At Taos, New Mexico
Edward W. Deming, who has both painted and modeled the Indian, executed some years ago a large decoration for the home of Mrs. E. H. Harriman, at Arden, New York, with the title “The Hunt,” showing the red men after big game. Similarly Maynard Dixon has executed decorative work of the Indian for some California homes. His training was through several years of illustrative work for the magazines, and in this work he always had a distinctly decorative composition of his subject, though his rendering was realistic and virile.
WISEMAN, WARRIOR, YOUTH
By E. L. Blumenschein
Howard McCormack, who studied the Southwest as far as Mexico, has also given attention to decorative work with the Indian for his theme. Another who began as illustrator is J. N. Marchand, who now paints the story-telling picture of the prospector and the cowboy. He knows well his types and the color of their setting. The name of De Cost Smith is frequently signed to strong Indian pictures. His “Defiance,” a group of Indian warriors on the crest of a hill, shown a dozen years ago, had great vitality and beauty. Louis Aitken was one who had much of that vitality and beauty—but he passed away too early for great fame. Another who is now known in mural work, W. de Leftwith Dodge, began his career in Paris by showing in the Salon the “Death of Minnehaha” and “Burial of a Brave,” subjects novel to that old art center. In recent water color exhibitions still another illustrator, Frank Tenney Johnson, has had many distinguished showings of the present day Indian. His oil paintings, too, are full of the poetry of the open. Moonlight and sun-glare are to him equally alluring. Two painters who glory in showing vast sketches of the open, who use the human figure, but minimize it in their pictures, are Frank Vincent Du Mond and Fernand Lungren, both permanent residents of the Southwest.
E. L. BLUMENSCHEIN
All painters of the West regard that country and its life with a deep reverence, and this feeling shows in their work. “God’s Country,” though the familiar phrase of all, expresses their enthusiasm and their devotion. In subject it is the most distinctly American of all themes, and enthusiasm for the theme will go on producing the technical skill to render it adequately.
Some of these later men bring to their work a technical skill perhaps not possessed by the earlier men. Yet with this they lack some of the convincing quality of the pioneers. For remaining traces of the picturesque the painter of today goes to New Mexico, where he finds even more color than farther north; but there he has to portray the arts of peace rather than those of war. Who shall say his theme is no less satisfactory and inspiring? Certainly not we who have lived to see the art of combat brought up to the nth power!