum Exhibitions by Peter H. Hassrick, director of the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West (at the University of Oklahoma), the show is conservative not because it overstates the importance of Frederic Remington (1861-1909) and Charles M. Russell (1864-1926), which it does, but because its populist aspirations are squashed by its embrace of old-fashioned snobbery.

In terms of content, there’s nothing elitist about any of the easy-to-read images by either artist. Hard-working cattle hands, heroic cavalrymen and stoic American Indians appear repeatedly, as do bucking broncos, galloping stallions, stampeding longhorns and hunted buffalo.

Nor are any of the 20 bronze sculptures, 28 oil paintings and 24 drawings, watercolors and prints by the two artists rendered in a style that isn’t immediately accessible. Very loosely based on Rodin’s larger-than-life-size figures, the tabletop sculptures almost always depict the dramatic high points of stories about life in the Wild West. Everyday occurrences, such as a rattlesnake spooking a horse and startling its rider, are treated no differently from such life-and-death dramas as buffalo hunts and hand-to-hand combat between Piegan and Sioux Indians.

Initially, you might not be able to tell the difference between a sculpture by Russell and one by Remington. But if you look closely, you quickly learn that Russell’s bronzes tend to be more fluid and unified, their agitated surfaces and roughed-up contours describing exaggerated actions. Like 3-D renditions of the writhing figures in Thomas Hart Benton’s vigorously vulgar paintings, they depict thrusting limbs and twisting torsos.

In contrast, Remington’s bronzes look stiff, not quite robotic, but so posed and static that they seem to embody an ethos of country bumpkin academicism. In general, an out-of-sync awkwardness plagues Remington’s figurines, giving them the presence of crudely configured toys. In some, horse and rider appear to be modeled in different scales.

The differences between the artists’ paintings are even easier to see. The self-taught Russell, who was born in St. Louis and spent his adult life in Montana, favored the depiction of anecdotal scenes in which the accuracy of details was of paramount importance. This gives his landscapes, outfits and facial expressions greater specificity and variety than those of his counterpart. He’s less skilled as a colorist, however, and garish shades pop out of his pictures, suggesting that Russell himself was an integral element of the local color he loved to depict.

On the other hand, the New York-born Remington attended art school at Yale, traveled west intermittently and eventually settled in Connecticut. His formal compositions strip away details to get to such archetypal themes as man against beast and civilization versus nature. Endowed with the stillness of emblems, some of his simplified images aspire to the grandeur of icons. Few spell everything out as relentlessly as Russell’s, leaving more to the imagination.

These differences get more extreme in both artists’ late paintings, which feature the effects of sunlight. Russell’s panoramic views of groups of American Indians on horseback resemble back-lighted stage sets. Anticipating an entire genre of Hollywood movies, in which lonely heroes ride off into glorious sunsets, these curious oils on canvas have more in common with cinematic spectacles than art history.

Not so Remington’s increasingly abstract pictures, whose broad expanses of sun-bleached tints attest to his desire to fuse European Impressionism and American Realism. The results are less than impressive. They are, however, immensely influential. Similar effects can be seen in a century’s worth of work by Sunday painters all over the country.

The best works in the show are those on paper, particularly Remington’s grisailles and Russell’s watercolors and drawings. Their modesty of scale matches the talents of both artists.

More important, all of their works look better in reproduction than they do in the flesh. This makes sense. Both men began their careers as illustrators whose etchings, drawings and paintings were regularly reproduced in popular books and magazines. Remington’s and Russell’s most vivid and authentic expressions are reproductions.

As their reputations grew, however, they turned away from this lowbrow genre to the more venerated media of bronze and oil on canvas. The exhibition accepts and perpetuates this hoary prejudice against mass-produced works. Pompously elevating Remington and Russell into a tradition of singular masterpieces, it succumbs to the same highfalutin snob appeal their best works opposed.

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“Remington, Russell and the Language of Western Art,” the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana, (714) 567-3600, through Sept. 16. Adults $16; children $10. Closed Mondays.