A Horse Frightened by a Lion

This piece of art was done by George Stubbs who was best known for animal paintings (horses) back in the year 1770. It was painted during the romanticism period and is a symbol of purity and grace.

George painted the art on a landscape piece of canvas of dimensions 1.02 m for the width and 1.28 m for the length. He used oil and light paints to design art. This animal portrait was credited by British art and Paul Mellon collection and then funded in 1994. On this piece of art, George Stubbs painted a white frightened horse in a dark forest that seems so scary and strange. The horse looks strong though very terrified which makes its eyes and mouth very wide open, his fine neck hair blown by the wind and a presentation of a lion that is very swift and slow emerging from the dark forest on the background.

It also contains rocks that bring out the land forms view of the art. This portrait brings out a frightening feeling even to the viewers. George could first lay the feature of an animal in his painting then finalized with the background of the image when painting the art. George Stubbs was an academic painter for a while and in 1763, he had done a piece of animal art that was almost similar to this one that was titled as 'horse frightened by a lion.'

This piece was done after Stubbs had seen a lion attacking a horse in Morocco. The difference between the two arts is that on the 'horse frightened by a lion' George Stubbs had used a brownish horse and brighter colors for the landscape. Later, he also painted another piece of art of the lion attacking the horse. Stubbs did a series of horse painting that made him make a collection of art which he named as 'Anatomy of the Horse.' The artist was inspired by his friend Osias Humphreys who encouraged him on his artwork and even published a manuscript of his artwork and history.