REMINGTON’S ATTENTION TO DETAIL.
“Kipling says that, ‘a single man in a barrack is not a plaster saint,’ and that is about it. That cavalryman posed for me on his horse. But not all of my work is from life. I go west for three months every year, and gather a lot of sketches and then work them up. Those color sketches there,—a chief and his daughter,—are from life. You see I was able to get all the color. Yet I like to depict white men best; they are more interesting.”
My eyes rested on an unfinished picture, toward which, every now and then, Mr. Remington turned a thoughtful gaze as if trying to think of something. It was a birch-bark canoe, with a figure at either end; the water was smooth, and the shore was wooded. One person in the motionless canoe was fishing.
“Is that from memory?” I asked of the artist.
“Partly,” he said, with a smile. “I used to see a good many photographs of trout fishing in the Adirondacks; lines taut, and then hurling a trout through the air, to land it in the canoe. So once I thought I would try it myself. I went up there and fished for two weeks in the rain. I am trying to think how to make the rain appear to strike and bounce from the water. You know how water looks when it is raining,”—and there came into his face a thoughtful and studious look, showing how carefully he weighed every detail of his work.
Mr. Remington rises early, has breakfast at seven, and works until three, when he takes his customary horseback ride across the country.
“Do you work from inspiration?” I asked.
“I do not know what you mean, exactly. I must have a study in my mind, and then I work it out. Some mornings I can do but little; but I am kept exceedingly busy with constant orders to fill, besides illustrating my own articles.”