60 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE 



are concerned, viz. that of the actual pose assumed instan- 

 taneously and simultaneously by the four legs of the 

 galloping horse ? And further, if he ought not to do this, 

 what ought he to do, on the supposition that his purpose 

 is to convey to others the same impression of rapid move- 

 ment which exists not, be it observed, in his eye, or on 

 the retina of that eye but in his mind, as the result of 

 attention and judgment ? 



The first of these questions has been answered by the 

 great French authority on archaeology and the history ol 

 art, M. Salomon Reinach,^ whose writings are as lucid and 

 terse as they are accurate, and solidly based on research. 

 M. Reinach shows (and produces drawings to support his 

 statement) that in Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, 

 mediaeval, and modern art up to the end of the eighteenth 

 century " the flying gallop " does not appear at all ! The 

 first example (so far as those schools are concerned) is an 

 engraving by G. T. Stubbs in 1794 of a horse called 

 " Baronet." The essential points about "the flying gallop " 

 are that the fore-limbs are fully stretched forward, the 

 hind limbs fully stretched backward, and that the flat 

 surfaces of the hinder hoofs are facing upwards. After 

 this engraving of 1794 the attitude introduced by Stubbs 

 became generally adopted in English art to represent a 

 galloping horse, and the French painter, Gericault, intro- 

 duced it into France in 1821 in his celebrated picture, 

 the "Derby d'Epsom," (see PI. II, fig. i) which is now in 

 the Louvre. 



Previously to this there had been three other con- 

 ventional poses for the running horse in art, of which only 

 the third (to be mentioned below) has any resemblance to 

 a real pose, and that not one of rapid movement. We 

 find: (i) The enlongated or stretched-leg "prance" (French, 



* " La Representation du Galop dans 1'art ancien et moderne," ' Revue 

 Archeologique,' vol. xxxvi et seq. t 1900. 



