I visited the National horseracing museum this weekend to
look at the different styles of horse art. It was interesting to see how the
ownership of the horse was more commonly focused on in the older paintings
dating 100 years ago and back. These paintings were photorealism style paintings
of horses standing pretty in English tack in a pretty English countryside
setting. With no sign of the natural, wild spirit of the horse. These very tame
paintings varied between work horses and very human sculpted breeds such as the
thoroughbred. It was also interesting to see different types of art that also
showed signs of human ownership, such as taxidermy mounted horse head sticking
out of a stable door. The name plate and mounting of the horse showed the
humans ownership and possession over the horse and sticking its head out of a
closed stable door showed the oppression of the horses natural instincts and
spirit.
I was really interested with Jacquie Jones work that was
seen all over the walls of the café. She
uses long loose colourful brush strokes and spontaneous mark making to capture the feel of the Newmarket
racecourse and horses.
Her work that really caught my eye was her pieces where the
horse wasn’t ridden or tacked or in a manmade setting. Her art shows more of
the horse’s personality and spirit than the other paintings I saw at the museum
but there is still a lot of
domestication with her horse racing paintings. In these paintings her horses are more
controlled and lose some of their natural flair. Whereas her pieces that have untacked
loosely painted frolicking horses, tossing their heads and flicking their feet
around playfully capture more what I’m looking for, the natural,
undomesticated, spirit of the horse.
I like how Jacquie Jones uses colour and how it works to create an emotional response with the viewer, this is something I would like to experiment with, with my own drawings.
I like how Jacquie Jones uses colour and how it works to create an emotional response with the viewer, this is something I would like to experiment with, with my own drawings.
The visit really helped me form an idea of where I want to
head with my drawings and what I will experiment with now is the form of the
horse with paintbrush strokes of ink and colour. I’d like to see if using
colour will help me show some of the inner feelings and flow of the horse or if
it feels unnecessary. I’d also like to try drawing with ink in the current
style I am working on to see if it helps make the image stronger and bolder.
After coming home I began to look up Stubbs work, comparing it to Jacquie's work and seeing just how contained his work is. I never realized before but his horses are very stylized, they have an interesting almost blockish shape to their bodies that runs from their rump to chest. It's weirdly fitting to his work though and the idea that his works are very human dominated. The horses in his paintings are often the wealthy man's horse, dressed up and polished to perfection for him. His horses heads also have that same stylized appearance that follows throughout his work, the head really reminds me of a arabs horse head, it's lean and slightly dips in from the nose to forehead. Much unlike heavier native breads of horses.
After coming home I began to look up Stubbs work, comparing it to Jacquie's work and seeing just how contained his work is. I never realized before but his horses are very stylized, they have an interesting almost blockish shape to their bodies that runs from their rump to chest. It's weirdly fitting to his work though and the idea that his works are very human dominated. The horses in his paintings are often the wealthy man's horse, dressed up and polished to perfection for him. His horses heads also have that same stylized appearance that follows throughout his work, the head really reminds me of a arabs horse head, it's lean and slightly dips in from the nose to forehead. Much unlike heavier native breads of horses.
