The Equestrian Portrait

The oldest use of the horse in painting: a man raised above eye level, the animal borrowing him its authority.

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.