104 THE H0RSE - 



their manner of living, their gymnastics and their games 

 continually presented them in action, and frequently 

 without any concealing garment. 



Statuary could, at each instant, select the most 

 beautiful models, and reproduce them in their entirety 

 and their details ; its life was a perpetual study, and all 

 frequented places and congregations for amusement 

 became its studio, and even rendered it further service ; 

 nature, in all its variety, incessantly displaying itself in 

 action, and developing, without constraint, all the means 

 and forms. 



If what we have just recalled be compared to the 

 posing models of actual studios, the difficulties of sculptors 

 of our day may be estimated. 



How can the negligence of ancient artists for the 

 form of horses, as disclosed by their historic pages, be 

 explained ? Enormous bodies with rounded outlines, 

 small heads, eyes close together and looking straight 

 before them, limbs in no way resembling those which 

 should support an animal having the rotundity of a 

 barrel, the articulation of the withers being invariaby 

 composed in profile of two heads of bone, super-imposed 

 like a human knee. 



In this respect the sculptors had not more regard 

 than the painters for an outline, which the spectators 

 could recognise as false, by immediately verifying it upon 

 the first living animal that presented itself. 



This idea of a conventionally adopted form is so 

 ingrained, even among men of the highest talent, that 

 the sight of the contrary does not suffice to correct them ; 

 this appeared to me especially evident in a gallery at 

 Florence, in an original drawing by Albert Durer, 

 purporting to be the exact representation of a horse, as 

 was proved by a rough sketch, covered with notes, 

 indicating the presence of a living model ; the drawing 

 upon which these measurements were applied, when 

 compared with those afforded by nature, are very in- 

 exact, especially as to the limbs. There can be no doubt 

 that Albert Durer had not the animal under his eye 

 when he thus limited the outlines by figures for the 

 purpose of specializing the existence of each muscle. 



It is evident that in subjecting himself to this labour 



