The Rattlesnake Frederic Hemington Analysis
Teresa Heflin
Literature of the American West
22 April 2013
Examining a Work of Art The Rattlesnake is Frederic Hemington’s newest bronze work. This piece is located in the Sid Richardson Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Hemington created this bronze work in 1904 to tell the dramatic story of the American West. The Rattlesnake is Frederic Hemington’s 12th and final bronze piece, however many consider it one of his best. Hemington created this piece later in his life; it shows the fierce motion of the bronco, which is comparable to the startled horse in A Taint on the Wind that was also painted the same year.
In this bronze piece, Remington shows a cowboy on a bronco, with an aggressive looking rattlesnake on the ground ready to attack the …show more content…
I personally can feel the situation; this piece demonstrates the real situation a bronco’s accurate reaction when encountering a rattlesnake. It does a good job in making the viewer literally hear the bronco neigh. The encounter is intense and the bronze work makes you worry about the cowboy possibly falling of the horse. I truly enjoyed interacting with this piece and making assumption on the unknown, such as what geographical location this occurred in, how exhausted the cowboy and bronco are, and weather or not the cowboy on bronco carry on with their travels without an injury. These open-ended questions make the viewer able to communicate personally with the piece. I believe this piece is truly remarkable when examining the horse. The horse has such great detail, anybody who sees the detail in the horse knows exactly when and how a horse halts and is startled. Hemington shows the bronco’s hind legs flexed strong with muscle tone and veins as the adrenaline in the horse is pumping throughout his massive body. The way the horse is sculpted really talks to the strength of a 1000-pound animal like a bronco. These animals could kill a man just by falling on them, which plays to the severity and intensifies the experience of the viewer. The cowboy has incredibly stiff legs, which makes me feel the sudden halt that made the cowboy flinch his entire body to avoid getting ejected off the horse. The details of the piece paint a very
Literature of the American West
22 April 2013
Examining a Work of Art The Rattlesnake is Frederic Hemington’s newest bronze work. This piece is located in the Sid Richardson Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Hemington created this bronze work in 1904 to tell the dramatic story of the American West. The Rattlesnake is Frederic Hemington’s 12th and final bronze piece, however many consider it one of his best. Hemington created this piece later in his life; it shows the fierce motion of the bronco, which is comparable to the startled horse in A Taint on the Wind that was also painted the same year.
In this bronze piece, Remington shows a cowboy on a bronco, with an aggressive looking rattlesnake on the ground ready to attack the …show more content…
I personally can feel the situation; this piece demonstrates the real situation a bronco’s accurate reaction when encountering a rattlesnake. It does a good job in making the viewer literally hear the bronco neigh. The encounter is intense and the bronze work makes you worry about the cowboy possibly falling of the horse. I truly enjoyed interacting with this piece and making assumption on the unknown, such as what geographical location this occurred in, how exhausted the cowboy and bronco are, and weather or not the cowboy on bronco carry on with their travels without an injury. These open-ended questions make the viewer able to communicate personally with the piece. I believe this piece is truly remarkable when examining the horse. The horse has such great detail, anybody who sees the detail in the horse knows exactly when and how a horse halts and is startled. Hemington shows the bronco’s hind legs flexed strong with muscle tone and veins as the adrenaline in the horse is pumping throughout his massive body. The way the horse is sculpted really talks to the strength of a 1000-pound animal like a bronco. These animals could kill a man just by falling on them, which plays to the severity and intensifies the experience of the viewer. The cowboy has incredibly stiff legs, which makes me feel the sudden halt that made the cowboy flinch his entire body to avoid getting ejected off the horse. The details of the piece paint a very