Frederick Remington didn’t paint the exciting happenings only，He liked to painthis Indians，for instance，as plain everyday Indian people and not to have them always dressed in feathers and warpaint.In other words，his pictures show us the real Indians，lazy or hard working，bad or good，dirty or clean，out hunting or at home on the reservation；and not just the picture book kind of Indians which you can see in a Wild West show or in the movies.His soldiers are not always dressed up for parade or marching forth to a stirring band，like picture book soldiers，but are real men，cooking their suppers over the camp-fire，guarding wagon trains，cleaning their horses.His cowboys are real cowboys working for their living，not just the sort of cowboys we see in the moving pictures.“Men with the bark on”is what Remington called these rough and ready men of the West.
And as for horses！Frederick Remington，let me tell you，could paint horses that were real horses.People aren’t all alike.Neither are horses.Frederick Remington’s horses aren’t just picture book horses any more than his Indians are picture book Indians.Each horse is a special horse，different from any other horse.They are stupid or bright，wicked or gentle，lazy or full of life，just as real horses are.
Besides being a wonderful illustrator，a writer，and a good painter，Remington was a sculptor.He made statues of men on horseback that seem full of life and action.You can see one of these statues，a bronze cowboy on horseback，if you go to Philadelphia.It stands in Fairmount Park.
THE PONY OF THE NORTHERN ROCKIES（《落基山北的小马》）REMINGTON（雷明顿作）
So，if you want to see what the real Wild West was like，not so many years ago，get hold of a book illustrated by Frederick Remington.You’ll really enjoy the pictures.
Remington was an American painter who painted American people.So was a later painter named George Bellows.George Bellows also painted the kind of pictures I think you’ll like，only his pictures are of the eastern part of the country，especially in and about New York city.Bellows wasn’t a “sissy”any more than Remington.He was such a good baseball player on his college team that he almost became a professional ball player，but decided to be a painter instead.He always liked athletics.
Some of his pictures show men and boys in swimming along the New York water-front，some are of polo games and some very well-known ones are of boxing matches.George Bellows painted other pictures of quieter subjects.He painted some fine pictures of old ladies and little girls.
He was an illustrator，too，as Remington was，but Bellows’s illustrations were made in a very different way.They were made first on smooth stone and then printed with ink on paper from the stone.This kind of picture is known as a lithograph.Bellows was an unusually fine lithographer.During the World War Bellows made a famous lithograph showing the English Red Cross nurse，Edith Cavell，who was shot by the enemy as a spy.
One of Bellows’s well-known paintings is of the boxing match between Dempsey and Firpo for the heavy-weight championship of the world.Firpo was a South American boxer who was very strong.He was called the Wild Bull of the Pampas because of his tremendous strength.Once in the match the Wild Bull knocked Dempsey right through the ropes and down into the laps of the people looking on.But this didn’t seem to damage Dempsey much，for he finally won the match.Bellows’s picture shows Dempsey sailing out of the ring after Firpo’s powerful punch.The picture is very dark in some places and very bright in others，because all the light was turned on the ring like a big ceiling spotlight on the stage.The picture shows how well Bellows could paint furious action.
Now you will also see that Bellows could paint a quiet picture.Look at the portrait of his mother.picture of his mother，is it？Yet the It isn’t very much like Whistler’s two mothers seem to be about the same age.Notice the dark and light in this picture.Bellows seemed to like to have some very dark parts and some very light parts in his paintings，and also in his lithographs.
If you are a boy，probably you will like the boxing pictures best.If you are a girl，perhaps you’ll like the quieter pictures that Bellows painted.Whichever kind you prefer you can find among the works of George Bellows.
George Bellows and Frederick Remington are just two of the many American artists that should be in a history book of art.I wish I could tell you about the other American painters，but to tell about them all would make this book very much too fat，and no one likes too fat a book.
