Depicting horses with an animated, illustrative flair, Carle Vernet was a horse lover from a young age. His intimate experience with the animal is evident in his work, as is his passion for the subject.

Surviving The Trauma

Carl lived and worked during the French Revolution, and was personally touched when his sister saw the guillotine. After this tragedy his style changed dramatically and he created the drawings below.

These drawings of Napoleon’s Grand Armee uniforms won Carle a great deal of acclaim. His attention to detail is magnificent and each portrait is infused with the personality of its subjects.

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Asmus Jacob Carstens seems to be a bit of a mystery (online anyway) I had trouble finding any information about the artist himself. (& I’m not entirely sure this is the artists name – thanks to a commenter for providing a bit of info about him).

Uniform Art

Although he isn’t well documented in English online, his art is worth a look. He was a Danish portrait artist in Germany who clearly had a thing for men in uniform.

The images below come from the Gmundener Prachtwerk published in 1761 which is a collection of historical uniforms of the Hanover army during the Seven Years War.

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Otto Eerelman was a painter, lithographer & engraver who was probably best known for his paintings of horses and dogs.

The Art of Horse Breeds

The images below come from an album of art entitled Horse Breeds which was published in 1898, (there were 40 in total).

Otto possessed a detailed knowledge of horseflesh and the ability to transfer that to canvas.

This paired with the author’s knowledge on the subject made this one of the leading horse books of its day. It became quite valuable and highly sought after.
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Born in Munich, Franz Marc went on to be known as one of the principal artists of the German Expressionist movement. He studied in Munich and in Paris where he discovered the work of Vincent van Gogh.

Much of Marc’s work was done in woodcut and lithography and he was fond of using vibrant color to portray his animals while placing them in more muted natural settings.

Color had a great deal of meaning to Franz, so each color he used was infused with emotion and meaning. Blue for masculinity & spirituality, yellow for femininity & joy and red for the sound of violence.

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Anton was a Dutch realist painter who was perhaps best known for being an influence on the early work of Vincent van Gogh (his wife’s cousin). This is an artist who didn’t carry the support of his family into his artistic endeavors, which seemed to drive his work.

Rural Life

The majority of his pieces were painted to depict life in the countryside of Holland, he loved the landscape and delighted in capturing the soft colors he found there.

The pieces below have horses in them by default, animals that drove and carried the daily life in the country. However his soft brush strokes and loving vision bring the subjects of his art to life in a rather magical way.

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Willy Bosschem is a Belgian artist who has dabbled in a variety of mediums from etching and illustration to graphic design and painting. His portfolio includes a number of sets for theater & tv as well as stamps for Belgium, Rwanda & Senegal.

Willy is clearly a lover of the human form, but his love of animal shapes also comes through in his work. In fact, his love of shape led him to become quite creative in his methodology and medium choices.

His work is full of curves & color and carries overtly sexy themes, deftly displayed with movement and vibrance.

Willy was a big cat lover and some of his most beautiful paintings (in my opinion) are birds, but he clearly appreciated the equine form as well.
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Although he was born in France, Henry Farny immigrated to North America early in life and settled in Cincinnati, Ohio where he spent most of his life.

Learning the Arts

His education took him back to Europe & he studied in Dusseldorf and Munich learning some of the most sophisticated artistic techniques available during that time. Interestingly enough it was his artistic influences in Europe that convinced Farny to visit the American West.

After he returned from studying abroad Henry spent quite a bit of time in the west gaining inspiration for his art. Later, back in his Cincinnati studio he applied this inspiration and created his prolific paintings of the Native people of the American West.

If you haven’t seen it already, be sure to check out Part 1.
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Perhaps one of my favorite artists so far, Henry F. Farny’s images provide an in-depth look into how he viewed the wild west. An import in the Americas, Henry was born in France and immigrated to Pennsylvania with his family at a very young age.

An Indirect Subject

As with most of the artists I’ve shown, horses find themselves an indirect subject within his art. However that doesn’t make them any less important in the final product, Mr. Farny’s work shows us how important the equine animal became to the native people of North America.

Here is Henry’s version of the wild west, not always telling a happy story, but providing a glimpse into his vision of life during that time. His work is incredibly prolific, in fact there is so much of it I had to split his post into two parts.

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Valentin Serov was a Russian painter and one of the premier portrait artists of his era. His favorite models were actors, artists & writers, however he managed to throw a horse or two in there for the equine lovers.

A Variety of Styles

Although he stuck mainly to portraiture, his style encompassed many different phases and each piece reflected the subject on a number of levels. He was as fond of soft, intimate portraits of women and children as he was of bolder, more intense portraits of military men.

His work evokes feelings of spontaneity and movement and it is clear that he appreciated the lovely lines & whimsical nature of the equine animal.

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