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

Shota Rustavelli - Knight in Panther's Skin in Georgian XVIIc miniatures

 Salvete Omnes,
it has been some time since  I read Shota Rustavelli's Vephkhistqaosani (English- The Knight in the Panther's Skin; in Polish the title is translated beautifully as 'Witeź w tygrysiej skórze' ) and looking at the Wiki Commons I find a nice gallery of different illustrations to the Georgian XII century epic.
Below poet Shota Rustavelli as imagined by the artist 
-
I have never been to Georgia in the Caucasus, perhaps one day, but I like their national epic, and the music of various Georgian Karvelian ethnic groups (nota bene there is the Kartvelian Laz - albeit Muslim - population in Turkey, but they mostly lost their language and culture during the last century).
The epic is still important for the Georgians, as some of the articles on academia seem to suggest and underline. 

 The XVII century artist Mamuka Tavaqarashvili painted illustrations for a copy of manuscript in AD 1646, when he was at the court of mtavri  Levan II Dadiani, ruler of Mingrelia ( Christian Georgian principality).
the illuminations show accurate weaponry, armor, and horse tack and many other aspects of the Georgian life during the XVII century.
You can read the epic work directly from the net - eg  here.
 
This 1912 translation was done by Marjory Scott Wardrop.
some of the plates showing horses and warriors


 

 
 

 

 

Valete,

ps
There is a very important academic researcher from the present Georgia Mamuka Tsutsurmia, whose research  on the Medieval warfare in context of Georgia etc can be read on academia. eg the articles on the so called Krakow Wawel Castle helmet (first & second).