Recalling Western artist Frederic Remington
10/04/2011
Some 150 years ago today, American artist Frederic Remington was born in Canton, NY, far from the locales he would make famous through his paintings, sculptures and illustrations.
Remington may have been born in the east and attended Yale, but he’s noted for playing a major role in creating the popular image of the West that persists today, according to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyo.
“In both painting and sculpture, he portrayed the action and drama of the West,” according to the center. “Remington’s subjects, the military, the cowboy and the American Indian, centered on conflict. In some of his best works, conflict was not only the subject, but also created the aesthetic tension of the artwork.”
Remington made his first trip west in 1881, to the Montana territory and subsequently sold his first sketches of western life – cowboys – to the popular publication Harper’s Weekly.
In 1886, Remington was sent to Arizona by Harper’s as an artist-correspondent to cover the US government’s war against Chiricahua Apache warrior Geronimo.
Seeing the top-of-the-page headlines on newspaper and television websites about Gov. Nikki Haley grading of legislators, one quickly scans the stories to see what sort of criteria the chief executive employed when compiling said report cards.
Perhaps it was based on which legislators accepted the least amount of pork for their districts? Or maybe it looked at which lawmakers, through some complicated formula devised by the governor’s staff, were ascertained to have done their best to advance a budget that stuck to core services, given the overall dire condition of the state’s economy? Or perhaps it was simply which Solons did their best to put partisanship aside and do what was best for the citizens of the state?
If this were a test, going with any of the above would have meant you failed. Miserably.
That’s because Haley graded Legislators solely on the basis of whether they voted the way the governor wanted them to vote. Nothing more.
Not surprisingly, 92 of 95 “A’s” went to Republicans, while all 37 “F’s” went to Democrats.
