4 THE HORSE. 



necessary to draw a detailed myology of oxen grazing or 

 horses ploughing, any more than to make skeletons to 

 show us carriage horses and race horses. 



These skeletons and anatomical drawings can only 

 represent the corpse, the inert mass, and we need 

 the living animal, unencumbered by the pedantry of 

 exaggerated minuteness or the exhibition of erroneous 

 knowledge. It is, however, only just that the public, 

 which is now rather better informed, should demand a 

 sufficiently serious study of what is presented to it, and 

 should decline to accept animals absolutely invented. 



Far be it from me to desire from the painter the 

 crudity of the naturalist or a too serious examination of 

 the horse in position. The thorough and too rigorous 

 study of the perpendicular is only immobility in an 

 unnatural station. The artist can intelligently utilise it 

 for the truth of a movement without the need of satisfying 

 his imagination leading him on to inacceptable 

 negligence in undue modification of the form. 



All types are not to be found in nature. It is then 

 that thought adds its complement by idealising the 

 model. The animal not wearing the expression desired 

 by the artist, the draughtsman must compose this 

 movement after a fugitive impression, which analysis will 

 reconstruct faithfully, if he be well taught, with energy 

 and warmth if he be cunning in his art, for he will then 

 animate his subject, rendering it handsome and elegant, 

 while his composition will be picturesque, even while 

 remaining absolutely truthful. 



But for the labour to be productive of good, a 

 thorough knowledge of the subject is essential, simply as 

 material to be worked upon. Never undertake it with 

 the least dilatoriness. Hesitation in this direction is a 

 weariness which weightens and impairs the effect of the 

 first sketch. Meditate long over your composition, but 

 in practice interpret your conception with rapidity. 



The artist should therefore be learned, well acquainted 

 with the contour of forms, and possessed of an intimate 

 knowledge of details, so that the recollection mentally 

 evoked may find its proper situation. This is of the 

 utmost necessity, in order that the original and ensemble 

 conception may predominate in the composition. 



