Tadeusz Ajdukiewicz - a horse painter

 Salvete Omnes,

 

Oriental market scene with horses

there have been Ajdukiewicz painters in Polish art history - Tadeusz & Zygmunt. 

Tadeusz(1851 - january 1916) studied at the Krakow Academy, in Vienna's Academy and at Munich's one, also with Jozef Brandt in his Munich atelier, and also in Paris. Eventually he became a painter for the Imperial Hapsburg court and thus saved from the pecuniary problems continued his painting career. He did travel the the Middle East and the Balkans, and the Caucasus, getting first hand view and experience for his Oriental-theme paintings.
Motivated by the war fervor elderly Tadeusz (he was more than 60 years old) joined the Polish Austrian Legions, but being a grunt did not work out for him well, for due to poor food, exertion  and cold conditions during the fall campaign he got mortally sick and died in Krakow in January 1916.

Here we will show some Tadeusz' canvasses - from the National Museum at Warsaw, and some other collections or paintings corralled on the web. Oriental topics, horses and genre paintings mostly here

Oriental hunting scene

Oriental horseman

Market in Dobruja

This print is from the National Museum in Krakow - shows Ottoman soldier and a merchant looking at the horse before the battle at Vienna 1683?

Harvest parade & festival  in Krakow, 1880

and a beautiful portrait of a beautiful woman - (nota bene glorious painting of beautiful Modrzejewska  here)

Valete

A. Sidney Galtrey - Horses et Mules at War

Salve,
Internet library Archive is as great as usual, and new and fascinating books can be found there.
One of such 'discoveries' , for me at least, is the following little volume titled: 'The Horse and the War ' (mules included - :) ) by a British Army officer and journalist Captain A. Sidney Galtrey and  illustrated from drawings by another soldier, Captain Lionel Edwards, with original photos. It was written in the autumn of 1918.
It tells the story of the light draft horse and mule and their participation on the side of the British military in the western European part of War World I. Also about how these hard working horses and mules were often saved by the veterinary service of the British Army... good short article here.
                                                            ***
Remounts

Transport across the sea

War conditions

Post-war

horse de la Perche

Enjoy
ps
all images are from the book

Jacques Laurent Agasse - horse painter from Swiss Alps

Salve,
from time to time I 'rediscover' some works of an artists that long time ago I saw at some museum or gallery exhibit.

Today, I bring you Jacques Laurent Agasse (1767-1849), a prodigal painter of horses and animals in general. I was going though Tate Gallery website and a well and long known to me  image of a groom leading a chestnut horse popped out - and quickly I went on a hunt via Wiki Commons to find more scans of this painter's work. And by Jove, there are quite a few :)
There is a web page devoted to Mr Agasse's art and a catalog or two of his works.
 Monsieur Agasse was from Geneva in Swiss Confederacy, studied art in France before the French Revolution, and he came to England under the patronage of Lord Rivers, and in Britain he established himself as a horse painter, especially a painter of the English Thoroughbred as it appeared in the first hald of the XIX century.  Through  his paintings we can easily see that he was a great anatomist, with superb knowledge of horse anatomy. Apparently he made great use of the live studies and anatomical studies, most likely  by perusing the great atlas of equine anatomy by the great George Stubbs, and yet he had started his equine studies in Paris at the veterianry school and most likely the slaughterhouses. It is easy to see that messer Agasse was skilled in painting all sorts of horses, from the English Blood horse, Arabians, big agricultural 'workbeasts,' to nags and finally whole studs, with foals and broodmares. Apart from aesthetic values, in these painting there is plenty of information about horse conformation, riding practices, horse tack, riding attire, stables and coaches, even budding Orientalism - a wealth of information for any a student of the period horse history and genre painting.
Maestro Agasse continued painting horses and other animals for more than 4 decades in the ever so imperial and global England, however it appears that he did not end his career prosperous and was soon forgotten, but some of his creations - sic tranist gloria mundi...
The self-portrait above perhaps evokes the famous work by van Dyck of Charles I, unlucky king of England, Wales and Scotland.

It would be very interesting to see his pencil and charcoal sketches and drawings, I ordered a book from Amazon, so far the best place to buy second-hand albums and artbooks on the web, and perhaps I will learn some more about Jacques-Laurent's art and man himself

Nota bene when you read the description on the Tate's page you may be immediately struck by the pronouncement about  George Stubbs, who allegedly influenced Agasse, as the greatest of horse-painters.  Geroge Stubbs was great but to call him the greatest of horse-painters is but the English national pride and patriotic zeal and not a statement of fact, I dare say. After all all these adverbs and lists proclaiming grandeur and leading role of this or that artist are subject to a Roman saying - de gustibus et coloribus non disputandum est. Ergo, we can agree, that the XVIII century produced some extraordinary horse painters in Europe, and that they influenced the equine art in the centuries to come, even today when the digital photo cameras can produce the most outstanding and precise images..

Enjoy