Chapter 2 | HORSE IN GALLOP

Drawing a horse at a gallop is virtually impossible because it goes way too fast. When photography did not yet exist, painters had to come up with the correct posture themselves and they were often mistaken. The British photographer Muybridge succeeded in 1878 with twelve, at that time fast cameras, to capture the movement of a horse at a gallop and trot in photographs. It turned out that horses have a moment of suspension when all four legs come off the ground. By the way, the horse in the pictures was a mare called Sallie Gardner. At the time of the photo’s she was running 36 mph!

EXTRA: Choose a frame/position you like and place a cut-up copy of your horse in that position. Outline carefully and you have really realistically drawn a horse at a gallop or trot. Of course you can also try to copy it without the use of loose pieces.

Horse in gallop, E. Muybridge

By showing the photos in rapid succession, Muybridge also turned them into an animation. For this he used a special device, the zoopraxiscope. You can find this device and the video on the internet.

Last but not least, there is a mythical beast that is half horse, half human: the Centaur. In 2019, a student drew a prancing centaur on the shore of a lake with mountains in the background. The centaur is very brave but he is also still tied up. If you  want to learn more about mythical creatures, feel free to check out the lesson Animals, chapter 1.