Pickets

"The most visually engaging works by Schreyvogel," Alan C. Braddock declares, "are those that show figures with eyes and firearms aimed directly at us, targeting the beholder...Although the guns do not actually fire, shooting seems imminent, to say the least, creating a sense of prolepsis or anticipation. Breaking through the Line [1903, Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma] contains just one of many examples of this motif in Schreyvogel’s oeuvre. Another can be found in The Pickets (fig. 12), which shows a trooper in the foreground with pistol and eyes trained on the viewer...Our glance at the picture, into the gaze of that soldier and his pointed gun barrel, fictively seals our fate." ("Shooting the Beholder: Charles Schreyvogel and the Spectacle of Gun Vision," American Art, vol. XX, no. 1, Spring 2006, p. 46)