Horse Paintings

Horse and Lion Series

An interesting story says that George Stubbs, during his visit to Italy, stayed in a castle at Ceuta on the Moroccan mainland opposite Gibraltar. One evening, while taking a walk, he looked out across the moonlit desert and saw a lion stalking, attacking and then finally devouring a wild horse. This very scene left an indelible impact on the painters mind and was the inspiration for the series.

However such stories are best taken with a pinch of salt and a more likely source for Stubbs's obsession with the subject, however, is to be found in a life-size piece of antique sculpture - 'Lion Attacking a Horse' - that he would have seen in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome.

In most of the oil paintings of this series, the horse, tense with fear, is depicted with magnificent anatomical precision. By contrast the lion, possibly painted from a skin, looks rather tame.

Chinese Horse Paintings

China has a great tradition of horse paintings. Horses were prized for the same qualities prized in humans: strength, fortitude, and perseverance.

According to traditional Chinese aesthetic standards, a good horse painting must not only faithfully depict the flesh and bone-structure of the animal, but also capture its fundamental spirit

The 20 th century saw the revival of Chinese black ink paintings. Xu Beihong, who was a master of both oils and Chinese ink, was a pioneer of the movement. He painted the traditional subject of horses in Chinese ink. He painted the horse pictures vividly and accurately, capturing their spirited movements with a great economy of line.