Horses in Art - An Equine Vision Magazine

The Horse In Landscape

by Sarah Crampton

Featuring Artists Tim Cox, Karen Bonnie, Linda Walker, Gaylene Fortner and Jody Miller.

Landscape painting looms large in art history, coming of age as a subject for artists in northern Europe in the 18th century and in full flower by the next century in Europe and America. Landscape painters in the 19th century were awed by the American wilderness, from Frederic Edwin Church's paintings of Niagara Falls to Albert Bierstadt's of the Rocky Mountains.

Add to the mix the work of artists who were also illustrators Frederick Remington, the original cowboy artist, or Winslow Homer, who depicted everyday scenes from rural life in America who appealed to a national audience. A reverence for natures beauty and the romance of a life lived more in sync with its natural rhythms remains a part of our national consciousness, and it lives on in painting as well.

Tim Cox spent as much time as he could, beginning as a child, working on ranches and being with horses. He and his wife, Suzie, spent many years on the remotest ranches they could find to work, often foregoing plumbing and electricity. He shares his experience of these isolated places in all seasons, recording the majestic hills and skies, streams and forests, that provide the backdrop for todays working cowboys.

Paints and Sage
Oil, 18 x 24, by Gaylene Fortner
In Thunder Rolls, one can almost feel the moisture of the oncoming storm. In Cow Horse Country the viewer is torn between getting out of the way of a galloping herd or standing still, anticipating the rush and sound.

All of his works celebrate a way of life and work that couldnt take place anywhere else, and one that becomes less available to each generation. "Working a ranch" is a phrase not many of us really understand. But we appreciate its vistas and applaud its preservation. The paintings by Cox are really not that far from those 19th-century artists who first explored and recorded the beauty of this continent, as they themselves mourned the loss of its wildernesses, even as they painted.

Landscape painting is still an enormously popular fine art subject and Tim Cox is one of the most well-known western artists today. Images of his paintings are widely recognized and dozens of his limited-edition prints have sold out through the years. Cox's paintings are bathed in a bright, warm light with an optimistic aura of balance and overall harmony. The horses and the riders rendered with accurate detail and placed in his beloved expansive landscapes create paintings that are distinctly his own.

Depicting the countryside with sensitivity and basked in a soft warm light, Karen Bonnie's horses are portrayed in a free state, reacting to each other and their natural surroundings. The paintings are often in-your-face, large format paintings that make a bold statement about strength, athleticism and courage. They are horses as the Creator made them.

Bonnie comments, "I didnt have my first horse until I was 20, but I was born with a fascination and admiration for them that was unexplainable. I had no contact with them until I was old enough to go rent one by the hour, so I started drawing them as soon as I could hold a pencil. I felt that somehow drawing them would bring them closer."

As an adult, Karen Bonnie used the classical methods of dressage training to retrain racehorses off the track for a new career. After moving to Colorado, she switched to western riding, while learning to gather and push cows through all sorts of rough terrain.

Bonnie remarks, "Before using my horses for cow work, I thought horses were beautiful, affectionate, fun, a continuing challenge; out here I have seen that they are also heroic, courageous spiritual beings. To be around them is therapy. They live simply and need little more than their freedom and a job to do to be happy.

"The horses are my soul mates and, although I provide them with space and good feed, horses provide me with so much more that I have kept them in my life through good times and bad. I can't imagine life without them."

Linda Walker is the Vice President and Membership Director of the Women Artists of the West. She is also a wildlife artist and moved to Northern Minnesota, just for the beauty of it. The northern country lends itself wonderfully to inspiring her to create, and in High Country Storm, the elements and far-reaching vista accentuates the harsh reality of horses in the wild.

Linda explains, "The landscape for this background came from a trip to Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, that was occupied by the long departed Anisazi Indians. I represented their presence by placing, hidden in the sage, a piece of pottery that has an image representing a horse and a hole placed there to release the spirits.

"The colors of red earth and sage against the colorful grays of the stormy sky were particularly appealing," Walker continues. "To stand on the bluff and watch a thunderstorm race across this forever vista was magical. The storm certainly accentuated the wildness of this land. It seemed to be a particularly wonderful place to imagine releasing this once untamed mustang into, and brought out the romantic dreamer in me. My imagination was able to let go and make painting this work a special pleasure.

"In reality the horse in High Country Storm was a wild horse, adopted through the BLM adoption project. He is a big, strong, kind, intelligent animal and his sure-footedness makes him an exceptional trail horse."

The main objective in Gaylene Fortner's painting Paints and Sage was to capture the light and shadows on the horses. Gayle Fortner is a signature member of Women Artists of the West, and paints primarily in oils and watercolor. The strength in the painting lies in the powerful dark shapes against the lighter value landscape.

Fortner remarks, "When I first saw this herd of horses the relationship of the mare and colt got my attention, but the light and color playing through the scene kept me there. I cant resist admiring a group of horses, but the warm red of the colt seemed to work its way into the color variations of the rest of the horse group. The bath of summer light danced around the grass and sagebrush pastures, and then gently faded into the hills and valleys common to Southeastern Montana where I live."

Arizona fine art photographer Jody Miller specializes in horse images, cowboys, cowgirls, and the Western ranch lifestyle set in wide-open landscapes of big sky, golden grasses, and weathered board buildings. Jody moved to Arizona to revel in the visual beauty of open space, and to devote herself to equine photography in the incomparable desert light. The photo Morning Horse Ride was taken in the fall of 2003 in Wickenburg, Arizona.

Including the image of the horse can communicate strength, courage, and freedom and injects a spirit of confidence to the overall symmetry of a landscape. These artists create with an unpretentious sincerity, connecting earth and the endless sky.

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