Sons of the Living: Reviewed by Brian Arnold

Sons of the Living
Photographs by Bryan Schutmaat

Trespasser, Austin, TX, 2024. 188 pp., 90 tritone plates on uncoated paper, 11¾x14¾".

       But when I pass through the pearly gate
       Will my gown be gold instead?
       Or just a red clay robe with red clay wings
       And a red clay halo for my head?

— Gillian Welch

There are some things about this man that I feel that I know, but it’s hard to say since I’m not given much context for the photograph. There is no date, location or name. It shows a white(ish) man seated on a sidewalk, his sandaled feet spilling out into the gutter. He leans back against a shuttered building, plywood and corrugated tin covering the windows. His body sits effortlessly, looking both powerful and relaxed. He’s a hardworking man with rich golden skin, and it feels clear he’s earned his living in the desert landscape of the American Southwest — a deep, dark complexion cultivated under a relentless sun and layers of red sand. Despite his obvious strength, he also looks very awkward. His crown is a pale, Aryan complexion, kept white and clean by the Stetson he wore out in the field. He reminds me of John Grady Cole, the protagonist in the brilliant Cormac McCarthy novel All the Pretty Horses. To be clear, I remember American landscape painter Richard Thompson once telling me what the film adaptation got wrong; Richard was convinced that John Grady Cole, the handsome and romantic hero, would have a tan line from his hat around the circumference of his head on account of him riding the southwest deserts for weeks, always wearing his dirty and sweat-stained hat. It’s a little less picturesque than Matt Damon’s portrayal of the character, but it might also provide an important metaphor for understanding John Grady, crowned with a halo made from the unforgiving desert sands.

I found this photograph in Sons of the Living, the new, much adored book from Bryan Schutmaat and Trespasser Books. Sons of the Living is a richly visualized, harsh and romantic story about the people and landscapes found in the deserts of the American West. I’ve never really been to Texas — Schutmaat’s homeland and muse — but I have spent a lot of time in the backcountry of Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico, so think I have good feel for the people and places he photographed. The deserts of the American Southwest are as gorgeous as they are brutal, full of red hills, sage brush, ancient canyons, powerful oil and mineral industries, and an unlikely assortment of outsiders lost along its highways. Schutmaat continues to work in black-and-white, view camera photography, and does not shy away from portraying his deep love for traditional depictions of the region. Indeed, many of his photographs feel like deliberate references to masterpieces by Timothy O’Sullivan, Laura Gilpin, Georgia O’Keefe, and Robert Adams. I would describe Sons of the Living as a loving, tragic, and poetic rendition of the last American frontier, a harsh and broken landscape full gorgeous views and broken dreams.

Schutmaat builds his narrative by mixing photographs of desert vistas (many focusing on highways and trains — both essential for understanding westward expansion) with portraits of people he met during his travels. The landscape photographs are very classical — a train trestle spanning a river gap, the elegant curve of a highway traversing the rolling hills, and storms brewing along a distant horizon (beautifully reminiscent of some platinum pictures by Laura Gilpin) — and clearly articulate the place. The portraits offer an interesting cross-section of characters — workers, drifters, outlaws, and mystics — all revealed as desperate seekers on a lost highway, depicted with remarkable clarity and empathy. Together these pictures present a haunting perspective on the American frontier in the 21st century, Manifest Destiny when the oil wells are dying and the mines abandoned.

To better understand Schutmaat’s photos, I again want to circle back to Cormac McCarthy. I know it’s bad timing to evoke McCarthy, after the recent articles in Vanity Fair and the New York Times, but like Willa Cather and Robert Adams, I think of him as one of the great artists of the American West. This time I want to reference his character Billy Purnam, the protagonist of The Crossing, the brilliant sequel to All the Pretty Horses. The Crossing is ultimately a novel about living with trauma. Early in the story, Billy befriends a wild wolf by nursing her back to health. McCarthy creates the feeling that this is the most nurturing and loving relationship Billy has known, making it so incredibly devastating when he kills her himself, shooting her in the head after she loses a brutal dog fight. Soul beaten, Billy spends the rest of the novel riding horseback along the Texas-Mexico border, following a string of chance encounters with mystics and drifters who teach the wounded man how to live with trauma. When I page through the pictures in Sons of the Living, I feel a similar narrative to those found in McCarthy’s novels — a story about a poet, loner, and outlaw at home among the wanderers of the desert Southwest.

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Brian Arnold is a photographer, writer, and translator based in Ithaca, NY. He has taught and exhibited his work around the world and published books, including A History of Photography in Indonesia, with Oxford University Press, Cornell University, Amsterdam University, and Afterhours Books. Brian is a two-time MacDowell Fellow and in 2014 received a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation/American Institute for Indonesian Studies.

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Sons of the Living: Reviewed by Brian Arnold