Introduction ix. 



has hitherto made but faint efforts in England. At this 

 epoch of common sense one may reasonably expect to 

 see Art flourish to as proud a height as it attained in 

 Athens, Rome and Florence." Horace Walpole's five 

 volumes contain much concerning the early painters 

 with an interesting history of painting. In all subse- 

 quent Dictionaries of Art the main facts are taken from 

 his work. 



Of no department of art is the observation by Walpole 

 above quoted more true than of the essentially British 

 school which delineates subjects of sport and portrays 

 animal life. Among animals the horse stands almost 

 alone in point of importance, and pictures of the horse, 

 or in which the horse occupies a conspicuous place, 

 will necessarily claim much of our attention. Nothing 

 in what may be called the pictorial history of the 

 horse is more remarkable than the influence wrought 

 upon it by the genius and industry of one man — 

 George Stubbs, the first of our animal painters to seek 

 inspiration direct from Nature. Stubbs was also the 

 first to recognise that accuracy could be attained only 

 through intimate and exhaustive knowledge ; and years 

 of arduous study and labour produced fruits which are 

 contained in that monumental work. The Anatomy of 

 the Horse ; and from 1766, the date when that book 

 was published, we discover the advance of equine 

 portraiture. 



Previously to Stubbs few artists had displayed even an 

 elementary knowledge of the frame and muscular system 

 of the horse : nearly all painted from the eye and from 

 the eye only. There were notable exceptions it is true — 

 James Seymour, for example (1702 — 1752) shows distinct 

 feeling for anatomical correctness ; but he gropes almost 

 in the dark, for in his day practically nothing was known 

 of the subject to the mastery of which Stubbs devoted 



