Excerpt from The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
John Tweddle’s Vision from Oklahoma deals with the conflicting aspects of America’s Western myths. The painting is dominated by a virile cowboy astride a bucking horse, confident in his ability to tame the beast to do his bidding. Similarly, nineteenth-century pioneers advanced across this country to the Pacific coast, defying nature, mankind, and any other force that might have challenged their presumption. But eventually the unrestrained exploitation of the land, fueled by the insistence on a rugged, individualist capitalism, created an environmental crisis that Tweddle alludes to in the decorative border of this painting. At the bottom, we see trucks, boom towns, and cars emitting dollar signs in their exhaust; up the sides, oil wells and dollar signs; and at the top, military aircraft and bombs that add a rather apocalyptic tone to the painting.
Lowery Stokes Sims, Metropolitan Museum of Art
