The Western Art of William R. Leigh Part VIII

One last picture from William R. Leigh (1866-1955) before we allow him to ride off into the great Western sunset reserved for American artists of the first rank.  Above is Leigh’s color study of the Grand Canyon, painted in 1909.  This is a smallish picture, 16 x 12, oil on canvas board.  It is a stunning landscape that perfectly captures the majesty and mystery of the American landscape.

Once again, I’m indebted to artist/author Stephen Gjerston and his magisterial Frontiers of Enchantment: The Outdoor Studies of William R. Leigh for what may be the best summation of Leigh and his work:  Leigh’s artistic legacy rests primarily on his paintings of the West and Southwest which he painted in his New York studio.  The convincing sense of reality that he achieved in the best of them is due, in large measure, to the excellence of the outdoor studies which he used as sources of information.  The majority of these studies are masterpieces of their kind.  They have an intensity and immediacy that can only be achieved by a fine artist, with a sensitive eye, in the presence of nature.  Through unerring draftsmanship and an acute eye for color values Leigh has fixed on these panels the form and atmosphere of the frontiers he loved….

A few words about Grand Canyon.  Many contemporary artists depicting the West fall back on trite-and-true tropes garnered in revisionist Westerns that sought to render the time and place as squalid, muddy and barren.  Actually, the colorful panorama that was the real West would present a challenge to the most extravagant colorist and the most gifted of artists.  The West of Leigh was much like that of fellow-artist Charlie Russell – a place of wonder and of marvels, where nature ran riot with color and the world is once again young.

This color study is the kind of thing upon which Leigh would spend his days out West, painting in the open air and finding just that magical mix of color and light.  His brush is heavily loaded with paint, and the brush strokes are particularly evident in the clouds.  The peaks in the distance merge with the blue of the sky, making the horizon (and our horizon) a thing infinite and mysterious. 

But while Leigh is sketchy, he is also exact.  Never if there a misplaced stroke, a piece of scenery that is unclear or ill-fitting to the composition.  This is nature transformed into art by the hand of a master.

It was somehow fitting to end the celebration of our nation’s birthday with Leigh.  His America is indeed a vanished America, and place that now only resides in the dreams of a lucky few.  When thinking of the settling of this great land, and of the days of brave pioneers and stalwart settlers, heroic Indians and nature-in-the-raw, spare a thought for the great American artists who helped focus this picture in our mind’s eye, turning natural beauty into national legend.

The Western Art of William R. Leigh Part VII

In his masterful study on William R. Leigh (1866 –1955) Frontiers of Enchantment: The Outdoor Studies of William R. Leigh, artist/author Stephen Gjerston quotes the artist as saying, “The world is so wonderful, so marvelous … If people would only open their eyes to it.  If only they would see the color and enchantment waiting to be discovered right before them.”  Words that could be the motto of everyone here at The Jade Sphinx.

After returning to the US following a series of prolonged painting trips to Africa (on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History), Leigh resumed painting his vision of the American West with a vengeance.  To do this, Leigh used the hundreds of studies he painted during his many trips there, later making large pictures in his New York studio.  His painting method was consistent with his European training:

You start with a detailed charcoal drawing and then paint over that – the most distant things first.  If there are no clouds, the sky may take no more than a day.  The distant figures may be done in a week.  It gets more difficult as you approach the foreground – a large canvas make take four or six months altogether – but the most economical way is to finish as you go. 

Today’s picture, Buffalo Drive from 1947, is indeed a large canvas: 6.5 feet x 10.5 feet.  It currently resides in the Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY.  This is an incredibly energetic and dramatic picture, replete with many of Leigh’s signature touches.

First, let’s look at central figure of the Indian carrying the spear.  Once again, Leigh does many things to isolate and draw attention to the figure: the Indian is “framed” by the white of his white horse, the patch of white dust at his feet and brown shadow over his shoulder, and the whiteness of his spear.  He further underscores the figure with the ornate saddle blanket that creates a pedestal for the muscular torso and detailed posing. (The same saddle blanket used in The Leader's Downfall – how I would have loved to have pawed through Leigh’s collection of props!) 

Leigh used these techniques to draw the viewer to his main figure, but that does not mean he stinted the other figures.  The buffalo heading right into our line of vision (tongue distended in fright and fatigue) is a little too realistic for our complete comfort, and the Indians to the left of the picture are sculpted by Leigh’s brush with all the subtlety of figures by a Renaissance master.  In fact, something about the figures – particularly the left-most four – smack of his European training and influence.  The poses are very similar to those of soldiers in Renaissance-era paintings and drawings.

The scene depicted is guaranteed to strike contemporary viewers as gratuitously violent (or perhaps even comedic), but it was not uncommon for American Indians to stampede buffalo off of  cliff sides as an easy method of killing them for food, clothing and the hundreds of other necessities they made from the carcass.   (This would include thread, hats, needles, tools and even primitive painting materials!)  The small calf (to the right of our fatigued buffalo) strikes a particular note of pathos – the struggle for survival can be extraordinarily unsentimental.

If we could overlook the exceptional draftsmanship of the piece (no small task), we would then be seduced by Leigh’s fabulous sense of color.  The buffalo are little more than carefully manipulated splotches of color (particularly those in the background), but Leigh manages to use color to carefully delineate each and every animal.  And the blue of his sky and the bright earth tones both on top and at the bottom of the cliff further frame the main action.

Despite the brutality of this picture, I find it still inescapably romantic.  Leigh shows the struggle for survival, but his heightened coloration gives the scene a sense of showbiz razzmatazz.

Many figures of the West – Buffalo Bill Cody comes to mind – were fully aware of the pageant that they lived through.  To those ranks we can add William Robinson Leigh.

More William Leigh tomorrow!

The Western Art of William R. Leigh Part VI

For all of you heading into the woods this July 4^th weekend, here is a very dramatic picture by William R. Leigh, A Close Call.  Painted in 1914, this picture is oil on canvas, measuring 40.5 x 60.5 and currently housed in the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

One would be hard-pressed to find a more exciting painting than A Close Call.  Here, a hunter unconscious after a bear attack, is protected by his dogs while a fellow hunter in the distance approaches.

Let’s start with Leigh’s masterful use of light.  Notice that the hunter, bear and several of the dogs are in a brilliant shaft of light.  The lesser shaft of light is in the background, drawing attention to the hunter racing to the rescue.

This painting is interesting when compared to others in Leigh’s oeuvre.  It was not uncommon for Leigh to render a central figure with absolute realism, and then paint the ancillary figures and surroundings in a more Impressionistic manner.  With A Close Call, however, all of the central figures are clearly depicted; even the forest setting benefits from a more articulated rendering than is customary with Leigh.  (Look, for instance, at the barren branches just behind the bear on the right of the canvas.  This is the kind of detail that Leigh often suggested rather than drew.)

Let’s take a moment to savor the drama of this picture.  The bear and the fallen hunter form a perfect triangle; but Leigh actually improves on the inner structure by adding a circle (of dogs) around the triangle.  Even more impressive, the hunter on his way to rescue his friend could easily be lost in the dynamic, but Leigh helpfully points to him with the white-tipped tree trunk directly below him.

We should also spare a thought for Leigh’s supreme draftsmanship here.  The hunter is neatly done in extreme foreshortening; the bear convincingly furry and menacing.  However, the real achievements here are the dogs.  Leigh manages to create variations on a pose for all of them, creating a sense of individuality in each, and drawing them in convincing states of movement. 

Leigh also scores points with his coloration (one of his most significant artistic assets).  A picture like this could easily be too “brown” or dark; Leigh not only livens it up with the shaft(s) of light, but also employs his signature bright colors.  The dogs here are nearly as colorful as paint horses, and the variations in the bear’s coat keep the monster from being a mere brown blot with fangs and claws.

This is not my favorite work by Leigh – while I certainly appreciate its technical excellence, something about it (the number of dogs? the approaching rescue?) pitches the tenor perilously over-the-top.  It is, however, an interesting image to have in mind while camping this weekend.

More William Leigh Thursday and Friday!

The Western Art of William R. Leigh Part V

I could not help it … I’ve found so many of the pictures of William R. Leigh so beautiful, I had to continue.  And I also thought that there would be no better way to celebrate July 4^th than by looking at some of Leigh’s gorgeous examples of pure Americana.

Many of the pictures of William Robinson Leigh (1866 –1955) depict landscapes of the American West and various scenes from the lives of her native peoples.  However, it was relatively rare that Leigh painted the cowboys who flooded the West and transformed the land into the country we know today. 

There are few myths more potent than that of the American cowboy.  He is the US equivalent of the knights errant of old, our great national hero, and the exemplar of what all boys wanted (at one time) to be.

Today, the myth of the West has been tarnished for a variety of political reasons, not the least of which is political correctness, which would condemn the cowboy (and the entire Western genre) as sexist, racist, exclusionary, and, who knows, even guilty of halitosis.  Critics who dismiss the West (both in art and literature) seem never to have really read Western novels or looked at Western pictures – they never really have a proper understanding of the genre.  A quick look at the works of Jack Schaefer (1907-1991) or Owen Wister (1860-1938) or Zane Grey (1872-1939) would quickly give lie to the racist/sexist canard, and the aesthete can look at the beautiful pictures of Charles Russell (1864-1926) and Frederic Remington (1861-1909) and many others without a pang of guilt – the pictures are magnificent and the “political” message, if there be any, minimal.

There are other, equally pernicious, nails in the coffin of our great American Western myth.  First is the increased urbanization of the US – fewer and fewer people are living in rural areas, and many young people find it easier to relate to myths involving aliens and other planets than the pioneers who lived a rugged life on the frontier.  Another is our sedentary culture, where the idea of vigorous life (outside of the gym, at least) is met with smiling condescension, and, of course, the influx of peoples from other countries who would much rather forget those heroes who built the land and merely accept it benefits.

But, whatever the reason for the decline of the great Western myth, let’s pause to consider Bucking Bronco with Cowboy, painted by Leigh in 1913.  The picture is 30 x 22, oil on canvas, and currently up for auction at the Jackson Hole Art Auction, set for September 15^th, 2012 at the Center for the Arts, 265 South Cache, Jackson Wyoming.  Along with this magnificent Leigh, works by Russell, Remington and Albert Bierstadt will be on hand.  More information can be found at:  http://jacksonholeartauction.com/

Bucking Bronco is unusual in that it is painted in a more Impressionist manner than Leigh’s other works – the cowboy, though realistically depicted, is painted with broader strokes than is usual for the central figures of many of his pictures.  The horse is magnificently rendered, with a great sense of motion and animation.  Here Leigh’s highly trained grasp of anatomy – both human and animal – are a great boon to the overall realism of the scene.  Too often in Western paintings it’s clear that the artist has never seen a horse; Leigh clearly knows horse anatomy and the best ways of realistically manipulating it.

Leigh uses a heavily loaded brush for his impasto effects of the sky and landscape.  His thick application of paint in this picture is particularly luscious, and his vibrant coloration a mini-July 4^th celebration with every look at the picture. 

As is often the case with Leigh, it is little touches that true devotees savor.  Look at the studs lining the back of the cowboy’s saddle, or the completely realized reins held by the cowboy.  Even the cowboy’s quirt is alive with a peculiar animation.

Bucking Bronco With Cowboy is one of those pictures that makes me happy just looking at it.

More William Leigh tomorrow!

The Western Art of William R. Leigh Part IV

We end our week-long look at the West of William R. Leigh (1866 –1955) with Walpi, Arizona, Hopi Reservation, painted in 1912. This is oil on canvas, 22 x 33, currently housed in the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa. 

We had discussed how Leigh captured an other-worldly quality with is picture Afterglow Over the Zuni River, and I believe he manages to do the same thing here.  What is perhaps amazing, though, is that he does not need the dramatic coloration of dusk or the moon and a shimmering star to capture that sense of the uncanny; rather, he manages to convey a sense of mystery with a stark depiction of natural surroundings and a sense of remoteness.

Readers unfamiliar with Walpi would be interested to learn that it is a village in Navajo County, Arizona, inhabited by the Hopi-speaking Pueblo Indians.  Walpi is one of the oldest continuously inhabited villages in the United States; even today several of it inhabitants live without electricity or running water.  The overall Hopi Reservation is a system of villages based on three mesas (flatlands atop of mountains) and Walpi (the First Mesa) established in 1690.  (There is a photo of the actual site below, dating from 1920.)

Leigh was fascinated by the First Mesa, painting countless studies of it and sometimes going up to the mesa “between two and four o’clock at night to paint moonlight effects.”

We previously noted Leigh’s European training and his brilliant sense of color, both apparent in Walpi.  As Stephen Gjerston notes in his excellent Frontiers of Enchantment: The Outdoor Studies of William R. Leigh, The emphasis of the German school was generally on form rather than color, the latter tending to be dark, heavy and rather dull, the so-called brown school that attempted to imitate certain works of the older Spanish, Flemish and Italian masters.  But that didn’t seem to affect Leigh, who was apparently one of those rare individuals gifted with a natural eye for seeing color.  Even in his early work the color was more brilliant and natural than that used by most German painters.

But let’s look at Walpi and examine why it is so evocative.  I’m sure that many readers, if not told it depicted an American Indian site, would have conjectured that it was a painting of some fairy tale place or the remote keep mentioned in a fantasy novel.  Like many pictures of the sublime, there is something decidedly uncanny in the overall effect. 

Part of that, of course, if Leigh’s use of scale.  The small figure walking towards the village is in the distance – the village itself, further away still, is enormous.  (Another Native American woman, closer to the village, is little more than a red dot.)

Also dramatic are the cliff walls surrounding the mesa.  Leigh does not satisfy himself with a sheer drop; rather, these are moss-covered outcroppings alternately bleached by the sun or sucking up the ambient color.  The sense of the great desert surrounding the village (almost blue like the sea), also lends an air of remoteness and unreality to the composition.

Coloration, too, adds to the air of enchantment: dusk lends a bluish tint to the world, allowing dramatic shafts of sunlight to illuminate distant columns.

Leigh abandons his usual technique of a realistically depicting a central figure and rendering the rest suggestively – here, most everything is created on a range of Impressionism unusual in much of his work.  I think that this is perhaps because one of the more realistic, anchor figures that he places in many of his pictures would ruin the effect.  Like Afterglow Over the Zuni River the absence of people are essential to the dream-like effect.

There are many other works in the William Leigh corpus.  If you are interested in seeing more, please let me know.

The Western Art of William R. Leigh Part III

We continue with our look at the West of William R. Leigh with The Leader's Downfall, painted in 1946.  This is oil on canvas, 78 x 126, a sizable picture.  It is currently housed in the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center, in Oklahoma City.

Leigh would often return to the West for inspiration, making countless color studies and oil sketches to be later developed into larger, more ambitious pictures.  He spent every summer from 1912 to 1926 in the Southwest, often staying at a friend’s ranch.  He also did not mind mixing pleasure with pleasure, spending his honeymoon in 1921 camping and sketching at Monument Valley and Yellowstone.

Leigh observed nature and learned from it, but he was not its slave.  Here is some advice Leigh provided a fellow artist:  It’s all right to be in love with nature, but don’t be fanatical … All our pine trees look like Christmas trees, for instance.  Pick out those to paint that are more striking and picturesque.  If mountains are too somber a color – key it up, etc.  In painting distant hills that are made up of a lot of different colors … lay in the sky, then the hills on the horizon, etc. on down the picture and compare the hills to get their true color and value and so on.  But keep looking to see how much darker one color is to the next and their true color. 

Leigh would spend 1926 to 1935 in Africa, working with Carl Akeley and the American Museum of Natural History.  Much of the work that came from these expeditions is fascinating, but, it is rather a shame that left the sun-kissed landscapes of America for the Dark Continent.  It’s not surprising that once the African excursions were over, Leigh concentrated on Americana once again.

Today’s picture is from later in Leigh’s career (a scant nine year before his death).  It shows Leigh’s skills as a colorist with a vengeance, as well as his inherent sense of drama.  The Leader’s Downfall depicts a group of American Indians pursuing wild ponies and capturing the leader.  Let’s look at some of the things Leigh does so wonderfully well.

The main figure (the Indian on the paint horse with the rope) is in a ‘spotlight’ created by a brilliant white dust cloud.  As a technique for drawing attention to the central figure it would almost seem too obvious, but Leigh makes it work.  Also, in true Leigh fashion, the main figure is depicted in a manner of extreme realism in terms of the draftsmanship.  Look at the wild eyes and flaring nostrils of the horse, let alone the muscular flanks and bone structure.  In addition, look at the feathers and lovingly rendered saddle blanket – here is virtuosity for its own sake. 

The Indian frames his own formidable profile with both his right arm and the dust kicked up by the horse.  More important, look at the line of torso and the precisely detailed capturing of his rib cage and shoulder muscles.  Or look at the fingers holding the bunched coil of rope.  My love for Western artists Charles Russell and Frederic Remington is second-to-none, but this level of exactitude was outside of their purview.  The central figure of this painting is a remarkable performance.

As with the other pictures we have looked at, Leigh renders the supporting figures in softer focus, almost an Impressionist style.  The landscape itself is only the merest hint of actual countryside, and the horses and other Indians are carefully constructed suggestions.

But the real thing about this picture is the coloration.  Looking at The Leader’s Downfall over a protracted period of time may make your eyeballs fat.  Here is a man who loves color and is not afraid to use it.  The overarching blue, purple, violet tones are underscored by the hot white of the upswept dust, and Leigh manages to create “hot” action with “cool” colors.  It’s impossible not to look at this remarkable picture with a deep respect for both the artist’s skill and his audacity. 

More William Leigh tomorrow!

The Western Art of William R. Leigh Part II

Yesterday we looked at a beautiful picture by William Robinson Leigh (1866 –1955), a forgotten master at depicting the American West.  Today we venture West once again with Leigh and his picture Afterglow Over the Zuni River.

During his trips West, Leigh would paint many small studies from nature.  These pictures would later be used as reference materials for paintings executed in his New York studio.  Leigh was able to incorporate the new technology of oil paint in tubes to work with relative ease outdoors and capture an initial impression and a sense of color.  It is the opinion of Stephen Gjerston, author of Frontiers of Enchantment: The Outdoor Studies of William R. Leigh, that this practice of alla-prima color sketching accounts for much of the fine color of his studio work. 

Leigh had a particular affinity for native Americans and their homes.  During a sketching trip in the summer of 1906, he spent time in Zuni Indian and Pueblo country.  In his journal Leigh wrote: I was eager to waste no time at all.  I saw that I needed studies of everything, the vegetation, the rocks, the plains, mesas, sky, the Indians and their dwellings.  Scores of studies.  Dependable studies.  I saw so far as possible I must be a sponge, soak up everything I saw … I started to paint, paint, paint.

Today we look at Afterglow Over the Zuni River. This is oil on canvas board, 13 x 17, currently residing at the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa.  By any yardstick, Afterglow is a remarkable picture.

Perhaps the most startling thing about the painting is that nothing is really the color that you expect it to be.  This is perhaps the greatest pitfall that young artists make when attacking a landscape picture.  The immediate assumption is that clouds are white, the sky is blue, grass is green and water transparent.  However, any time spent in the outdoors open to the intoxication of color would give lie to those assumptions.  Clouds are never just white, as grass is seldom only green or skies blue.  In fact, in some of the more beautiful spaces of the American West, the natural landscape is a riot of color more than equal to anything a Post Modernist could dream up.

Here at the Zuni River, dusk has rendered the landscape purple.  Though the sky still holds some orange color from the setting (or already set) sun, the moon is out, a glowing scimitar in the sky.  The clouds, the river and the sandy river bed are stained purple as well, though the water really flows with a myriad of colors as it reflects the varying shades of dusk.

The Zuni village in the background is still – most native peoples were asleep with the sun.  However, the simple structures seem to be part of nature, as natural to the landscape as the river weeds Leigh uses to frame the image.

Afterglow is also a wonderfully evocative picture.  I believe – aside from the splendid and inspired color – the reason it is so effective is because of his use of the moon and the star in the upper left hand corner.  These celestial bodies provide a timeless sense to the picture – as if the Zuni River were part of an unending cosmos of creation and natural beauty.

What I find most fascinating about this picture is that, again, Leigh depicts the natural world in a fairly Impressionist manner; however, the moon and star have a sense of crystallization absent in Impressionism.  They are so clear and so cleanly delineated that they could almost come from an illustrated book of celestial bodies.  It is this mix of realism and a looser artistic style that I think is Leigh’s great accomplishment.

In the Zuni mythology, Awonawilona was the creator of the world, becoming the sun and making the Mother Earth and Father Sky, from whom all living creatures came.  The quiet power of that ancient deity can be felt in the picture, a sense of transcendence just beyond our power to see.

The Western Art of William R. Leigh Part I

As summer starts and we approach July 4^th, I wanted to touch upon the western art of William R. Leigh. 

There is a mistaken assumption that great art is a strictly European achievement.  However, many of the finest artists of the 19^th and 20^th centuries were here in the United States.  Not just Impressionists and Ash Can artists, but great masters who made as their subject the opening of the American West.

One of the artists overlooked in our veneration of the likes of Charles Russell (1864-1926) and Frederic Remington (1861-1909), is William Robinson Leigh (1866 –1955).  The three men were contemporaries, but Leigh managed to outlive the other two by some 30 years or more.  Like Russell, he was something of a wanderer, and made trips to the American West in search of subjects to paint.  While there, he made countless oil color studies that he brought back with him to his New York studio to further develop as full-scale pictures.  (Like another Western artist we have looked at, Charles Shreyvogel, most of his creations were executed here on the East Coast.)  Leigh was also something of a global explorer, going with the great taxidermist and sculptor Carl Akeley (1864 - 1926) to Africa.  (If you think you don’t know Akeley, think again: he is the man responsible for most of the great mounted exhibits in the American Museum of Natural History.)

Leigh was born in West Virginia and began his formal training at age 14 in the Maryland Institute in Baltimore.  At 17 he traveled to Germany, studying at the Royal Academy in Munich.  Leigh proved to be an industrious student; he worked with Karl Raupp in cast drawing and Nicolas Gysis in life drawing.  These men were superb teachers and Leigh learned much from them.  (As you may remember from earlier columns, Russell disdained formal art training.  One may well wonder what masterpieces he would’ve produced with a more solid sense of draftsmanship!)

Leigh also learned much from Ludwig von Loefftz.  His instruction emphasized an alla-prima painting method; this sense of spontaneity, along with Leigh’s already trained drawing methods, were a felicitous combination.  Leigh was now able to create vigorous, action-filled scenes with the precision and skill of a European master.

Leigh returned to the US in 1896, when he was 30, after 13 years studying abroad.  He lived in New York for 10 years, working primarily as an illustrator.  When Leigh hit 40 he ventured West to paint what was already a vanishing world.  As Stephen Gjerston writes in Frontiers of Enchantment: The Outdoor Studies of William R. Leigh: Leigh was able to break away and pursue his boyhood dream of painting the American West.  For Leigh, the West embodied everything that was intrinsically American.  Like Thomas Moran, he disapproved of American artists imitating foreign styles and was determined to paint pictures of the landscape and life that he considered to be uniquely American.  With his ability as a draftsman, his sense of drama and his eye for color Leigh was ideally suited to record the colorful and picturesque way of life in the Southwest; a way of life that was quickly vanishing.

Today we are looking at a picture called Master of His Domain, painted around 1920.  This is a good-sized oil, 40 x 30, currently in the Rockwell-Corning Museum, New York.  As already established, the draftsmanship is superb.  Look at how Leigh delineates the lanky muscles of the figure with clear, unfussy lines.  The face is powerful and introspective and never descends into caricature.  The left arm rests lazily on the bent leg; the right hand holds the right calf.  No excess of movement or line, just simple and natural, like the subject itself.  The quiver of arrows at his side is cleanly rendered, and particular attention is paid to his moccasins, armband and ornamental feathers.  This quiet virtuosity would not be out of place in the most finished production of the most skilled of European masters; indeed, the figure itself is a triumph of realism.

Where Leigh hits his masterstroke, though, is that he grounds this supremely realistic figure in a setting of almost Impressionist color.  The rocks, trees, cliff and sky are rendered in thick brushstrokes of color with little delineation or detail. 

In the barren but beautiful landscape, the figure is indeed master of his domain.  However, one cannot help but believe that Leigh was indulging in a bit of bitter irony with his title – this beautiful picture is also an elegy for an entire people and way of life.  The American Indian is indeed sitting on a pinnacle, but he will not be there for long.

More William Leigh tomorrow!