ATTACK ON THE HERD (CLOSE CALL) BY CHARLES SCHREYVOGEL
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Charles Schreyvogel Attack on the Herd (Close Call) c. 1907 Oil on canvas 26 1/8 inches x 34 1/4 inches |
| aised in poverty on the East Side of New York City, Schreyvogel was educated in public schools and sold newspapers on the New York streets. When the family moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, he was apprenticed to a gold engraver and finally, in 1877, became a lithographer. By 1880 he was a lithographic artist and taught drawing. Schreyvogel trained in Munich from 1887 to 1890, returning then to Hoboken, where hs lived until his death in 1912. Beginning in 1893 he made regular visits to the West, gathering impressions and satisfying an obsession with accuracy of detail equal to Remington's own. Schreyvogel's work, apart from a scattering of portraits and a few tranquil scenes, constitutes a sustained tribute to the Wild West. In his paintings, troopers charge, Indians dodge and whoop, rifles and pistols discharge, sabres swing, bodies crash to the ground and horses are always at full gallop. Attack on the Herd is distinctive among Schreyvogel's paintings in that its white protagonist is a cowboy rather than a cavalryman. In other respects the painting is a typical Schreyvogel, isolating a few figures in a life-or-death struggle. The Indians have successfully separated the cowboy from the herd, while another warrior can be seen in the background stampeding the cattle by flapping a blanket. |