Horses in Russian graphic art

The book shows graphic images of horses in Russian art from XII to XX centuries. Horses serving the military, hunters, peasants, riders and cabmen, fairy -tale heroic horses - all the variety of these animals is represented here.
The album introduces the reader to the history of the emergence and development of the image of a horse in Russian graphic art. Bogatyr horses, elegant purges, rapid triples and victorious tachanes, captured by masters of Russian graphics, created a special hippic genre (from Greek Hippo - a horse), capturing the pages of military valor and the history of domestic horse breeding, racing and equestrian sports. For each era, the image of the horse had its own unique meaning. The miniatures of Russian chronicles show the involvement of horses to the feat of the forces of good and light. In the ceremonial portraits of Russian classicism, the horse acts as an allegory of sovereign power, the victorious act of the empire. Romantics saw a part of free nature in a horse, not spoiled by civilization. For the realism of the XIX century, interest in the behavior of a horse in the scenes of a peaceful and military life is inherent. The new stage in the history of Hippology has come at the turn of the 19th-XX centuries, when the artist’s need to empathize, express his attitude towards animals and convey their individual characters in the image of the horse. In the schedule of the twentieth century, horses become full participants in urban and rural scenes. Putting the images of horses to the fore, artists gradually refuse to heroize them and increasingly see the objects of human care in animals. By the middle of the twentieth century, images of horses are filled with metaphorical meaning, become expressors of artists" thoughts about life, fate, man.
The book presents works performed in various graphic techniques: drawings with watercolors, gouache, pastel, pencils, printed engravings and lithography. The album will be interesting to a wide range of readers, horses lovers, people interested in Russian art and, in particular graphics