Group of Six Horses

This work is one of three related woodcuts by Baldung featuring wild horses. The depictions certainly uphold Baldung’s reputation as the German Renaissance’s least guarded and most unconventional artist. In early modern art, the horse provided the subject par excellence of live animal studies, and was routinely featured in artworks associated with high social prestige, most typically in portrait statues. However, Baldung here re-situates the animal in its untamed – ‘uncivilized’, we might say – natural state. He observes the animal urinating, while in other woodcuts, horses are shown fighting or in a state of sexual arousal. Portrayed in precise profile at the front of the picture, we see a stallion standing in front of a dense cluster of other horses. Each of these is shown in state of heightened agitation and restlessness, with the effect that the composition (emphasized by the horses’ wild-eyed expressions) serves first and foremost as an expression of the animals’ unbridled physical energy.