"As They Threw their Animals Back upon their Haunches," illustration for An Arabian Day and Night, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine

Frederic Remington · n.d.

Medium

Brush and black gray wash heightened with white gouache over graphite, on cream laminate board

Original size

34.9 × 44.7 cm (13 3/4 × 17 5/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

A dramatic sweep of riders pulling their mounts to a halt, this illustration captures Frederic Remington at his most kinetic — muscle, momentum, and dust suspended in a single frozen moment. Remington built his reputation depicting the American West, but his mastery of movement and animal anatomy translated seamlessly into any subject requiring physical tension and urgency. Working in brush and black-gray wash heightened with white gouache over graphite, he layered tonal depth that print reproduction could convey widely — this piece originally appeared in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, where his illustrations reached hundreds of thousands of readers across America. The medium itself rewards close inspection: the gouache highlights give horses and riders a sculptural weight that pure ink could never achieve. Remington contributed regularly to Harper's throughout the 1880s and 1890s, and it was this prolific illustration work — not his paintings — that first made him a household name in American art. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates that layered tonal drama into pigment and brushwork, preserving the original's sense of controlled chaos while bringing warmth and presence that the printed page could only approximate. The original is held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.