Il6 THE HORSE. 



originals possessed by that country, when on my return 

 to France in 1861, on attentively studying the riches of 

 the Campana collection, exhibited at the Palais de 

 l'lndustrie, I was impressed by seeing in upper Italy 

 that the observations made in Greece and Asia with 

 reference to the utilisation of short horses, were con- 

 firmed in a yet more apparent manner upon a great 

 number of decorative vases representing riders and 

 chariots. The more accurate the draughtsmanship, the 

 more apparent was the difference between the forms of 

 the ridden horses and those of the harnessed animals. 



We were confronted by relics found in the Etruscan 

 graves in the lowest zone of the three seats of sepul- 

 tures of an antiquity far more remote than the 

 campaigns of Alexander in Asia or the Grecian sculptures 

 of Phidias. 



Nevertheless, from the artistic point of view, there 

 was every conducive for the Etruscan designer to neglect 

 this distinction between the animals ; the decorator, being 

 obliged to cover the rounded surface Df vases with 

 graceful figures, could have rendered 1"L3 subject more 

 interesting, and above all more complete, if he had 

 united under one view the whole of the harnessed horses 

 and the chariot ; but he sacrificed to truth by scrupulously 

 rendering the elongated form ofthe draught horses 

 of his time, whilst the environing warriors rode short 

 horses. 



It is in the study of what arrests the eye that the 

 artist has need of direction. He must judge animals by 

 their exterior, and for that anatomical studies will not 

 suffice. He must, in addition, be thoroughly acquainted 

 with the regular conformation of proportions, of equili- 

 brium, and especially of gaits. 



The last studies which I have just made in Italy upon 

 the ancient productions prove to me that our prede- 

 cessors, however little solicitous of form, either through 

 ignorance or by intention, nevertheless managed naively 

 to express life. I have seen at Pisa, in the paintings 

 of the pupils of Giotto, horses perfectly poised at the 

 walk, or backing ; this, too, in the frescoes of Organa, etc. 



I have made the same observation on the sarcophagi 

 and in the sculptures of Florence and Venice, which 



