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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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George Stubbs
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(1724–1806)
Britain's outstanding painter of animals, particularly the horse. Born in Liverpool, he moved to London in 1758 and began painting group portraits in which horses and carriages figure prominently. His deep knowledge of his equine subject matter was demonstrated with the publication in 1766 of The Anatomy of the Horse, a series of etched plates based on many months of painstaking dissection in a Lincolnshire farmhouse. He had by this time established a thriving career depicting his patrons' favourite horses, often with their grooms and carriages, in compositions which have a classical calm. The same mood pervades his scenes of country life, such as Haymakers and Reapers in the Tate Gallery.
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But his favourite single subject, painted many times, inclines more to the developing mood of romanticism; it is a horse attacked or frightened by a lion, inspired by a Roman marble sculpture of such an incident. From 1769 he experimented with painting in enamel on ceramic panels provided by *Wedgwood, and achieved a high degree of finish. Largely forgotten in the 19C (his style could not be more at odds with that of the other great British animal painter, *Landseer), his reputation has soared in recent decades.
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