86 Chapters on Animals. 



slope of the shoulder, the extreme cleanness of the shank, 

 and the full-rounded haunch, though every other part, too, 

 has a perfection and a harmony unwitnessed (at least by 

 my eyes) anywhere else." 



Even the Arabs we see in Europe, however inferior to 

 that purest breed of Nejed, are enough to make clear to us 

 what the Arabian ideal is. That it is the central Divine 

 conception of horse-beauty, I think no artist doubts, 

 though artists often prefer other races from affection, or 

 because their own art is more picturesque than beautiful. 

 Veyrassat, for instance, who can etch cart-horses as nobody 

 else can etch them, has never, I believe, cared to illustrate 

 the more graceful breeds that excite the enthusiasm of poets. 

 So it has been with Rosa Bonheur, and the whole pictu- 

 resque school generally ; they take naturally to the cart- 

 horse, whose massive grandeur satisfies them. Prefer- 

 ences of this kind, in the practice of artists, do not, however, 

 prove anything against the supreme beauty of the Arab. 

 The best painters always work more from sympathy and 

 affection than from admiration, and they take as models, 

 not what even they themselves consider most beautiful, but 

 what will take its place best in the class of pictures that 

 they paint. The truth is, that the Arab is much too beautiful 

 to be admissible in the pictures of the rustic schools; he 

 would spoil everything around him, he would be as much 

 out of place as a Greek statue in a cottage interior. Even 

 the Greek horses of Phidias are too noble to be ridden by 

 cavaliers not endowed with the full beauty of the human 

 body, beautiful strong arms to hold the restraining bridle, 

 beautiful strong legs to press the charger's sides ! And 

 how then shall you paint the daintily-exquisite Arab along 

 with wooden-shod Normandy peasants, and fustian-breeched 



Rosa Bonheur. The famous French animal painter, born, 1822. 



