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拍品專文
Frederic Remington created iconic images of the Western frontier composed of Native Americans, cavalrymen and cowboys. No where in his oeuvre is the cowboy more celebrated than in his first bronze subject, The Bronco Buster. Conceived in 1895, The Bronco Buster, depicting a cowboy breaking in a wild horse, was an immediate success, symbolizing all that was triumphant and heroic of the West.
After briefly attending the Yale College School of Art and following his father's death, Remingtion made his first trip to the West in the summer of 1881, traveling through Montana. The following year marked the beginning of Remington's career in illustration with a work published in the national magazine Harper's Weekly. In 1883, wanting to experience the West firsthand, the artist purchased a sheep ranch near Peabody, Kansas. This spurred a move to Kansas City in 1884 with his new wife Eva Caten. The couple returned to New York within a year due to financial troubles. Remington continued to make frequent trips to the South and Northwest, areas from which the artist drew his greatest artistic inspiration (Fig. a.).
Remington's desire to return West and record the passing frontier was satisfied with a commission from Harper's Weekly in 1886. Within a year, Remington's illustrations of the West animated the pages of not only Harper's Weekly, but appeared in other prestigious magazines such as Outing Youth's Companion and the Century Magazine. As a star illustrator, Remington quickly gained considerable acclaim that led to future assignments with noteworthy patrons, including President Theodore Roosevelt and the influential military hero, General Nelson A. Miles.
Remington by the 1890s was a renowned illustrator, painter and an accomplished writer. Never complacent as an artist he wanted to expand his repertoire of talent to include something "in the round as well as the flat." In 1894 Remington at the urging of his friends, fellow sculptor Frederick Ruckstull and neighbor and dramatist Augustus Thomas, began modeling a rider mounted on a rearing horse that was based on the artist's drawing, A Pitching Bronco. Michael Greenbaum writes: "Ruckstull had been working near Remington's home on a commissioned equestrian statue for the Pennsylvania statehouse and provided 'all the paraphernalia he needed,' including a modeling stand, wax and tools. Remington was assured he could 'draw just as clearly in wax as you do in paper.' Moreover, Ruckstull told him to disregard his lack of training. 'Technique be hanged,' the sculptor later recalled telling Remington. 'Forget it and it will take care of itself. Then you have an individual technique, or surface modelling (sic), personal and peculiar to you.'" (The Icons of the West, Ogdensburg, New York, 1996, pp. 13-14) Believing Remington had a "sculptor's degree of vision," Thomas further advised the artist: "You don't mentally see your fingers on one side of them. Your mind goes all around them." (Icons of the West, p. 14) Heeding the advice of his peers and applying his considerable artistic talent Remington produced The Bronco Buster soon after in 1895. He described the sculpture on his copyright application as "..a cow-boy mounted upon and breaking in a wild horse, called a Bronco." (as quoted in Icons of the West, p. 12)
The subject of the cowboy was always a central and important theme to Remington's work. The artist had written in 1895: "With me, cowboys are what gems and porcelains are to some others." ("Cracker Cowboys of Florida", Harper's Monthly, April 1895, p. 329.) Remington also observed their splendid tenacity and powerful abilities when in the saddle: "They walk as though they expected at every moment to sit down but let them get a foot in a stirrup and a grasp on the horn of a saddle, and a dynamic cartridge alone could expel them from their seat." (F. Remington, Pony Tracks, New York, 1961, p. 61) Remington's keen observations and unabashed love for the cowboy and his way of life found direct expression in many of his published drawings and paintings. Remington also maintained an extensive collection of photographs that contained related images of rearing horses and cowboys on rearing horses (Fig. b) These photographs aided the artist in further developing and replicating the intricacies of motion with greater accuracy in his drawings and paintings, but more importantly in his sculptures. The Bronco Buster, a subject derived from Remington's cache of works devoted to the rearing horse and rider, reflected the artist's incredible attention to detail combined with the ingenious rendering of specific action, intense movement and sublime balance.
In The Bronco Buster Remington incorporated stylistic elements that are evident in his paintings and drawings (Fig. c). Yet, the artist ventured beyond the formal elements of sculpture prevalent at his time and created a bronze that was without precedent. Michael Shapiro writes: "Remington's first bronze is quite planar in format and, like a painting or drawing, respects the picture plane. Remington's attention to the details of the rider's accoutrements-his holster, stirrups, quirt and lariat-seems to derive from precise, descriptive concerns of illustration as well as his own fascination with such tangible emblems and relics of the changing West. But the prophetic conception of the sculpture, the selection of the moment just after the horse and rider's utmost exertion, and the sinuous, unencumbered silhouette of the two-foot statuette were beyond the aspiration of any other American sculptor of the period." (in Frederic Remington, The Masterworks, New York, 1988, pp. 186-187)
The Bronco Buster was a tremendous success as critics immediately recognized its power and visual impact. One critic wrote of The Bronco Buster in the October 19, 1895 issue of Harper's Weekly that "The Serious fight between man and animal is given with a realism and intensity that comes from profound knowlege. Mr. Remington has handled his clay in a masterly way, with great freedom and a certainty of touch, and in a manner to call forth the surpise and admiration not only of his fellow craftsman, but of sculptor's as well." (as quoted in R. Stewart, Frederic Remington, Masterpieces from the Amon Carter Museum, Forth Worth, Texas, 1992, p. 24) In 1896 the Century Magazine published a series of photographs showing the sculpture from four angles "to underscore its revolutionary cantilevered composition; Remington's understanding of balance and form had left nearly every American and European sculptor flat-footed. The accompanying article noted the tensile strength of the frozen motion, which 'suggests the power of a tightly coiled spring, ready to snap forward.' Remington himself was quoted as saying that sculputre 'was a great art and satisfying to me, for my whole feeling is for form.'" (Frederic Remington, Masterpieces from the Amon Carter Museum, p. 24.)
The success of Remington's bronzes was in part due to the technical abilities of the foundry that cast them. The Bronco Buster was first cast at the Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company in New York between 1895 and 1900. The foundry produced sixty- four sand-castings of bronze. Sand-casting, the method Remington used for his early bronzes, involved making a negative sand mold from the foundry's plaster cast of the artist's original clay model. While this method reproduced the model accurately, it did not allow the artist to make alterations to the original model.
After a damaging fire at Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company in 1898, Remington sometime during 1900 began a relationship with Roman Bronze Works of New York, the only foundry in America that solely used the ancient lost wax casting method. The lost wax process involved the artist making a wax positive of his model in which final modifications in details and surface texture could be carved by the artist during the final stages of casting. This allowed for slight variations between castings. According to Michael Greenbaum, this "technique is advantageous for casting complex multi-figured sculptures with highly textured surfaces and numerous undercuts and offered the most faithful reproduction of an artist's work." (Icons of the West, p. 33) The first lost wax cast of The Bronco Buster was executed during the latter half of 1900. Though the early casts of The Bronco Buster were closest in appearance to their sand cast predecessors, the bronze underwent most of its significant changes between 1903 and 1906 which included modifications in the cowboy's clothing, saddle and the horse's mane. Subtler changes were applied at various times up until 1907, at which point no further alterations were made.
The Bronco Buster was the most successful bronze in America in the nineteenth century and remains today one of the most popular images of the American West. Soon after he began work in this medium Remington recognized that his legacy as a brilliant artist would be defined by the longevity of his bronze sculptures. He wrote in 1895: "My oils will all get old and watery... my watercolors will fade--but I am to endure in bronze... I am modeling--I find I do well--I am doing a cowboy on a bucking bronco and I am going to rattle down through the ages." (as quoted in Frederic Remington, The Masterworks, p. 182)
After briefly attending the Yale College School of Art and following his father's death, Remingtion made his first trip to the West in the summer of 1881, traveling through Montana. The following year marked the beginning of Remington's career in illustration with a work published in the national magazine Harper's Weekly. In 1883, wanting to experience the West firsthand, the artist purchased a sheep ranch near Peabody, Kansas. This spurred a move to Kansas City in 1884 with his new wife Eva Caten. The couple returned to New York within a year due to financial troubles. Remington continued to make frequent trips to the South and Northwest, areas from which the artist drew his greatest artistic inspiration (Fig. a.).
Remington's desire to return West and record the passing frontier was satisfied with a commission from Harper's Weekly in 1886. Within a year, Remington's illustrations of the West animated the pages of not only Harper's Weekly, but appeared in other prestigious magazines such as Outing Youth's Companion and the Century Magazine. As a star illustrator, Remington quickly gained considerable acclaim that led to future assignments with noteworthy patrons, including President Theodore Roosevelt and the influential military hero, General Nelson A. Miles.
Remington by the 1890s was a renowned illustrator, painter and an accomplished writer. Never complacent as an artist he wanted to expand his repertoire of talent to include something "in the round as well as the flat." In 1894 Remington at the urging of his friends, fellow sculptor Frederick Ruckstull and neighbor and dramatist Augustus Thomas, began modeling a rider mounted on a rearing horse that was based on the artist's drawing, A Pitching Bronco. Michael Greenbaum writes: "Ruckstull had been working near Remington's home on a commissioned equestrian statue for the Pennsylvania statehouse and provided 'all the paraphernalia he needed,' including a modeling stand, wax and tools. Remington was assured he could 'draw just as clearly in wax as you do in paper.' Moreover, Ruckstull told him to disregard his lack of training. 'Technique be hanged,' the sculptor later recalled telling Remington. 'Forget it and it will take care of itself. Then you have an individual technique, or surface modelling (sic), personal and peculiar to you.'" (The Icons of the West, Ogdensburg, New York, 1996, pp. 13-14) Believing Remington had a "sculptor's degree of vision," Thomas further advised the artist: "You don't mentally see your fingers on one side of them. Your mind goes all around them." (Icons of the West, p. 14) Heeding the advice of his peers and applying his considerable artistic talent Remington produced The Bronco Buster soon after in 1895. He described the sculpture on his copyright application as "..a cow-boy mounted upon and breaking in a wild horse, called a Bronco." (as quoted in Icons of the West, p. 12)
The subject of the cowboy was always a central and important theme to Remington's work. The artist had written in 1895: "With me, cowboys are what gems and porcelains are to some others." ("Cracker Cowboys of Florida", Harper's Monthly, April 1895, p. 329.) Remington also observed their splendid tenacity and powerful abilities when in the saddle: "They walk as though they expected at every moment to sit down but let them get a foot in a stirrup and a grasp on the horn of a saddle, and a dynamic cartridge alone could expel them from their seat." (F. Remington, Pony Tracks, New York, 1961, p. 61) Remington's keen observations and unabashed love for the cowboy and his way of life found direct expression in many of his published drawings and paintings. Remington also maintained an extensive collection of photographs that contained related images of rearing horses and cowboys on rearing horses (Fig. b) These photographs aided the artist in further developing and replicating the intricacies of motion with greater accuracy in his drawings and paintings, but more importantly in his sculptures. The Bronco Buster, a subject derived from Remington's cache of works devoted to the rearing horse and rider, reflected the artist's incredible attention to detail combined with the ingenious rendering of specific action, intense movement and sublime balance.
In The Bronco Buster Remington incorporated stylistic elements that are evident in his paintings and drawings (Fig. c). Yet, the artist ventured beyond the formal elements of sculpture prevalent at his time and created a bronze that was without precedent. Michael Shapiro writes: "Remington's first bronze is quite planar in format and, like a painting or drawing, respects the picture plane. Remington's attention to the details of the rider's accoutrements-his holster, stirrups, quirt and lariat-seems to derive from precise, descriptive concerns of illustration as well as his own fascination with such tangible emblems and relics of the changing West. But the prophetic conception of the sculpture, the selection of the moment just after the horse and rider's utmost exertion, and the sinuous, unencumbered silhouette of the two-foot statuette were beyond the aspiration of any other American sculptor of the period." (in Frederic Remington, The Masterworks, New York, 1988, pp. 186-187)
The Bronco Buster was a tremendous success as critics immediately recognized its power and visual impact. One critic wrote of The Bronco Buster in the October 19, 1895 issue of Harper's Weekly that "The Serious fight between man and animal is given with a realism and intensity that comes from profound knowlege. Mr. Remington has handled his clay in a masterly way, with great freedom and a certainty of touch, and in a manner to call forth the surpise and admiration not only of his fellow craftsman, but of sculptor's as well." (as quoted in R. Stewart, Frederic Remington, Masterpieces from the Amon Carter Museum, Forth Worth, Texas, 1992, p. 24) In 1896 the Century Magazine published a series of photographs showing the sculpture from four angles "to underscore its revolutionary cantilevered composition; Remington's understanding of balance and form had left nearly every American and European sculptor flat-footed. The accompanying article noted the tensile strength of the frozen motion, which 'suggests the power of a tightly coiled spring, ready to snap forward.' Remington himself was quoted as saying that sculputre 'was a great art and satisfying to me, for my whole feeling is for form.'" (Frederic Remington, Masterpieces from the Amon Carter Museum, p. 24.)
The success of Remington's bronzes was in part due to the technical abilities of the foundry that cast them. The Bronco Buster was first cast at the Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company in New York between 1895 and 1900. The foundry produced sixty- four sand-castings of bronze. Sand-casting, the method Remington used for his early bronzes, involved making a negative sand mold from the foundry's plaster cast of the artist's original clay model. While this method reproduced the model accurately, it did not allow the artist to make alterations to the original model.
After a damaging fire at Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company in 1898, Remington sometime during 1900 began a relationship with Roman Bronze Works of New York, the only foundry in America that solely used the ancient lost wax casting method. The lost wax process involved the artist making a wax positive of his model in which final modifications in details and surface texture could be carved by the artist during the final stages of casting. This allowed for slight variations between castings. According to Michael Greenbaum, this "technique is advantageous for casting complex multi-figured sculptures with highly textured surfaces and numerous undercuts and offered the most faithful reproduction of an artist's work." (Icons of the West, p. 33) The first lost wax cast of The Bronco Buster was executed during the latter half of 1900. Though the early casts of The Bronco Buster were closest in appearance to their sand cast predecessors, the bronze underwent most of its significant changes between 1903 and 1906 which included modifications in the cowboy's clothing, saddle and the horse's mane. Subtler changes were applied at various times up until 1907, at which point no further alterations were made.
The Bronco Buster was the most successful bronze in America in the nineteenth century and remains today one of the most popular images of the American West. Soon after he began work in this medium Remington recognized that his legacy as a brilliant artist would be defined by the longevity of his bronze sculptures. He wrote in 1895: "My oils will all get old and watery... my watercolors will fade--but I am to endure in bronze... I am modeling--I find I do well--I am doing a cowboy on a bucking bronco and I am going to rattle down through the ages." (as quoted in Frederic Remington, The Masterworks, p. 182)