Born in Liverpool, Stubbs was predominantly a self taught artist who worked in the leather industry with his father. During the1740s he worked as a portrait painter in the North of England and studied human anatomy at York County Hospital a few years later. As a child he had always been interested in anatomy and in 1756 he rented a farmhouse in Horkstow, Lincolnshire, where he would dissect horses, hanging them from the rafters to study their anatomy layer by layer, skin, muscle to bone. In 1766 he published The anatomy of the Horse. It was this profound knowledge of horse anatomy that allowed him to produce some the most detailed horse paintings in history.
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| Image 1 |
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| Image 2 |
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| Image 3 |
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| It is almost visible to see the skeletal structure of the horse given that the skin is so thin, Stubbs was able to add this level of detail to his finished pieces, such as the muscle structure from the first image, the veins and ribcage from images 2 and 3 and the cartilage in the legs, giving a truly accurate depiction of a horse |
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/ra-magazine/winter2006/preview/horse-play,42,RAMA.html
http://www.albion-prints.com/george-stubbs-anatomy-of-the-horse-1766-lg-folio-etching-1st-edition-4-19243-p.asp
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/avQmZqQyYvZ4A4GhIuTzHg
Amazingly detailed, beautiful paintings. Contrasted with others which were being produced during that era, truly enlightened.
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