FREDERIC REMINGTON, THE MAN

photographs by the author

FREDERIC REM-INGTON, theartist, who paints

Indians, cowboys, andbronchos as no one elseever has, or ever can,has a personality quiteas individual as theproduct of his brushand pen.

It was my pleasurelast summer to be hisneighbor, my island be-ing within megaphonecall of Inglenook, Rem-ington’s summer king-dom on the St. Law-rence River.

In the abandon andindependence of a sum-mer outing personalitieshave a way of disport-ing themselves with adelightful disregard oftown formalities.

By EDWIN WILDMAN

“He is up by six o’clock and hard at work in his studio at eight.”

Remington’s personality is individual,wherever he is or whatever he does; yet,as I saw him from day to day, and sharedhis thoughts and observations, I found anever-ceasing flow of sparkling originality—not the epigrammatical sentence-makingsort, but the kind that grasps and laysbare, without malice, the absurdities offalse notes, and points with blunt directnessto the kernel of things.

His is a personality, too, that makes itselfmanifest, and whether in evidence himself,or a listener, one does not forget that heis present. He must be doing things, andwhatever occupies his attention absorbs himcompletely.

Lethargy and idleness, by some unac-countable fiction, have become associatedwith fleshy men. Remington is big—“tre-mendous,” as he might put it; but he is abundle of nervous energy that gives him theliveliness of a boy of ten.

At his island home he was up and out bysix o’clock, and hard at work in his studio

at eight. He works rapidly and permitsnothing to interfere when the brush or penis in his hand.

When he “plays,” it is with no less con-centration; he plays to win, and if thegame is worth attempting it is worth mas-tering.

Play is as much a part of his work as workis of his happiness. Remington’s play at hisisland consisted of taking to the water fivetimes a day; a couple of hours at tennis,“to got up a sweat—for every man shouldget up a sweat once a day”; and enjoyingand giving “common hospitality,” whichmeans a cigar, a nip, and “heap talk.”

At Inglenook, Remington has, besides aroomy cottage, a charming little island. Itincludes several acres of rocky, grass-cov-ered soil, studded with cedar, white birch,and beech, with a bold front of sun-bleachedrocks facing the three miles of blue lookingtoward Canada. In the lee there is a white,sand-laid bay; then comes a plateau, wheresets the house, and a plain, where the tennis

Frederic Remington, the Man 713

court lies: there is a strait, separating Ingle-nook from its neighbors, and a peninsulafrom which the dog howl when the masteris away—in that, a geographical kingdom.

Remington loves every inch of his littlekingdom, and all the waters and adjacent—evenas far as Chippewa Bay and up the wild anddevious creeks, creeping in from the woodedshores, where ducks are wont to cross hispath to sudden death.

Remington and his canoe are insepara-ble. “Best exercise on earth; feel my arm,”he says to the skeptical inlander. No row-boat for him. It is as tame sport as riding abroken broncho; and as to a sailing boat, he

would “just as soon ride on a street car.”Once he bought a gasoline launch. Afterthree trips he tied it up to the dock and hurledrocks—and other things—at it; so he toldme, and his neighbors confirmed the story.

But Remington could not be expected tolike anything that goes “without the feel ofthe brute on his muscles.” He is too stren-uous, too brimming over with vitality to bea passenger.

Remington wrote a book last summer; astory of the life of the plains in ’76. Hehung the brush and palette on the wall ofhis little studio, and with pen and ink toldthe story of the Indians and cowboys, whose

From His Studio, Among the Pines, Mr. Remington Can Look Upon the Island Kingdomsof His Neighbors.

“Remington and his canoe are inseparable. * * * ‘Best exercise on earth,’ he says.”

“Coming Through the Rye.” Mr. Remington’s Latest and Most Successful Bronze Group.

faces and figures have so often lent themselvesto other men’s imaginings. I read severalchapters; after the first I made up my mindthe world had lost a great humorist in thefinding of a great artist. The humor is hila-rious, yet rich, and interlaced with fine blueveins of pathos. Then the story leaps offacross the plain like an Indian chase, androunds up the climax with a snap of thewhip, full of life, color, and go.

“Come down here; I want to speak toyou,” Remington called, one day, shovingthe nose of his canoe up against my dock.“I’ve coined two words to-day—the sweetestones in the English language.” I leaned overthe dock, watching the beatific smile thatplayed upon his boyish features.

“Bend low. I want to whisper them toyou.”

I craned my neck forward as he graspedmy arm and whooped out:

“T-h-e E-n-d!” Then we went on a holi-day.

In one of our talks last summer we fellafoul the pros and cons of the real mission ofthe artist.

“Big art is a process of elimination,” hesaid; “cut down and out—do your hardestwork outside the picture, and let your audi-ence take away something to think about—to imagine. The big heroic, for instance(mentioning a great life-sized bronze groupshown at the Pan-American Exposition), be-longs to the Eden Musée—it’s all there, toogross—big creatures, life-sized—yet lifeless—awful! What you want to do is to justcreate the thought—materialize the spirit ofa thing, and the small bronze—or the im-

716 Frederic Remington, the Man

pressionist’s picture—does that; then youraudience discovers the thing you held back,and that’s a skill.”

“But your audience?” I interrupted.“Boys—boys between twelve and seventy

—can’t draw a woman—never tried but one,and washed her out of the picture. Horsesmen—men of the Big West—country with-out a horse is no country for me—can’t en-thuse over the Philippines—no horse.”

At sunset his favorite diversion was topaddle out upon the river and watch thechanging tints of the sky and water.

“Seems as if I must paint them—seemsas if they’d never be so beautiful again”—he said one perfect August evening, restingin his canoe on the crimson calm of thesun’s afterglow reflected on the surface of thewater. “But people won’t stand for my paint-ing sunsets,” he added, exploding with alaugh that shook the boat. “Got me pigeon-holed in their minds, you see; want horses,cowboys, out West things—won’t believe meif I paint anything else.”

One evening, when the gleam of the fullmoon drove a path of sparkling silver fromshore to shore, and the stars danced an ac-companiment on the polished expanse ofblue, Remington came over from Ingle-

nook. He was bent upon a paddle up theriver.

“Come along,” he said to a friend watch-ing the view from my veranda. “This isno place to enjoy such a picture. You wantto get away from everything civilized tocatch the spirit of this thing—away from thehouse and people’s gabble. White man spoilsnature by trying to improve on it. Themarch of the derby hat round the world isanswerable for more crimes against art thana hundred wars.”

So, down to the dock he went, he andCaspar Whitney, his friend, for a romanticcommunion with nature, where the chatterof men and women would not destroy thepicture the moon and stars were paintingout on the bosom of the river.

Just after sunrise, a day before he left forhis home in New Rochelle, Remington pad-dled out in the little bay, back of his island,and painted a sketch of his boathouse andthe white rocks and green pines that linethe shore.

“First time I’ve touched the brush thissummer,” said he. “Got to take some of thelight and water home with me to look at thiswinter. Just live to come up here—can’tbeat it anywhere—’cept out on the plains.”