A Kansas Ranch, Robert Swain Gifford

Episode 227. I’m David Cateforis with another Art Minute from the Spencer Museum of Art. Robert Swain Gifford painted A Kansas Ranch in 1888. In the foreground of this three-foot-wide painting, a shepherd and his dog pause in a rolling landscape rich with warm autumn colors. Beyond them, a flock of sheep leads our eye into the distance where smoke rises from ranch buildings and merges with the cloudy sky. Thick brushstrokes mask detail and unify the painted surface. Gifford seems to have captured the essence of the local landscape, yet surprisingly the New York-based artist never visited Kansas. The closest he came was Nebraska, nearly twenty years earlier, as he journeyed cross-country on the new transcontinental railroad. Aside from personal experience, other sources may have inspired Gifford: fellow artist’s images of the plains; promotional material aimed at settlers and tourists; political and social issues connected with Kansas; or poetry and popular literature. Combining the real and imagined, Gifford’s idyllic scene of man and animal in tune with nature conveys a sense of place. With thanks to Mindy Besaw for her text, from the Spencer Museum of Art, I’m David Cateforis.

Robert Swain Gifford, A Kansas Ranch (2003.0111) The artist is Robert Swain Gifford, born 1840 in Naushon Island, Massachusetts, died 1905 New York, New York. The title of the work is A Kansas Ranch, created in 1888. The work was made with oil on canvas.

The painting Kansas Ranch gives a sweeping impression of a Kansas prairie where shepherd watches a herd of sheep. The painting is a little less than two feet tall and three feet wide. Under a mostly cloudy sky, the shepherd leans on his staff facing away from us, toward a large flock of sheep that is clustered along a hillside. A dog sits beside the shepherd, and there is another shepherd some distance away. Although the figure in his dark coat is a point that draws our attention, the painting is dominated by its sweeping landscape. Behind the shepherd and his sheep, dry, dull grasses grow on rolling hills in yellow, brown, and orange, as if it were late fall or winter. Low clouds cast grey shadows across the hill.

Sheep ranching may not be synonymous with Kansas today, but in the first half of the 1880s the population of sheep exceeded that of humans in this state. After the Blizzard of 1886, the industry changed, closing the open range and greatly reducing the number of sheep ranches. Most often considered a New England painter, Gifford presumably derived this composition from memories of travels through the Great Plains, although the artist never passed through Kansas on his railroad journeys to the West.

What kind of movement do you see in this painting? Try making a calm motion with your hand that shows what this painting feels like. Where are the animals in this painting? What are they doing? About the art This artist called this painting “A Kansas Ranch,” even though he had never visited the state of Kansas. He used his imagination and his experiences in other Midwestern states to paint this picture. About the animals Sheep have 300-degree vision, which means that they can see behind them without turning their heads!