WEEKLY Dose of Art

No animal has shown up in art more than the horse.

Over a third of all artwork found inside prehistoric caves features horses. 

That's 40,000 years of humans being absolutely obsessed with painting, sculpting, and drawing one animal.

That obsession never stopped.

Which brings us to this cool exhibition happening right now

A small gallery in Ridgeway, Canada, Rookleys Canadian Art, just opened an exhibition called "Horse Power." It brings together more than 80 works from the gallery's collection, both historical and contemporary, and runs through July 31, 2026.

It's presented in collaboration with the Fort Erie Race Track, which is just over seven miles from the gallery.

So on one side of town, live horses are racing. On the other hand, 80 paintings of horses are hanging on the walls.

That's a pretty perfect combo.

But to really get why this exhibition hits different, you need to understand the insane history of horses in art.

Artist Spotlight of the Week

But why have artists always loved painting horses?

Horses are really, really hard to paint.

They're all muscle and movement. Their legs are weird. Their proportions are tricky. If you get it even slightly wrong, everyone notices immediately.

So for centuries, painting a horse well was the ultimate way to show off your skills.

The vast clay model was destroyed by French archers in 1499 before casting could begin. What survived are just the drawings.

George Stubbs took it even further. 

He became famous for painting horses and was known as "the horse painter."

He spent 18 months alone on a farm dissecting dead horses just to better understand their anatomy. Weird? Yes. But, worth it.

Horses meant power

Royal families commissioned artists to paint portraits of themselves riding on horseback. It was propaganda. 

A ruler on a horse symbolized power, control, and authority. If you could command such a strong animal, it suggested you could command people, too. 

By the mid-18th century, the rise of Romanticism changed how horses were portrayed. Artists like Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix filled their works with wild, restless horses.

They showed horses rearing, charging, and straining with energy - capturing power, chaos, and beauty all at once.

Back to the Canadian show

The exhibition has a really nice mix of artists and styles. 

Here are some highlights:

Maud Lewis is a Canadian folk art legend. She had severe arthritis her whole life, her hands were permanently curled, and her chin fused to her chest. She painted small, colorful, joyful little scenes. Her horse painting is soft and gentle - horses pulling a sleigh through snow.

A mother horse and her baby by a calm lake. Golden autumn trees behind them. The brushwork is loose and warm, giving the scene a gentle, almost nostalgic feeling.

A young horse stands inside a stable with its head lowered toward hay or feed. Sunlight enters from the side, illuminating parts of the horse and the wooden interior.

Chinese Canadian artist Peter Cheung painted horses at the Fort Erie Race Track, racing at full speed, with jockeys leaning forward and dirt flying from the track. The horses blur together in the rush of the race. Other paintings show the same horses standing quietly in their stalls, being groomed, or resting before an event. He painted both the excitement of race day and the calm moments behind the scenes..

The racing connection makes it more fun

The Fort Erie Race Track opens the day after the exhibition, welcoming its 129th season of live thoroughbred horse racing. Both events include free admission and free parking.

So you can literally see 80 paintings of horses one day, then watch actual horses race the next.

It's this perfect loop, horse-inspired art for 40,000 years, and here they both are, side by side, in a small town in Canada.

The big picture

New art trends every season. 

We don't use horses the same way anymore. But we never stopped painting them.

Cave painters in France. 

Renaissance masters in Italy. 

Folk artists in Nova Scotia. 

Contemporary Canadian painters today.

All of them kept coming back to the same animal.

Perhaps horses remind us of a simpler connection to nature, before engines and technology took over much of daily life.

This Week in Art