Course de chevaux libres

In February 1817 Gericault was in Rome, and the carnival there still ended the way it had for centuries: with a race of riderless horses let loose down the Via del Corso. Fifteen to twenty animals, bred from North African stock, ran the length of that long straight street in about two and a half minutes, with grooms fighting to hold them at the start. This is that instant before release. Gericault meant it as a study for an enormous canvas, more than 30 feet wide, and made around 20 of these small oil sketches before giving the project up. Even here he has pulled the modern street toward antiquity. The straining nude at the centre stands like a Greek athlete, and the massed horses echo the riders carved on the Parthenon.