Horses In Art

Horses are an important animal that people have been familiar with throughout the years. Even today, horses are still participating in people’s daily life. Many years ago, horses were one of the first transportations before the first car came out; horses were also good comrades with warriors. Horses have a strong relationship with human life, and human life is an important theme in art. For this reason, artists love to use horses in artworks throughout history. Artists use horses as the subject to show the beauty of art; the beauty of horses and the scene of daily life in a specific time also can be shown through artworks. Therefore, the two pieces of artworks I chose that impressed me a lot during my visit to the Museum of Fine Art in Boston …show more content…
Tang San Cai depicts scenes of trade along the silk road and scenes of daily activities. During the Tang Dynasty, polo match was a popular sport. In case that the long hair of the horse tail intertwines with poles, Tang people would tie up the tail of the horses to make it look very short. Since the tail of the horse in this ceramic is really short and the female rider is wearing pants instead of the traditional dress, this earthenware is probably depicting a female polo player. As we can see from this artwork, the female has a plump body, which indicates women’s appearance in Tang Dynasty. Although the piece of earthenware is hard, the lines that the artist used are soft and smooth, and these lines contribute to show the natural features of a horse and a …show more content…
This sculpture is made of terra cotta with polychrome decoration. Parts of this sculpture are missing, but we could still notice that the horse is at the galloping pose showing that the horse is moving fast. On the back of the horse is a warrior in armor and helmet with his right arm up. When the sculpture was first made, the artists used vibrant colors. However, as time goes by, most of the colors are faded, and the sculpture is not as fine as it was before. A sense of naturalism is used in this artwork. Although a lot of the artworks during that period were still in classical style, the expression of art was in a transition between keeping the classical style and establishing a new style. The artist focused more on expressing the personality and emotion. The pose of the figure is free and realistic. In this specific sculpture, the facial expression of the rider seems to be angry, which reflects the warrior’s worry and the serious situation of the war. This sculpture is likely to depict the figure and horse in realism style, to reproduce the real scene, and to show it vividly. However, the galloping pose of the horse indicates the stylistic form used in this piece of artwork. A real horse would not have a galloping pose like this, in which both of its forelegs and both of its back legs are stretching away from each other. The combination of realistic and stylistic forms of performance greatly expresses vitality and energy of the