Hyppian painting: horses in all sorts of angles

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

There is an ippic subgenre in painting, the main theme of which is the image of horses. The allocation of painting dedicated to these animals into a separate subspecies suggests that horses are in the lead in the paintings of animal artists.

The great French hippologist

Earlier, almost every English home had an animal painting. Horses were especially revered in this country. And there is nothing surprising in the fact that it was here that the Ippian subgenre of animalistics (image of animals) was born. It reached its peak in the 18th and 19th centuries. An important place among hippologists is occupied by Theodore Gericault (1791-1824), a prominent representative of French romanticism. He was very fond of horses, the images of horses were especially successful for him, one has only to look at his picture, depicting a wounded cuirassier leaning on his war horse.

And how he portrayed a horse tormented by a lion! Theodore Gericault drew horses amazingly, but still went to England to improve in the image of his favorite animals. Every picture of him is amazing. The horses on them are written out to the smallest detail, with great love and knowledge. Topics. And the sadder is to realize the fact that he died in the prime of life and talent, falling from his horse.

Russian hippologists

Among Russian artists there were also classics of the genre. Who in the world does not know the famous horses of Pyotr Klodt on the Anichkov Bridge in the center of the Northern capital? These are four sculptural groups. But the picturesque canvases dedicated to these graceful animals, he succeeded unusually. For example, the painting “Horses” painted in 1860. Resting animals depicted on it look just like living ones.

Among the many Russian artists who painted horses, Nikolai Sverchkov, Evgeny Lansere and Franz Roubaud stand out. The latter is known for his panoramas dedicated to the Battle of Borodino, the defense of Sevastopol, the assault and capture of the headquarters of Imam Shamil - the village of Akhulgo. There are many horses in all these epics.

Illustrations by Yevgeny Lansere for Leo Tolstoy's story "Hadji Murad" are widely known. The picture, in which horses carry riders along the edge of a cliff, is especially good. It feels the tension of both horses and murids, companions of Hadji Murad, descending from the mountains. And the famous "Tachanka" by M. B. Grekov? What soaring strong horses, rushing at full speed, are imprinted on it!

One of the oldest images

Infinitely many paintings dedicated to these beautiful animals. It seems that there is no moment in the life of a horse that has not been captured by some artist - reared up in battle, calm at a watering hole, old nags and frisky foals - they always resonate in the heart of the viewer. Horses were drawnfrom time immemorial, from the very moment when the first painter picked up a piece of coal and approached the wall of the cave. Horses are depicted on icons, for example, dedicated to Saints Boris and Gleb or the miracle of the Archangel Michael. Everyone knows the symbol of Moscow, on which George the Victorious on horseback kills a serpent.

Red horse

Speaking of the work of hippologists, one cannot ignore Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin and his famous painting dedicated to bathing a red horse. This is not an ordinary oil painting in his work. Red horses are also found on his other canvases. But it is this work that is included in the list of the 100 best canvases in world painting.

A powerful red horse carrying a young inept rider out of the water shocked his contemporaries, who saw in him a similarity with Russia. The canvas inspired poets - Yesenin in one of his works compared his life with the run of a pink horse in the early frosty morning. The King of Sweden in 1914 presented Petrov-Vodkin with a diploma and a medal. Written in 1912, the work prophesied a red fate for Russia.

Top Image

One can write endlessly about horses and the canvases on which they are depicted. There are among them works on which horses are depicted in different angles or even fragmentarily (the famous horse croups of Géricault), there are images of a herd, there are, and there are many such canvases on which two horses are drawn.

The painting by Nikolai Yegorovich Sverchkov, the famous Russian hippologist, is surprisingly good. It depicts the heads of a white and bayhorses. The work is very popular with craftswomen who embroider with a cross. Now in the public domain you can see an infinite number of paintings and pictures drawn using computer graphics, which depict two horses rushing along the seashore, across a green meadow, across the prairie, etc. Obviously, images of these animals are back in fashion.