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From: art reviews
Category: Art
Date: 24 August 2005
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/stubbs/default.htm
Outside in the sunshine broken men look for the ends of smoked cigarettes to nicotine comfort themselves or perhaps the hunt occupies the days of long time they have on their grubby fingernailed hands. Inside Stubbs!
Not a big crowd in for the horse man. These days we can't fit thoroughbreds in our apartments, so the market is a little restricted. The paintings and drawings on show are nicely painted pictures of people horses and some lions. Somehow tragic that when old Stubbs gets emotional he has only the horse to express himself with, his superego personified by a lion attacks his burden, the horse. And here the horse becomes less naturalistic, and gain a cartoonish energy, Stubbs not liberated but at least extended.
Otherwise, Horsey folk may enjoy the sleek muscles and liveliness of the animals, painters may admire his virtuosity, and everyone else must stifle a yawn and look for the exit back into the mundane glorious world.
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