The Wild West: Artists' View-SF Legion of Honor

The Bronco Buster-Frederick Remington, 1885

     Had a nice visit to the Legion of Honor Museum in the City.  It was a foggy, summer day, as usual, at Land's End.  Not much in the way of crowds.  The special exhibition focused on the American West as seen through the eyes of many artists using various media: photography, watercolors, oil painting, and mixed media.
     The statue above, in bronze, by noted sculptor Frederick Remington, captures the image so representative of the cowboy: a man astride a rearing horse, defiant to the saddle and harness necessary to the rider's command and control.   The cowboy has the upturned wide-brimmed hat, the full mustache, the riding crop cocked back in midair, about to strike the animal.   His legs are wrapped in "chaps", the ultimate symbol of a cowboy at work.  The posture of the rider indicates his experience at breaking in new horses: he is leaning into the shoulders of the rising animal whose fore hooves are posed almost at the level of the saddle, and the spurred boots of the rider are taught against the stirrups to brace the man against the struggle.  Remington captures the action in minute detail, accounting for all the parts needed to accomplish this Western scene.
      Also included were landscape paintings by Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran.  One of the Upper Sacramento River depicting an idyllic landscape without any intrusions by man, a favorite Bierstadt theme.  The other of the Grand Canyon, seen from one of the rim views that gathers in the various rock formations that identify that famous location where the Colorado River has carved its legacy for humanity to observe.

Grand Canyon: Thomas Moran