2014 is the Year of the Horse. In Chinese culture, dragons are emblematic of wealth, honor and divinity. But dragons are creatures of legend. To our ancestors, the swift and proud horse embodied the spirit of the dragon in the real world.
Long beloved by artists, the horse has been a frequent subject of their work. The renowned Qing-Dynasty court painter Giuseppe Castiglione and the early Republican-era painter Xu Beihong both painted works entitled “Eight Horses” that realistically depicted the animal’s grace, power, and beauty.
This print of “Eight Horses” from a private collection captures horses in all their guises: galloping, leaping, neighing and whickering. We reprint it here to wish you a wonderful new year imbued with the spirit of horse and dragon!
