The Death of Socrates
Jacques Louis David
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The Story
The Advance-Guard, or The Military Sacrifice (The Ambush) is an 1890 oil painting by Frederic Remington.
Created in 1890, this work belongs firmly within the tragedy & death tradition of American painting. Frederic Remington worked at a moment when the young republic was still deciding what its own art should look like — how much to borrow from Europe, how much to invent from its own landscape and daily life. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was pitched at an audience learning to take American subjects seriously.
As Oil on canvas (87.3 × 123.1 cm (34 3/8 × 48 1/2 in.)), the work shows the tool marks and layering choices typical of Frederic Remington's output in this period — decisions about ground, underpainting, and glaze that a photograph can only partly convey.
Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. The composition slows the eye down at exactly the moment it would rather look away, which is the point.
Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago now holds the work, where conservators and historians continue to revisit its condition and attribution. Each generation of scholarship adds a layer to how Frederic Remington's output from this period is understood.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
