Horses are a known enemy of artists
May 31, 2019 1:54 PM Subscribe
How To Draw A Horse [SLNYorker]
reminder that horse legs are analogous to human FINGERS ok bye
posted by poffin boffin at 2:06 PM on May 31, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 2:06 PM on May 31, 2019 [8 favorites]
WHAT!
This is so delightful and so sweet. Thank you for posting it!
posted by meemzi at 2:18 PM on May 31, 2019 [11 favorites]
This is so delightful and so sweet. Thank you for posting it!
posted by meemzi at 2:18 PM on May 31, 2019 [11 favorites]
A waitress asked me what I did
I told her I tried to make art
She asked me if I made any money
I said, No I have to teach to do that
She asked me what I taught and where
I told her, she told me, she liked art
But that she couldn't draw a straight line
I told her if she could reach for something and pick it up
she could draw a line that was straight enough
She said, she weren't interested in that kind of drawing but always liked horses.
I said "I did too"
But they're hard to draw, she said.
“Yes, that was very true”
Said she could do the body okay, but never get the head, tail, or legs
I told her she was drawing sausages, not horses
She said no, they were horses
posted by Thorzdad at 2:22 PM on May 31, 2019 [7 favorites]
I told her I tried to make art
She asked me if I made any money
I said, No I have to teach to do that
She asked me what I taught and where
I told her, she told me, she liked art
But that she couldn't draw a straight line
I told her if she could reach for something and pick it up
she could draw a line that was straight enough
She said, she weren't interested in that kind of drawing but always liked horses.
I said "I did too"
But they're hard to draw, she said.
“Yes, that was very true”
Said she could do the body okay, but never get the head, tail, or legs
I told her she was drawing sausages, not horses
She said no, they were horses
posted by Thorzdad at 2:22 PM on May 31, 2019 [7 favorites]
Okay apart from the first girlfriend thing that was DEEPLY in tune with my life experiences. Why does everyone want me to draw them a horse? Don't they understand that horses don't make SENSE? I'd like to see YOU draw a horse on command. Maybe I want to draw a bunny instead! Or literally anything else! It's not like drawing horses is a metaphor that can be easily mapped onto a lifetime of starting with talent and running into roadblocks of hard work every. single. time. or anything.
The new thing is my unofficial nibling being recently obsessed with the new My Little Pony show and subsequently "unicorns" (which means literally any variation of horse magical or mundane.) I have drawn unicorns with those magic markers that only show up on the special paper. I have drawn unicorns with pipe cleaners. I have drawn unicorns with fingerpaints. I have drawn unicorns with those giant triangular crayons. Am I getting any better at horses? Absolutely NOT. When will her obsession swing to something I can draw without sweating every time? Will the next fixation be on photorealistic representational city architecture just to make me break out into hives??
Poffin boffin is correct though - horse legs are actually individual fingers, and when you think of them like that they become marginally easier to draw. Only marginally. And the balance is that now you're thinking of horses as having giant finger legs.
posted by Mizu at 2:23 PM on May 31, 2019 [6 favorites]
The new thing is my unofficial nibling being recently obsessed with the new My Little Pony show and subsequently "unicorns" (which means literally any variation of horse magical or mundane.) I have drawn unicorns with those magic markers that only show up on the special paper. I have drawn unicorns with pipe cleaners. I have drawn unicorns with fingerpaints. I have drawn unicorns with those giant triangular crayons. Am I getting any better at horses? Absolutely NOT. When will her obsession swing to something I can draw without sweating every time? Will the next fixation be on photorealistic representational city architecture just to make me break out into hives??
Poffin boffin is correct though - horse legs are actually individual fingers, and when you think of them like that they become marginally easier to draw. Only marginally. And the balance is that now you're thinking of horses as having giant finger legs.
posted by Mizu at 2:23 PM on May 31, 2019 [6 favorites]
Metafilter: complicated butt
posted by schoolgirl report at 2:34 PM on May 31, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by schoolgirl report at 2:34 PM on May 31, 2019 [6 favorites]
I think this will help for all you budding artists. You're welcome. (source)
posted by jzb at 2:56 PM on May 31, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by jzb at 2:56 PM on May 31, 2019 [6 favorites]
Oddly, horses were the only thing I drew well as a kid.
posted by emjaybee at 3:01 PM on May 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by emjaybee at 3:01 PM on May 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
Horses are a known enemy of artists
And how.
posted by salt grass at 3:03 PM on May 31, 2019 [15 favorites]
And how.
posted by salt grass at 3:03 PM on May 31, 2019 [15 favorites]
horse legs are analogous to human FINGERS
I am not convinced by your horse drawing methodology. Is its head supposed to be a thumb?
posted by sfenders at 3:14 PM on May 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
I am not convinced by your horse drawing methodology. Is its head supposed to be a thumb?
posted by sfenders at 3:14 PM on May 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
Ha. I was a teenage girl who was super into art and horses, I drew so many horses, and I named every single one (found a massive folder of evidence at my parent's house recently). I have many weaknesses as an artist, I am very insecure about my skills, but by god I can draw a horse. I am probably better at horses than people.
Bikes, though. Yeesh.
posted by stillnocturnal at 3:17 PM on May 31, 2019 [10 favorites]
Bikes, though. Yeesh.
posted by stillnocturnal at 3:17 PM on May 31, 2019 [10 favorites]
I spent my years from 7 to 14-ish drawing horses constantly. From 14 to 18 I drew horses sporadically. It wasn't to impress anyone else. It was because I liked horses and wanted them in my life, and as a city kid opportunities to be around them were few.
I filled pads of paper with horses, every sheet, front and back. Standing horses, galloping horses, jumping horses. Big draft horses, lean running horses, bony old horses, unicorns, pegasuses. Standing or moving horses were easier to draw than lying-down horses, and side-on horses were easier than front-facing or three-quarters.
I looked at the muscles of real horses to get the lines right. I read those Marguerite Henry and Wesley Dennis books. I pored over a book called "The Horse in Art," I think, that had diagrams of anatomy and all the gaits and prints of all sorts of art. One day, someone-- a parent? A relative? put a big coffee-table-size book in my hands with glossy pages: a book of paintings by George Stubbs. Stubbs loved horses even more than I did. His finest was probably Whistlejacket, who lives in the National Gallery in London these days.
Today I was in a gallery looking at actual drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, who drew a lot of horses, but I don't think he loved them. His horses are beautiful, sculptural things with the anatomy done perfectly, every flexure of muscle and tendon and bone. But they are things, in the end. They have very little essential horseness about them. They pose solidly or fiercely, but they're not about to leap into motion, as you would swear the bronze Byzantine horses of St Mark's Cathedral in Venice could.
I'm a little rusty, but I can still draw you a pretty good horse.
posted by Pallas Athena at 3:41 PM on May 31, 2019 [23 favorites]
I filled pads of paper with horses, every sheet, front and back. Standing horses, galloping horses, jumping horses. Big draft horses, lean running horses, bony old horses, unicorns, pegasuses. Standing or moving horses were easier to draw than lying-down horses, and side-on horses were easier than front-facing or three-quarters.
I looked at the muscles of real horses to get the lines right. I read those Marguerite Henry and Wesley Dennis books. I pored over a book called "The Horse in Art," I think, that had diagrams of anatomy and all the gaits and prints of all sorts of art. One day, someone-- a parent? A relative? put a big coffee-table-size book in my hands with glossy pages: a book of paintings by George Stubbs. Stubbs loved horses even more than I did. His finest was probably Whistlejacket, who lives in the National Gallery in London these days.
Today I was in a gallery looking at actual drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, who drew a lot of horses, but I don't think he loved them. His horses are beautiful, sculptural things with the anatomy done perfectly, every flexure of muscle and tendon and bone. But they are things, in the end. They have very little essential horseness about them. They pose solidly or fiercely, but they're not about to leap into motion, as you would swear the bronze Byzantine horses of St Mark's Cathedral in Venice could.
I'm a little rusty, but I can still draw you a pretty good horse.
posted by Pallas Athena at 3:41 PM on May 31, 2019 [23 favorites]
I am not convinced by your horse drawing methodology. Is its head supposed to be a thumb?
U R thinking of turkeys.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:45 PM on May 31, 2019 [7 favorites]
U R thinking of turkeys.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:45 PM on May 31, 2019 [7 favorites]
There are a lot of things in life that I think would be utterly bizarre and alien to us if we weren't introduced to them at a very early age. Trees are one of those things, Just.... these big weird fractal things that suck carbon out of the air and turn it into something both rigid and flexible? And they spend most of their time either growing or shedding little solar collectors? Grows super slowly but is strong enough to pulverize rocks with its little woody tentacles?
Horses are also one of those things. A big muscular sausage that runs around on its short stubby legs and long, long toes? It only has one toe per leg, but that toe has a fuckoff huge toenail? Incredibly strong but also ridiculously fragile? It's perfectly shaped for a human to ride on its back? Oh, and it has a mohawk.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:26 PM on May 31, 2019 [19 favorites]
Horses are also one of those things. A big muscular sausage that runs around on its short stubby legs and long, long toes? It only has one toe per leg, but that toe has a fuckoff huge toenail? Incredibly strong but also ridiculously fragile? It's perfectly shaped for a human to ride on its back? Oh, and it has a mohawk.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:26 PM on May 31, 2019 [19 favorites]
Reader, I sniffed at the end. Such a sweet story. I hope she got her kiss. And the horse drawings seem to have come along.
posted by maxwelton at 5:37 PM on May 31, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by maxwelton at 5:37 PM on May 31, 2019 [2 favorites]
Poffin boffin no they're not. They have fused phalanges just above their hoof, the hoof itself is basically fingernail of digit three, but the whole leg is homologous to leg, not fingers. It's bat wings you're thinking of.
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 6:05 PM on May 31, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 6:05 PM on May 31, 2019 [3 favorites]
Well maybe analogous. Not homologous.
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 6:08 PM on May 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 6:08 PM on May 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
I think there's room for both of you to be right. What you might consider a horse's "knee" is analogous to the human wrist. The shoulder and humerus is more or less hidden inside the horse's body, so what you see when you look at a horse's front leg is about half "forearm" and half "hand/finger". Horses are still trotting around on their fingers and toes like a cross between a sausage and a ballerina and it is inarguably weird to think about.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:07 PM on May 31, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:07 PM on May 31, 2019 [8 favorites]
MetaFilter: inarguably weird to think about.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:18 PM on May 31, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:18 PM on May 31, 2019 [4 favorites]
HOERS
You've gotta be really specific when you tell a genie you want to become a centaur.
posted by Literaryhero at 7:52 PM on May 31, 2019 [9 favorites]
You've gotta be really specific when you tell a genie you want to become a centaur.
posted by Literaryhero at 7:52 PM on May 31, 2019 [9 favorites]
In grade school I could draw a nice horse's head (from looking at a "how to draw horses" book) you just make a funny trapezoid and fill it in. Getting the rest of the critter to look right is more complex, as described in the essay. I've spent some time with horses, and they are kinda funny looking.
posted by ovvl at 8:04 PM on May 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by ovvl at 8:04 PM on May 31, 2019 [1 favorite]
There is a nice Toby Morris cartoon on the horse thing, though it lacks the emotional punch and story of this one.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 8:19 PM on May 31, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 8:19 PM on May 31, 2019 [4 favorites]
Today I was in a gallery looking at actual drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, who drew a lot of horses, but I don't think he loved them. His horses are beautiful, sculptural things with the anatomy done perfectly, every flexure of muscle and tendon and bone. But they are things, in the end. They have very little essential horseness about them.
posted by flabdablet at 9:09 PM on May 31, 2019 [12 favorites]
“I’ve never seen that before,” said Miss Tick.- Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full Of Sky
Tiffany welcomed it as an old friend. The Chalk rose out of the plains quite suddenly on this side of the hills. There was a little valley cupped into the fall of the down, and there was a carving in the curve it made. Turf had been cut away in long flowing lines, so that the bare chalk made the shape of an animal.
“It’s the White Horse,” said Tiffany.
“Why do they call it that?” said Miss Tick.
Tiffany looked at her.
“Because the chalk is white?” she said, trying not to suggest that Miss Tick was being a bit dense.
“No, I meant why do they call it a horse? It doesn’t look like a horse. It’s just…flowing lines….”
…that look as if they’re moving, Tiffany thought.
It had been cut out of the turf way back in the old days, people said, by the folk who’d built the stone circles and buried their kin in big earth mounds. And they’d cut out the Horse at one end of this little green valley, ten times bigger than a real horse and, if you didn’t look at it with your mind right, the wrong shape, too. Yet they must have known horses, owned horses, seen them every day, and they weren’t stupid people just because they lived a long time ago.
Tiffany had once asked her father about the look of the Horse, when they’d come all the way over here for a sheep fair, and he told her what Granny Aching had told him when he was a little boy. He passed on what she said word for word, and Tiffany did the same now.
“’Taint what a horse looks like,” said Tiffany. “It’s what a horse be.”
posted by flabdablet at 9:09 PM on May 31, 2019 [12 favorites]
How To Draw A Horse: Game of Thrones Edition
posted by fairmettle at 9:29 PM on May 31, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by fairmettle at 9:29 PM on May 31, 2019 [5 favorites]
I wonder if Terry Pratchett was referencing the Uffington White Horse.
Also, if you draw a horse close up its eyes will always go wrong because horses and goats (but few other animals) have pupils that are shaped like capsules instead of spheres.
posted by mmoncur at 1:45 AM on June 1, 2019 [1 favorite]
Also, if you draw a horse close up its eyes will always go wrong because horses and goats (but few other animals) have pupils that are shaped like capsules instead of spheres.
posted by mmoncur at 1:45 AM on June 1, 2019 [1 favorite]
From the Author's Note at the end of A Hat Full Of Sky:
By an amazing coincidence, the Horse carved on the Chalk is remarkably similar to the Uffington White Horse, which in this world is carved on the downlands near the village of Uffington in southwest Oxfordshire. It’s 374 feet long, several thousand years old, and carved on the hill in such a way that you can only see all of it in one go from the air. This suggests that a) it was carved for the gods to see or b) flying was invented a lot earlier that we thought or c) people used to be much, much taller.posted by flabdablet at 2:22 AM on June 1, 2019 [3 favorites]
reminder that horse legs are analogous to human FINGERS
Oh great, because I can totally draw hands, obvs.
posted by Segundus at 4:08 AM on June 1, 2019 [12 favorites]
Oh great, because I can totally draw hands, obvs.
posted by Segundus at 4:08 AM on June 1, 2019 [12 favorites]
horses and goats (but few other animals) have pupils that are shaped like capsules instead of spheres.
Cuttlefish have w-shaped pupils. (Possibly so as to be convenient for ASCII artists. Life finds a way.)
posted by XMLicious at 4:49 AM on June 1, 2019 [3 favorites]
HOERSdear poffin boffin:
what the illegitimate fuck did i just look at with my own three eyes
posted by XtinaS at 6:30 AM on June 1, 2019 [7 favorites]
I've always found interesting that while the physical appearance of horses has been accurately represented since the prehistoric times, it was only in 1878, thanks to Eadweard Muybridge, that people figured out the actual posture of the galloping horse, which had always been shown as a "flying gallop" (forelegs extended forward, hind legs extended backward, all legs off the ground) with more or less "grounded" variations (forelegs extended with hind legs anchored to the ground). The 645 BCE Assyrian lion-hunting scene in the British Museum shows both, for instance. For a full discussion of the history of the flying gallop in Western and Eastern art, see Jaffe, I. B., & Colombardo, G. (1983). The Flying Gallop: East and West. The Art Bulletin, 65(2), 183.
posted by elgilito at 8:45 AM on June 1, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by elgilito at 8:45 AM on June 1, 2019 [4 favorites]
True. But in the spirit of Uffington and Pratchett, the flying gallop is what a gallop feels like.
posted by Pallas Athena at 10:54 AM on June 1, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Pallas Athena at 10:54 AM on June 1, 2019 [1 favorite]
Inspired by this thread, I paused on my bicycle ride today to say hello to a horse that was right at the fence at the side of the road. It's been so long since I've done anything involving horses that I've completely forgotten how to communicate with them, so I just literally said "hello, horsey" in my best "I mean you no harm, dangerous-looking animal" voice. The horse replied by shaking its head and flicking its ears at me in a friendly sort of way, and then I continued on my way. This could also work as a metaphor for my love life.
posted by sfenders at 10:54 AM on June 1, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by sfenders at 10:54 AM on June 1, 2019 [3 favorites]
True. But in the spirit of Uffington and Pratchett, the flying gallop is what a gallop feels like.
It has certainly been assessed this way. The "flying" horses painted 8000 years ago by pastoralists in the Ennedi Highlands in Chad have been called an "aestheticized display of high-speed movement". Likewise, in defense of Géricault's Epsom painting, sculptor Auguste Rodin said in an interview circa 1910:
And that is what is wrong with certain modern painters who, in order to represent galloping horses, reproduce phases furnished by instantaneous photography. They criticize Gericault because in his Races at Epsom which is in the Louvre he has painted horses that are galloping ventre a terre... I think Géricault was right... his horses seem to run... The pose is true when the parts are considered to be observed sequentially, and it is the truth only that matters to us, since that is what we see and what strikes us.
posted by elgilito at 12:28 PM on June 1, 2019 [1 favorite]
It has certainly been assessed this way. The "flying" horses painted 8000 years ago by pastoralists in the Ennedi Highlands in Chad have been called an "aestheticized display of high-speed movement". Likewise, in defense of Géricault's Epsom painting, sculptor Auguste Rodin said in an interview circa 1910:
And that is what is wrong with certain modern painters who, in order to represent galloping horses, reproduce phases furnished by instantaneous photography. They criticize Gericault because in his Races at Epsom which is in the Louvre he has painted horses that are galloping ventre a terre... I think Géricault was right... his horses seem to run... The pose is true when the parts are considered to be observed sequentially, and it is the truth only that matters to us, since that is what we see and what strikes us.
posted by elgilito at 12:28 PM on June 1, 2019 [1 favorite]
Tell me about it. Here's a painting I've been working on (just learning!), and it seems like an anatomy lesson might help.
posted by klausman at 2:09 PM on June 1, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by klausman at 2:09 PM on June 1, 2019 [2 favorites]
One of my ancestors is the cook. But apparently some folks could draw horsies.
posted by sammyo at 2:10 PM on June 1, 2019
posted by sammyo at 2:10 PM on June 1, 2019
Another horse cartoon from the New Yorker
posted by JohnFromGR at 2:22 PM on June 1, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by JohnFromGR at 2:22 PM on June 1, 2019 [7 favorites]
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