Christmas Meat, by Charles Marion Russell (1915)

Though it may not be entirely true that deep in the breast of every aesthete beats the heart of a cowboy, it is certainly true of Your Correspondent.  Thoughts of Christmas always seem to carry with them thoughts of the Wild West – it’s the way my brain is wired.  For many Bing Crosby is the voice of Christmas; at The Jade Sphinx, it’s Gene Autry.  (By the way, there is no better way to feel elderly – if not prehistoric – than by trying to explain who Gene Autry was to a young person.)

We have written about self-proclaimed ‘cowboy artist’ Charles Russell (1864-1926) before.  When we reviewed his letters and diary snippets, we were delighted to learn how wonderfully boyish and enthusiastic Russell was in person.  Russell never fully grew-up and he often approached his life, like his art, with a child-like sense of wonder.

So it comes as no surprise that Russell loved the Christmas season.  He would often retreat into his studio weeks before the holiday, designing his Christmas card(s), writing letters to close friends and oft-times painting a holiday-themed picture.

Today’s beautiful watercolor, Christmas Meat painted in 1915, is a picture of great warmth, despite the presence of snow.  In it, a Westerner brings a fresh-killed stag to a lone homesteader for Christmas dinner.  Russell painted many Christmas pictures with greater whimsy (Westerners coming across Santa during a snowy night, for example), but here he chooses instead to illustrate the holiday with a simple act of kindness.

In these days of easy consumption and near-instant gratification, we forget the every-day difficultly of the lives of previous generations.  Distances in the West were vast; a simple motor trip today would last several days on horseback.  People were extremely isolated on the countryside, with no phones, electronic entertainment, news, or, very frequently, neighbors. 

Russell, who went West in the waning days of the frontier, lived among the cowboys and knew how isolated it could all be.  But, he also loved the West, and was continually moved by the neighborliness, the open-handed generosity and many acts of human kindness he encountered there.

Let’s take a look at Christmas Meat.  As always, Russell’s command of anatomy is sketchy, at best (where, for example, is the rest of the cowboy’s left leg?), but he more he is more than able to pose his figures dramatically in the composition of narrative.  The outstretched hand, the visible smile, the bow-legs, and upheld rifle speak volumes – here’s Christmas dinner, pard, I got it myself.

And look at the homesteader!  Hand in his pants (so, clearly, a bachelor), complete with pipe and red union suit underwear, this man is clearly a character.  And his head leans forward in thanks, in appreciation, and admiration. 

Marvel at Russell’s sense of color.  Blue is the dominant color … and wonderfully suggests the cold.  The frozen trees in the distance are just impressionistic dabs of blue, as is the wooden smokehouse to the left.  Even the smoke from the cabin’s fireplace has a blueish tint … rest assured, it is cold outside.

Also, Russell uses the mountains of his backdrop to illustrate the expanse of the Western terrain.  There is no one for miles around; however, he undercuts the feeling of cold waste by a smart use of yellow.  The yellow light in the distance, along with the warm yellow of the window and doorway of the cabin, illustrate the warmth of human kindness at Christmas time.

The partially cut wood in the foreground may seem superfluous, but Russell, a master of composition, knew that something was essential there to keep the eye moving through the picture.  (It also serves to illustrate the cold … the homesteader does not tread far to get his firewood!)

This is a lovely little grace note of a picture, filled with honest feeling and a great deal of warmth.  It doesn’t descend into the overly sentimental, and it shows people at their best.

As such, it makes for a hell of a Christmas picture.

More Christmas books tomorrow!

Christmas Carols, Part II: Twas Night Before Christmas (A Visit From St. Nicholas), by Clement C. Moore

Though certainly not a carol in the traditional sense, Clement C. Moore’s wonderful Twas Night Before Christmas (originally entitled A Visit From St. Nicholas) has often been set to music.  There are several delightful musical renditions of the poem, and perhaps our favorite here at the Jade Sphinx is that of Christmas Cowboy Deluxe, Gene Autry (1907-1998), recorded with Rosemary Clooney (1928-2002).  If you don’t believe us – listen and see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TaQPg10OmA.

(Before moving on to Mr. Moore and Mr. Claus, a quick word on Gene Autry.  The very best Christmas present one could get is the classic cowboy’s Christmas album.  Autry introduced Frosty the Snowman, as well as Here Comes Santa Claus and Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, and his recordings of these numbers are definitive.  In addition, the other songs on the album – including Santa, Santa, Santa and the lovely and evocative Merry Christmas Waltz – are seldom-heard gems, and they have become a tradition in our household.  They should become a tradition in yours, as well.)

Clement Moore (1779-1863) lived with his beloved wife, Elizabeth, and their nine children in a large, comfortable Georgian manor house in what is now the Chelsea section of New York.  The estate, called Chelsea, rested on 96 acres of farmland, which hopefully illustrates that, if nothing else, Manhattan is constantly changing.

Early one Christmas Eve, in his carriage en route to Washington Market to buy a holiday turkey, he began composing a Christmas poem for his six-year-old daughter, Charity.  Back home in his study, he consulted Henry Irving’s History, and finished the poem in three hours.  That night, at supper, he read it aloud to his family – it was the first time Twas Night Before Christmas was heard by an audience.  It was an instant hit.  Charity brought it to her Sunday School class, and then friends had the poem published in the Troy, New York Sentinel the following Christmas in 1823.  Moore, a scholar and serious educator, was initially reluctant to admit authorship.

It was more than 40 years later that the political cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902) created the modern Santa Claus when illustrating a republication of Moore’s poem.  As cartoonist for the influential illustrated Harper’s Weekly, for each Christmas issue he drew a Santa, which he claimed was a welcome relief from his usual round of political cartooning.  One wonders how he would feel now.

One of the many interesting things in Santa’s evolution is that Moore originally conceived of Santa as elf-sized.  This somehow got lost in the details, as Nast’s Santa was republished everywhere: calendars, cards, posters and wrapping paper.  Between Moore and Nast, the modern Santa Claus was born.

Here’s the original poem:

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds;

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,

Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,

When what to my wondering eyes did appear,

But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,

With a little old driver so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!

On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!

To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

So up to the housetop the coursers they flew

With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,

And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.

His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;

He had a broad face and a little round belly

That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

The Art of Alfredo Rodríguez, Part I: Profile of a Chief (2006)

This past week, we were lucky enough to entertain a dear friend who is also deeply devoted to the arts.  We were talking about the art world in general and The Jade Sphinx in particular when he opined, “you know, you may want to write about artists who are still alive every now and then.”

Astonishing thought…

At the same time, I had been reading S. C. Gwynne’s masterful Empire of the Summer Moon, a look at the Comanches, who were at one time most powerful Indian tribe in American history.  (Expect more on this book, later – it is magnificent.)  And that called to mind the paintings of Alfredo Rodríguez (born 1954).

Rodríguez started drawing and painting in his earliest boyhood; it was as natural to him as learning to walk or speak.  He was born in Mexico, and grew up fascinated by stories of the American West.  The West of his imagination is peopled with strong, colorful Indians, prospectors, homesteaders, and miners.  His pictures have been corralled by private collectors and several corporations, and he currently exhibits at numerous invitational art shows around the country, including the Masters of the American West at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles, as well as in the Heritage Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, The West Lives On Gallery in Jackson, Wyoming, and the Art Pacific Gallery in Wailea, Hawaii. Collectors include the late Gene Autry, actress Connie Stevens, and Pilar Wayne (widow of actor John Wayne).

Rodríguez became a professional artist 1968 and made a steady career of magazine illustration before moving into fine art painting.  He has been a remarkably prolific painter, and his oeuvre varies remarkably in quality.  There are works that have a striking, stark declarative power – here is the past as I see it, peopled by remarkable giants now long gone.  Other pictures, particularly those involving children or family scenes, are sentimental and soft … bordering dangerously on kitsch.  Like many painters who have had to make a living in the extremely competitive field of magazine illustration, Rodríguez often panders rather than paints.  However, when Rodríguez is at the top of his game, he is quite something.

Today’s painting, Profile of a Chief (2006), exemplifies all that is great and questionable in Rodríguez’s work.  The technical aspects of Rodríguez’s work here are quite wonderful: notice, the superb draughtsmanship in the depiction of the face, or, better yet, the brushwork that not only delineates the lines of various feathers, but moves them in-and-out of shafts of light.  Though the visible hand has aged into a claw, the deep lines in the knuckles and stained thumbnail are clearly visible.  The beadwork is rendered with loving detail, and the fringe of his buckskin has a wonderfully tactile quality.

And yet … and yet, Rodríguez becomes the victim of his own desire to please.  The coloration of the picture, though striking, is simply too … much.  It is if Rodríguez almost did not trust his own considerable talent enough, and felt the need to overcompensate, to dazzle with color to hide any possible defects in the drawing.  Many contemporary painters are guilty of this – extremely talented men and women who, without the long tradition of atelier training to provide confidence and context, default to excess to guarantee success. 

For all of its excesses, though, Profile of a Chief is a well-executed picture.

More Rodríguez tomorrow!

Buffalo Bill Cody With Children (Date Unknown)

It is rare that we look at photos here at The Jade Sphinx, but this photo has always touched me; so much so that a copy hangs on the wall over my desk.  It is of frontiersman, scout, Pony Express Rider and showman William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody (1846-1917) in a tent on the grounds of his Wild West Show, telling yarns to his little pards.

By all reports, Cody was a lovely man.  He never refused an old friend, a hard luck story, or a child.  Cody was extremely open-handed, friendly and willing to take care of others (except, perhaps, his wife, Louisa). 

You may remember that we have previously covered the story of cowboy artist Daniel Cody Muller (1889-1976), who was born in Choteau, Montana.  Muller’s father was killed by a horse when the artist was nine years old, and he was soon after adopted by Buffalo Bill.  In his memoir, Muller writes of the 18 years he spent with Cody and of his time on both the Cody ranch and working the Wild West shows.  The Cody in Muller’s memoir is a warm-hearted man of deep compassion and sympathy.  Muller would not be Cody’s only unofficially-adopted child: he also raised Johnny Baker (1869-1931), a sharpshooter with the Wild West, as his own son, and his love for children was nearly legendary.  Indeed, in a tumultuous life of adventure, fame and cowboy-high-spirits, the sole tragedy of Cody’s life seems to be the loss of his son, Kit Carson Cody (1870-1876) to scarlet fever.

To get a flavor of the real man, there is a story that during the 1915 season, when Cody no longer owned the Wild West and was working for the Sells-Floto circus, the show was menaced by a flash flood in Fort Madison, Iowa.  Most of the show’s four hundred crew fled the scene, leaving the aged and infirm Buffalo Bill to rescue women and children with the help of five crewmembers.  Also while working for Sells-Floto, he would later grow enraged when he learned that executives had advertised a twenty-five cent admission fee and charged fifty cents at the door.  Not long after, Cody pulled his gun on the owners and demanded out of his contract.

In more than 15 years of reading obsessively about the Old West, there are only two figures who I desperately wished to have met: cowboy artist Charlie Russell (1864-1926) and Cody.  And when I picture him in my mind’s eye, it is more often in photos like the above rather than imagining him in his more perilous endeavors.

Though today’s photo was obviously staged, look at the avuncular Cody in full Wild West regalia, head slightly bowed so the sun catches his oversized Stetson and glistening white beard.  The camera catches him mid-story, holding what appears to be a piece of Native American embroidery.  Though the little girls are dressed in white and organdy pinafores, things are rough in the back area of the Wild West Show.  This is a place for play and fun and myth.  As usual, Bill is making time for everyone.

I cannot help but think of later photos of other Western Icons surrounded by children.  A quick search on the Internet would yield photos of Tom Mix, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy surrounded by children – but, as usual, Cody got there first.  I believe that it was he that created and fostered the myth of the Western Hero as the friend of childhood, a trope that has been with us for over 100 years.

Take a moment and imagine ourselves back there.  We’ve seen the Wild West (or are about to), and sneak behind to the performer’s tents.  There is the great man himself, impossibly tall and romantic in his colorful western clothes.  He beckons us over and we sit, while he unfolds a tale of Western Adventure, of days gone by and pioneer adventure.  We listen as he talks, his aged voice rich and dramatic, and the whole pageantry of the West opens before us.  And we know that once that great voice and great heart are stilled, the West will really be gone forever.

HE WAS THAT MASKED MAN: PART II

Clayton Moore And The Great Horse Silver!

The following is the second part of our three-part interview with television Lone Ranger, Clayton Moore (1914-1999), who played part on television from 1949 to 1957;  I originally conducted this interview more than 15 years ago, when Moore released his autobiography, I Was That Masked Man (1996).  Since its initial magazine publication, the interview has been buried in my files.  Here is the second of three parts.

James Abbott

In fact you starred in one the of finest serials ever made, Perils of Nyoka.

Perils of Nyoka, with Kay Aldrige, directed by William Whitney.  That was a learning experience, I can tell you.  Nyoka helped me in my career a great deal; what with some of the stunt work I did on the picture and the good part, I got a lot of notice on the lot.  And the kids liked it.  People still come up to me today and mention that one... although they're now only kids at heart!

Did you do a lot of your own stunts for Nyoka?

I did most of them.  I did have an excellent stunt double, though, a man by the name of David Sharpe.  He was a well-known stunt double at the time, and we got to be the best of friends.  David was one of the people that I was closest to in Hollywood.  There wasn't anything he couldn't do!

 I also met stuntman Tom Steele on Nyoka.  Tom taught me a lot about horses, crouper mounts, running-start mounts, everything.  I used all of this when I became the Lone Ranger.

Would you say that many of your closest friends were the stunt people?

Actors and some of the stunt men.  I worked with dozens and dozens of actors and just as many stunt men.  I got real friendly with the stunt people because I thought they got to have a lot of the fun on these pictures, too.  I liked to do as much as I could myself, but when there was something I couldn't have done or shouldn't have done, the stunt people were always there.  They helped make us look good, and I was always grateful to them.  We all enjoyed our work together and had a great time back in the early days of the serial business.

Now you cut quite an impressive figure in the serials, particularly in Zorro...

Yes, I did The Ghost of Zorro.  I'll tell you something about that picture, I almost had a bad accident while making it.  In one chapter a door was set to explode.  They had a safe charge of dynamite planted, but they let it sit too long and it got stronger, which dynamite does.  When the charge went off the door got awfully close to my head, another inch and my head would've gone with it.  I also accidentally knocked-out my pal Tom Steele during a staged fight.  He was out for about 20 seconds.

Funny thing, I didn't know they had dubbed my voice when I was disguised as Zorro until I saw it a few years ago on video.  I don't know why, I did a lot of character parts and got to change my voice a lot when I played the Ranger in his disguises.  But that's not my voice as Zorro.

That was the picture that George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, the producer and writer of the The Lone Ranger radio show, saw that helped them consider me for the part of the Lone Ranger.

Tell us of that initial meeting with Trendle and Striker?

An agent named Antrim Short suggested me to Mr. Trendle and Mr. Striker when they were casting around for the part.  When they set up a meeting with me, I was nervous.  I hadn't prepared a monologue and I didn't know what they would expect of me.  We had a long conversation, we didn't even talk about the Ranger much.  But Mr. Trendle and Mr. Striker would look at one-another every now and then.  When the meeting was over, Mr. Trendle asked me if I would like the part of the Lone Ranger.  I looked him right in the eye and said, "Mr. Trendle, I am the Lone Ranger."  In the next instant, he said I had the job.

The Lone Ranger radio program had started in 1933.  Had you been a fan of the show?

It originated from WXYZ in Detroit!  I listened to the Lone Ranger radio show with my father, Thursday evenings at 7:30, I believe.  You know, that's going back quite a bit; I'm pushing 83, you know.

Did you have any idea how the Ranger would change your life?  Or was it just another part?

No, it was just another job after Republic Studios.  I didn't realize that it would develop into a phenomenon like the radio show.  Television was a very new medium... and it was pretty much an experiment for us.  We didn't know if it would last. I ended up making a 169 television episodes of The Lone Ranger, and two feature-length motion pictures!

Do you have particular memories of George W. Trendle?

Excellent producer and a real nice man to talk with.  He wanted things done his way, though.  He had approved all the scripts before we shot them, and he had a man on the set making sure that we said everything word-for-word, as written.  Now, when you had a writer like Fran Striker, the other man who created the Ranger along with Trendle, that wasn't all that hard.  But that doesn't mean it was always easy!  You couldn't play around with a line or try and make it work better for you.

Striker was terrific.  When he wrote the Ranger stories, it was like he was creating a classic American myth.  When the Ranger was on the scene, the ground shook.  And he was careful to keep the Ranger true to his code of ethics.  I think the reason the Lone Ranger is still remembered today is because of the conviction that George Trendle and Fran Striker held onto when they created him.

Could you tell us a little about the early days of the show?

We shot three episodes a week, one every two days.  We'd shoot eight to ten episodes at a time and then lay off for a week, a week and a half to let Fran and the other writers have the opportunity to create more shows.  It was a lot of work, believe me, but Jay and I enjoyed it.  As a matter of fact, I'd like to take a moment to talk about Jay Silverheels.

Please!

Jay was a wonderful friend.  He was born on the Six Nations Reservation up in Brantford, Canada.  When he was a little guy he came to the United States of America and made this country his home.  Jay was a great athlete and a fine actor who was very proud of the Indian people. 

We had actually appeared in a scene together in a film before The Lone Ranger.  You can see us both in a Gene Autry picture called The Cowboy and the Indians.  If you look close you can see me in the background while Jay plays his scene with Gene Autry.  It was only after we had done The Lone Ranger for a few years did we realize we had worked together before!