Cheval gris

Gericault was 21 in 1812, the year he first showed at the Paris Salon with a cavalry officer charging on horseback. Horses were everywhere in his world, since this was Napoleon's Europe, moving on cavalry, but Gericault wanted the real animal, not the elegant show-horse other painters flattered. He went to the stall and studied one there. Here a grey Arabian stands in profile, its head turned, painted in full light against a dark brown wall that dissolves into shadow on the right. The head is worked almost like an anatomy study. Underneath the surface are pentimenti, places where he shifted the outline as he looked, which is one reason this canvas is taken as the original among several versions.