Frederic Remington

Around the turn of the century, having exhausted his Wild West themes — scenes populated by cowboys and cavalrymen under the dazzling sky of the dusty prairie — Remington turned to depicting the mystical evening and night sky. In the last decade of his life, as he discovered the pictorial means of rendering darkness, he painted 70 nocturnes (night pictures). The muted light effects of various fires, candles, stars and the moon in his late works, such as The Old Stage-Coach of the Plains (1901), Fired On, In From the Night Herd (both 1907) and Shotgun Hospitality (1909, pictured), create an eerie atmosphere with their strongly outlined strange shadows.

From the page of A Dash for the Timber