Painting of the Day, November 1, 2011

By Donna Poulton

“I knew the wild riders and the vacant land were about to vanish forever … and the more I considered the subject, the bigger the forever loomed…I began to record some facts around me, and the more I looked the more the panorama unfolded.” –Frederic Remington

Credit: americanpicturelinks

Frederic Remington (1861 – 1909), Friends or Foes, c. 1903, oil on canvas. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

In the painting Friends or Foes also known as The Scout, the lone Crow Indian rider cautiously looks at the distant camp not knowing who he might find. The painting depicts the wide-open spaces, but it also offered Remington another scenario for illustrating a horse—a fascination and repeating motif in nearly all of his work.