The Dean of Texas Painters

This class has taught me a lot of different things on rhetoric and art history. One of the underlining tones and themes that I have discovered from this experience is that there is always more than meets the eye. This is especially true when it comes to art. We have been given examples of when art has gone on to change history and inspire people, like Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People and how it sparked fire in some of the French people during the 1830 French Revolution. We have also seen how the loss of art can make a people feel lost within their culture, as we have seen with the Greeks being stripped of the Parthenon Marbles. These examples both demonstrate how we can have an emotional connection with not only art objects, but also the people behind the works of art. This is why I have chosen a piece that made me feel at tranquil on an emotional level.

As a class, when we were walking through the Panhandle-Plains History Museum on WTAMU campus, I loved being able to see the history and art that unfolded around this region and land. The museum had everything from Indians and buffaloes to the Ford Model A that would have been used in the 1920s and 30s. But, the one thing that really pulled on my heartstrings and I couldn’t stop staring at was a piece by a man named Frank Reaugh. As we were walking through this wide open museum with construction and chatter going on all around us, we ended up in this warm-colored room that was quiet and calm. When we entered, I immediately felt at peace. I began looking at all of these pastels and oil paintings with various cows and thunderstorms, but one caught my eye in particular. The piece San Francisco Peak was painted by Frank Reaugh in 1923. I feel it encapsulated the time when it was painted and that it brought out the culture that Reaugh lived and thrived within.

Frank Reaugh (who is also known as “The Dean of Texas Painters”) was born in 1860 and passed in 1945. Reaugh grow up in Terrell, Texas just East of Dallas and he worked on cattle drives up until he attended school at the School of Fine Arts in St. Louis. These cattle drives are what sparked his interest and gave him the passion to create works of art based on the nature and economy he saw. In his time as a painter, he created more than 7000 pieces where he concentrated on cows, the plains landscapes, and weather. He worked mostly with pastels because of the impressions made on him from the art in the Louvre Museum while he spent time in Paris. Not only an amazing painter of the southwest plains, Reaugh also spent time as a teacher, inventor, and photographer. Some of Reaugh’s most renowned paintings include: Watering the Herd (1889), Grazing the Herd (1897), and Texas Cattle (April 1933, his last major work; Sasser n.d.).

After doing the research behind San Francisco Peak, I quickly found myself finding an entirely new appreciation for the piece and for Reaugh's labor and dedication. What sets this artist apart from anyone else is the amount of effort and consideration he put into each figure that he created. Reaugh was known for studying how cows moved, what their habits were, and even how their muscles looked as they walked. He even said, “No animal on earth has the beauty of the Texas steer.” We can see that in putting his studies into practice, Reaugh is one of the most iconic painters of the plains still to this day.

San Francisco Peak caught my eye as it sat in the museum because of where it hung on the wall, because of the room where it was displayed, and because of the piece itself being absolutely breathtaking through its color and structure. When you walk into the room that has been filled with Reaugh’s paintings, you are overwhelmed with earthy tones from not only the paintings themselves, but also from the walls and lighting. The walls are covered in a lighter brown fabric that helped warm up the amber light that came from the ceiling. This is one of the few places that there was to sit down and rest on the second floor of the museum. It is almost as if the curator wanted you to experience this art for long periods of time. San Francisco Peak sat at the end of the room with an individual light pointing straight at it. This made it shine brightly in the space.

The plaque beside it gave background information on what the painting depicts. The plaque stated that the piece is of one very specific mountain among the San Francisco Peaks. This mountain was called “Abalone Shell Mountain” by the Navajo Indians. The painting starts (from the bottom to the top) on the plains where two longhorn cows are grazing. The composition then moves on to show shadows from the mountains highlighted in a blue color, in which the blue sits apart from the rest of the colors. Then we get to the mountainous terrain that is surrounded with a thick fog at the base of the largest peak. We finish at the top with a cloudless sky that reminds me of a sunrise in Canyon, Texas. All of these settings and locations tie in to create a beautiful image of what I interpret as a sunrise over the Abalone Shell Mountain, a landscape characteristic of the Southwest United States.

The reason I began to feel connected to this piece is because of the calmness that it gave me as I studied it. The colors were all very earthy, reflecting the arid landscape of the place. The colors also accented within the sky show that it is a sunrise over the mountains, bringing out a peaceful factor within the painting itself. The two longhorns grazing help show that there is nothing crazy or busy going on, like a bustling city or noisy highway. It is just a quiet morning in the mountains. All of these things tie into how I see these as a work that signifies a “home” for me.

Being an early bird, I often sit out on the balcony of Jones Hall and experience many sunrises. Every time I get to see one, it brings out a tranquil feeling in me that I carry with me throughout the rest of the day. This emotion is the same thing I felt when I saw San Francisco Peak. This is how I know that Reaugh is indeed “The Dean of Texas Painters” because although the painting isn’t set in Texas, I got to feel the painting as if I was experiencing it in reality. I believe that this shows the power that art can have on a single person. It can empower them to do something great, and it can even bring you back to some of the most pleasurable moments of your life spent at home.