Art for Hell's Sake

Let's switch gears for a minute and talk about something that nobody knows anything about - art. That is there are several people who think they know art and can explain to other people in a very educational way what they think it is, and they may be right as far as I know, but the average cowpoke or shopper, looks at a picture and he either likes it or he doesn't, or she likes it or she doesn't without getting into the meaning of it or the whys or whatfors. If he likes it well enough, he may even buy it and stick it over the couch in the living room because of the colors in it or it matches the lampshades, or something.

I have a few books on painting and art, having been interested in it at one time, that is, putting pictures on canvas or paper or whatever. But my natural ability didn't overcome my ineptness at doing, and so I put it aside. But in a pile of books under a lamp, I ran across "N. C. Wyeth, The Collected Paintings, Illustrations, and Murals," by Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr., and took a look through it after many years. Now, this is a fellow that knew what he was doing when it comes to drawing and painting, in the first half of the 20th Century! He drew things of and about the West, cowboys, outlaws, Indians, horses, cattle, mountains, rocks, plants, etc, among all the stuff he managed to illustrate. He traveled and worked the jobs of the cowboys and cowpunchers for awhile and sketched them on paper, making paintings later of some of them for magazine covers and books ala Frederic Remington.

I imagine somewhere, sometime someone has written a book on Great Illustrators of the West, but I haven't seen it, and if there is none, they should. I would like to have it, because I think it would be a great reference book for writers nowadays. They could actually see what something looked like back then in a great picture. I know the Inernet is loaded with all sorts of stuff and is also a great reference tool, and I have looked up things often to ensure that what I am doing is correct, but I think a reference book would be better in some instances where you could see a picture instead of just words explaining whatever it is. Anyway, that's what I think about it.