Greeting the West

Four horseback riders rest quietly on the wide plains, their feathered headdresses and beaded garments catching the warm evening glow. Behind them, enormous thunderheads pile up into the sky, so bright they seem to hold light inside them. This is "Greeting the West," painted in 2010 by Mark Maggiori, a French artist with an unusual path to Western art. Before he picked up a brush for these scenes, he played in a rock band. His fascination with the American West eventually pulled him in a completely different direction, and he has since become known for skies exactly like this one.

Maggiori paints in a realistic style, but he cares less about telling a big story and more about capturing a feeling. The riders here are not charging into battle or chasing anything. They simply pause, small figures against the huge weather rolling toward them, taking in the land around them. That sense of calm connects him to earlier Western painters like Frederic Remington and Charles Russell, whose traditions he carries forward. The clouds nearly outshine the riders themselves, glowing gold against the deep blue evening, which feels fitting for a painting that is really about the beauty and scale of the open country.