The Ambush

Henry Farny like so many of his contemporaries, witnessed the disappearance of the vast frontier through the Great Western expansion from the Plain states to the West Coast. The ancient cultures of the Native Americans of this land faded quickly under violent circumstances as a new society settled and dominated the land. Farny illustrates this violent conflict in The Ambush. An unusual subject for Farny, who often depicted a harmonious Native American life style, The Ambush shows conflict in the fight for domination of the Western territories. Unlike his contemporaries, Frederic Remington and Charles Marion Russell who typically revealed this conflict from an Eastern point of view of the white man's prevailing control, Farny shows here the Indians with a clear upper hand in the pending battle.

In The Ambush, Farny displays a skillful handling of color, space and atmosphere. Through his formal artistic training in Dusseldorf and Munich, he perfected his technical skills and developed the rich pallette and bravura brushwork of Frank Duveneck, who had tremendous influence on the American artists studying in Germany at that time. Farny's early fascination with Japanese prints can be seen in the balance and harmony of his composition with the jewel-like quality and exquisitely detailed brushwork. In this composition, the viewer is immediately confronted with the figures in the foreground, while the strong vertical elements of the boulders, cliffs and the trail masterfully draw the viewer toward the approaching stagecoach at the picture's vanishing point.

In The Ambush, Farny combines his polished European training and influence of Japanese prints with a subject that is purely American. This combination won Farny wide critical acclaim during his long career, and his popularity has continued to this day.