VMFA The French Horse

On Saturday, October 8th, I visited the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to see the exhibition of The French Horse from Géricault to Picasso. The emblem of the horse is a very important aspect of French history, particularly in the 19th century period. In this exhibit the motif of the french horse is shown in a huge variety of media, style, and context. Some artists include Pablo Picasso, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Antoine-Louis Barye, Edgar Degas, and Théodore Géricault. One of the most notable was Pablo Picasso’s piece depicting the basic image of a horse, highly abstracted into basic form, consisting mostly of line quality and implied motion. While I appreciate the this work on an artistic level, it is easier for me to appreciate the hyper realistic paintings (often oil) showing horses looking completely real. The level of skill and talent this must take absolutely blows my mind.