John A. Harrington Bird - Arabians & illustrations

 Salvete Omnes,

so the fever of our US elections (Nov 5.) slowly has bee going down. 
Now we would like to see the peace process in Europe and Middle East to start at full gallop, wouldn't we? . 

And this afternoon let me share this little corralled gallery of works by John Alexander Harrington Bird (1846-1935/6).

Harrington Bird was a British painter and illustrator, also known for this depictions of Orientalist-in-style Arabian horse scenes.
Harrington Bird studied at the Royal Academy in London, went to Montreal, British Canada, and worked  and exhibited  there until returning to London in 1885. He exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists on Suffolk Street in London.  
His work was popularized through many prints published after his paintings. 

Arab stallion and mare - from Christies.

He painted the famous Skowronek, Polish Arabian stallion that was not a racehorse but a sire, - here the image of this painting from Invaluable auction site .

From Christies - Grey and bay Arabians with a groom - 

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some of his illustrations from Archive world library collections.

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Enjoy

Valete

Zbig Kotowski amazing horses

Salvete Omnes,

from time to time I ask working artists for permission to put some of their art on my blog - I tend to favor creators who work in equestrian-related theme as their art and better yet  the main object of their creativity.

The artist of today's post has been captivating , via his brushes and pastels etc, the very amazing beauty and majesty of the domestic horse, especially the beauty of the most noble of the equine breeds ever created by the humans: the purebred Arabian horse.

So here comes the art of a Polish master painter Zbigniew Kotowski - his Arabians, historic one that he has recreated from some ancient black and white photos and prints, or modern and contemporary dames and stallions seen in real life or via the art of photography.
The images created by Zbig Kotowski are some of the most beautiful horse painting I have seen in a long time. Not to mention the mastery of the difficult medium of pastel painting or the mastery of the horse anatomy and conformation.
So recently I have obtained a special permission from maestro Zbigniew 'Zbig' Kotowski to show some of his fabulous pastels here, on my blog.
Obviously, you can or you must view more images and even get in touch with the maestro himself via Zbig's Facebook page or maestro's own webpage.

So here they go, the glory of our Polish Arabian Horse - 

Skowronek

Ofir

Witez

Witraz

Bandos

and my favorite mare of the the 20th century - the famous dame Bandola

Valete

John Frederick Herring sr - his horse heads

Salvete Omnes,
just signaling John Frederick Herring sr. who was a fine painter of horses of the Victorian England.
I enjoy his brushwork and decided to just share with you some of the horse heads from his paintings available on Wikimedia Commons:

Valete!

ps
I am looking forward to a new book from Harry Sidebottom, to be published next year or so, it will be with Balista riding again..

Antoine-Louis Barye

Salvete omnes,

back to some fabulous sculpture works and other treasures of the 'decadent' XIx century academic art (just joking).

 Antoine-Louis Barye (archive.org books), student of nature, painter and  animalier, was privileged to live during the times when France was the cultural epicenter of the Western world. He studied the ancient sculpture in the French collections (some taken from other countries by Napoleon ), then the real-life human and animal form until he was able to achieve  skill level and ability to portray humans and animals on the level unseen since the Antiquity.

This was also the time of great upheavals, and solidifying of the  rule of the middle class, thus he was able to create sumptuous art for various clients, be it the middle class or nobility and soon governments.  He worked in clay,  stone, in wax and had  his sculptures cast at a foundry run by the Honore Gonon family :

So although there are plenty of pages devoted to his art and there is a Wiki entry about his art and he, I would like to add a blog entry to monsieur Barye.

MET has a page containing his work in their collection, large files worth studying.

enjoy