The Horse at Work
The Equestrian Portrait: Rider and Mount — Page 2
The oldest use of the horse in painting: a man raised above eye level, the animal borrowing him its authority.
53 horse paintings, dated 1603–1931. Painters with the most works here: Diego Velazquez (6), Eugene Delacroix (5) and Paul Gauguin (3).
The oldest use of the horse in painting is to raise a man. The rider is the subject, the animal is the plinth, and the composition descends from the bronze of Marcus Aurelius by way of Titian and Velazquez. The horse's raised foreleg, the turned head, the low viewpoint that puts the sitter against the sky — all of it is borrowed machinery, repeated for four centuries because it works.