 Hello, I'm Martin Possel. Welcome to this third talk in the public lecture series for summer 2020, all done from nature. Whistlejacket by George Stubbs. Whistlejacket defies categorisation. Visually, it's quite unlike any of the other iconic works of the British school. Stubbs depicts a larger-than-life stallion rearing upon its hind legs upon a blank canvas, with no external reference points to locate it in time or place. The composition has been described by one Stubbs scholar as an equine nude. At first, this seems a curious expression since how can a horse, who does not wear clothing, be described as nude? However, it's worth staying with this point for a moment. As with the term nude used in reference to the human form, the context is artistic. The nude used as a noun is a model, an object of study, sometimes an embodiment of an ideal, a figure in its natural state. Here, in Stubbs's painting, the horse is presented as nature intended, devoid of a narrative setting, unencumbered by rider, reins or saddle, powerful, muscular, alert, even combative, broken for riding, yet still wild at heart. There's a story told by Stubbs's close friend, the artist Azize Humphrey, that when Whistlejacket saw his life-sized portrait, he began to stare and look wildly at the picture, endeavouring to get at it, to fight it, to kick it. Whether that is true, we'll never know, but I'd like to believe it. Viewed in its entirety, or close-up in detail, Whistlejacket provides the viewer with a sense of freedom. Here, we are confronted by the horse's wild eye and pricked up ears. Here, we scrutinise its hooves, shod with iron horseshoes, powerful legs, their contours and bone structure. Whistlejacket today belongs to the National Gallery, and therefore also to the nation. It's usually displayed in the gallery devoted to paintings from the British school, alongside works by Hogarth, Gainsborough, Constable Turner. Here, you can sense the painting's tremendous physical presence, the animal standing out from the blank canvas upon which it is depicted, and from the works of art at the either side, two landscapes by Gainsborough, masterpieces in their own right, yet still somehow in the shadow of their equine neighbour. I was recently watching a video of a public lecture on the National Gallery's website on the painting. I was struck by the lecturers' opening comment. He said, it's not just any horse, he's a real horse. Well, we can interpret this in several ways. First, Whistlejacket is real, in that you can almost sense his three living three-dimensional presence, even though he exists in the painting in two dimensions. Whistlejacket's also real in the sense that he's an individual horse, with a name, a character, and a personal history, rather than a generic representation of a species, or even, so to speak, an equine nude. Whistlejacket was born in 1749 at a stud farm in Bellsey, Northumberland. He was raised unsuccessfully for two years, from 1753 to 1755 by his owner, Sir William Middleton. Middleton then sold him on to Lord Rockingham, and he won his last race in 1759, gaining for his new owner prize money of 2,000 guineas. That's a lot of money, at which point he was retired to Lord Rockingham's stud. Whistlejacket apparently had a fiery temperament. His slightly unusual name was taken from a cocktail mixture of treacle and brandy, which apparently resembled the colour of his coat. What of the artist? George Stubbs was born in 1724 in Liverpool, the son of a courier, who was employed in making animal hides for the manufacture of leather goods. Following a brief apprenticeship as a painter, Stubbs studied anatomy, performing dissections on human corpses for the medical profession, a practice then regarded with deep suspicion in polite society. In 1754, before he'd even set foot in London, Stubbs travelled to Italy, where he spent one year. On his return, aside from making the occasional portrait, he focused his energies on the study of equine anatomy, spending 18 months in a barn in remote Lincolnshire, dissecting and drawing horse carcasses. These drawings focused on the surface musculature and the skeleton of the horse, showing progressive levels of dissection from three different angles, beside the front and the back. In later lives, Stubbs described how he prepared the models. The horse's blood was drained through its jugular vein, and the veins, arteries, nerves and muscles were injected, probably with a wax mixture, in order to harden and preserve their form, allowing him to work on the same body for several weeks. The living poses were created by suspending the carcass from an iron bar in the roof of the barn using hooks. The resulting drawings and the book he published in 1766, The Anatomy of the Horse, quite remarkable, at once works of artistics and scientific excellence. Around 1759, Stubbs headed for London. On his arrival, armed with the drawings for his projected equine publication, he was introduced to Joshua Reynolds. By now, the capital's leading portraitist and a key mover and shaker in metropolitan art circles. Although Reynolds had returned from Italy before Stubbs' arrival there, they had shared many of the same artistic contacts in Rome, a factor which may have assisted in fostering their relationship. In London, Reynolds was instrumental in introducing Stubbs to his own circle of influential art patrons. Individuals who commissioned portraits and who also shared a close interest in horse breeding and horse racing. They included the dukes at Grafton and Richmond, the Earl of Spencer and Grovener, and Lord Rockingham, who was to commission Whistlejacket, whom Stubbs. However, Stubbs' earliest commission for a horse painting came not from an aristocratic owner or a breeder, but from Reynolds himself, who employed Stubbs to paint a war horse. The picture, now lost, was described in Stubbs' posthumous sail as Portrait a Managed Horse. The term managed refers to a rearing horse trained in classical riding techniques, which Stubbs may have studied at Domenico Angelo's celebrated manège or riding school in Soho. It was a posture associated with equestrian portraits of kings and military commanders, such as Velasquez's magnificent Count Duke Olivaris, now in the Prado. It could be traced back to the rearing horse in the Colossal Marble Statuary Group, known as the Horse Tamers, which Stubbs would have encountered on the Quirinal during his time in Rome. Reynolds commissioned the war horse from Stubbs evidently as a model for the mount in his equestrian portrait of Lord Ligonier, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, painted in 1760 and exhibited that year at the Society of Artists. That he required it for a specific reason is borne out by the fact that Reynolds returned the picture to Stubbs after a year or so, in exchange for a mythological painting. Although Stubbs' war horse is lost, we can get an idea of what it looked like by inspecting two life-sized paintings of rearing horses by Stubbs from this period, Whistlejacket and Scrubb, both commissioned by the Earl of Rockingham in 1762. As we can see, the horses are posed in a near identical manner to the horse in Reynolds' Lord Ligonier, and both paintings are almost exactly the same dimensions as the version of Lord Ligonier now belonging to the Tate. Here I reversed Scrubb so we can see better how closely Reynolds' composition adhered to Stubbs' painting. Yet while Rockingham clearly cherished Stubbs' painting in Whistlejacket, he actually rejected Scrubb and returned the picture to Stubbs. A curious aside is that Scrubb, the painting, ended up in the hands of a picture dealer who shifted to India with other works he was unable to sell. Failing to land the shipment in India, the picture was returned in a damaged condition to Stubbs, and it stayed with him until his death. Paradoxically, while Scrubb was the greater racehorse, his image, unlike that of Whistlejacket, was consigned to obscurity. Would it have fared better without the landscape background? Well, we shall never know. As I's Humphrey, who received his information directly from Stubbs, stated that Rockingham's original intention had been to use Whistlejacket as the basis for a commissioned portrait of George III to hang in the great hall at Wentworth Woodhouse, as a pendant to an equestrian portrait of George II. However, having decided that he preferred to leave Whistlejacket on the bare canvas without a background, Rockingham resolved to have another horse painted for the purpose of introducing the king. Stubbs was instructed accordingly to begin a fresh picture and fixed upon Scrubb, a dark bay horse, with a black mane and tail. If, as it would seem, Scrubb was conceived originally as a mount for an equestrian portrait of the king, you can understand why it was rejected by Rockingham when he abandoned the projected equestrian portrait of George III following his resignation of his post in government in 1762. Stubbs also painted one other picture of Whistlejacket for Lord Rockingham in 1762, depicting him with two other principal stallions in the Wentworth stud, a Godolphan hunter and his brother, a Godolphan cult. Both were sons of the famed Godolphan Arabian, one of the three founding eastern sires of the English thoroughbred, and they were used for breeding purposes only. Also a descendant of the Godolphan Arabian, Whistlejacket possessed many of the characteristics considered desirable, a strong curved neck, large sensitive eyes and fine facial features. Here Whistlejacket, who was of a nervous disposition, is singled out of the right, receiving a resuring pat on his chest or his groom, Mr Cobb. Painted as a pendant for the picture of Whistlejacket and his fellow stallions was this group portrait of brood mares and foals from the Rockingham stud. As it has been noted, this subject introduced a new focus for animal painting, the calm, quiet sociability of groups of mares and their young. The naturalism of the animals interaction as a group creates a sympathetic vision of horse society. And like the painting of the stallions and of course Whistlejacket itself, the presentation of the animals upon a blank canvas lends the composition an air of classical timelessness. Indeed one of the attractions of the composition is the rhythmical linear arrangement of the figures akin to a classical sculptural frieze. Collectively, the paintings produced in 1762 for Lord Rocking and presented a watershed in European equine painting. And although the principal credit is owing to the genius of stubs, some consideration must also be given to his patron. Charles Watson Wentworth, the Marquis of Rocking, was born in 1730, six years younger than Stubbs. He was born, it is fair to say, with a very large silver spoon in his mouth. In 1750, aged only 20, he succeeded to the Marquisate and the vast wealth and land estate that came with it. By then he was also well travelled, having spent two years from 1748 to 1750 in Italy on the Grand Tour, where he assembled an impressive collection of modern copies of antique sculpture, which he displayed in his Yorkshire mansion, Wentworth Woodhouse. Active in art patronage and horse breeding and horse racing, he was also a major player in the political scene, a leading figure in the Whig party, which opposed George III and the King's party. Rocking was himself Prime Minister from 1765 to 1766, and again just prior to his death in 1782. As well as the paintings he commissioned from Stubbs based upon his horse breeding and racing interests, Rockingham also commissioned several horse history paintings, including this enormous picture of a lion attacking a horse, measuring some 11 by 8 feet. The picture was displayed in Rockingham's townhouse in Grosvenor Square, and was joined a few years later by a pendant picture of a lion attacking a stag. It's been suggested, and I'm generally in agreement with this, that the commission may well have had a political dimension, as the horse and stag emblems were associated with the Prime Minister, Lord Butte, who was the arch enemy of the Rockingham Whigs. Lion was a symbol conversely of English liberty and the Whig cause. It had been Reynolds who introduced Stubbs to the Rockingham's patrons. Both artists in their own ways gained patronage from and supporting the Whig interest by their art. Yet, while there may have been a political dimension to the chosen narrative, the way in which it was expressed was far more profound than the localised matter of party politics. The lion attacking a horse is a formidable portrayal of the forces of nature, as the ravenous lion sinks its teeth into the flank of a terrified horse. Comparisons with whistle-jacket are inevitable, I think, both in the physical appearance of the horses, their muscular bodies, their strained muscles, the colour of their coat, and their wild manes. In the lion attacking a horse, sheer terror supplants nervous anxiety, manifest through the bare teeth of the horse, its flared nostrils and lulling tongue, and the ears pinned back against the forehead. All these are expressions derived from Stubbs' prolonged and intense study of the equine. Yet, although Stubbs may have claimed that the painting like his anticipated book, The Anatomy of the Horse, was to quote all done from nature, the composition was also based upon art. His inspiration was without doubt a celebrated sculpture of a lion attacking a horse in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. In later life, Stubbs said that his motive for visiting Italy was, and I quote, to convince himself that nature was and is always superior to art, whether Greek or Roman. However, this statement didn't mean that Stubbs was simply dismissive of the classical tradition, or Italy's central position in European art and culture. Rather, he believed that in order to appreciate it, one had to look first to nature, for which the Greeks and Romans had themselves derived inspiration. I think that's what's happening here, as Stubbs looks beyond the classical paradigm to evoke imaginatively what in nature had inspired the sculpture in the first place. I think also that Whistlejacket was conceived in the same spirit, as he uses the framework of tradition to construct an image that returns the subject to its roots in nature. I'd now like to turn to Whistlejacket in its afterlife, taking the story of the picture up to the present day. This has went with Woodhouse, the imposing country residence inherited and expanded by the Earl of Rockingham. It was here that Rockingham displayed Whistlejacket, hung originally in the dining room in, and I quote, it carved oak frame fixed to the wall, suggesting that it was a decorative fixture. At the time the only other picture in the room was the equestrian portrait of George II, which I mentioned in passing earlier on. This is it. The portrait by the Swiss artist David Moria was made around 1745 to commemorate the Battle of Dettingen against the French. It also coincidentally commemorated the last occasion on which a British monarch led his troops personally into battle. It was probably presented to Lord Rockingham by the King in the early 1750s, but later returned to the royal collection by Rockingham's heir in exchange for a portrait of the Prince of Wales. And here it is alongside Whistlejacket. It was this portrait by Moria, which was alleged first inspired Rockingham to consider employing stubs to paint a companion equestrian portrait. I have to say that the pictures, although they're exactly the same size, make an odd couple. On the one hand the spirited, rearing Whistlejacket, and on the other the compliance steed supporting the paunchy, septu-genarian monarch, whose own memorable response to the arts was, I hate all painting and poetry. It wasn't until after Rockingham's death in 1782 that Whistlejacket commanded his own space that went with Woodhouse, assuming centre stage in an elaborate classical frame, its self-forming part of an extravagant display of decorative plasterwork. Known as the Whistlejacket Room, it formed a secular shrine to Rockingham's great acquisition and was probably his own brainchild, although he did not live to see it realised. However, today Whistlejacket has escaped the confines of the Whistlejacket Room, as we can see in this recent image. In fact Whistlejacket had departed some decades earlier after the Second World War, when the family vacated the property, which is now in the hands of a preservation trust. The aim of the trust is to restore the empty house to its former glory, as far as that is possible. And for now at least Whistlejacket is substituted by a photographic copy. This does however serve to remind us that Stubbs's painting today is more than a single unique image. It is a brand. In 1997, when Whistlejacket was acquired by the National Gallery from Royal Rockingham's descendants for an eye-watering £11 million, the acquisition was publicised by the projection of a giant image onto the facade of the Sainsbury wing, which literally stopped the traffic, since this was before the frontage of the gallery was pedestrianised. The transition of Whistlejacket from the private into the public domain had important repercussions, and not just for the National Art Collection or for art lovers. In the early 2000s, the fashion designer Stella McCartney produced a print dress featuring Whistlejacket, displayed here upon the catwalk. A few years later, Stella McCartney also produced this sculpture based on Whistlejacket, composed of 8,000 Swarovski crystals. It was put on long-term display in Belsey Hall, Northumberland. The venue is significant because this was the birthplace of Whistlejacket. Who could ever have imagined that a foal born in a barn and a remote Northumbrian countryside would now be reincarnated in the same location, suspended in the air in the form of an exclusive crystal chandelier, echoing also, and consciously perhaps, those nameless horse carcasses strung up by a barn and by Stubbs, some 250 years or so earlier. In a different vein, in 2001, the artist Mark Wallinger, who has an abiding interest in equine subjects, created an artwork entitled Ghost, using a digital photograph of Whistlejacket mounted upon an aluminium light box. The negative image of the horse, together with its transformation into a mythical unicorn, contributes to its spectral presence and title. For the critic Ralph Rougoff, writing about the work when it was displayed at the Venice Biennale, the vision of the riderless, rearing, thoroughbred as a sovereign creature, an avatar of an bridal virility, is of course an absurdity. Such horses are nothing more than glorified beasts of burden, genetically bred for a dangerous sport and traded on a speculative market. Now, whether we agree or not with Rougoff's comments, they serve to remind us why Whistlejacket, the animal, was so prized by his aristocratic owner, the opportunity to invest and trade in equine bloodstock to speculate the gamble for high stakes and to bask in the horse's reflected glory. Yes, of course the horse, whether it is providing a mount for a jockey, harnessed to a hay cart, or heaving an artillery gun through mud in a theatre of war, is a beast of burden. But through the transformational intervention of the artist, this most beautiful creature can also be a sublime vision. It is this potential that captivated stubs. My own recent engagement with Whistlejacket was via an exhibition I co-curated at the MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, in autumn 2019. The subtitle for the exhibition, All Done From Nature, was taken from the title page of the Anatomy of the Horse. The reason we chose this title was to emphasise that stubs, rather than relying upon precedent, championed doing as a way of thinking and picture making as the pursuit of reality. Stubs, as we noted in the introduction to the catalogue, was an unashamed advocate of the primacy of looking. All was done from nature, meaning that it all ultimately derived from his own painstaking analysis of the subject in front of him, in Whistlejacket, and in all his related work. Whistlejacket was in some sense inevitably the star of the show, and his loan to the exhibition was of fundamental importance, though the biggest challenge was getting in through the loading bay, and of course making sure he was the right way up. We also wanted to provide a context to explore the world in which he was created, the world of horse breeding, horse racing, as well as Stubs' unique and fascinating take on the natural world. One other horse featured prominently in the exhibition, a horse less well known today, or though not perhaps to the horse racing fraternity. This was eclipse, possibly the greatest racehorse ever, not only unbeaten in any of his races, but a winner with virtually no competition. Eclipse first, the rest nowhere, that was the same. This is Stubs' oil study of eclipse, like Whistlejacket presented on a stark, plain background, not rearing up, yet definitely alert, his head pushed forward and his ears pricked back, in anger perhaps or impatience. So curious were breeders about Eclipse's qualities as a racehorse, that on his death in 1789, a French veterinarian was employed to perform a dissection upon his corpse. He had it transpired in an usually large heart. He was also unusually small and perfectly formed for racing. In the exhibition we displayed the skeleton of Eclipse in a gallery with Stubs' painting of him, together with a wall of drawings for the anatomy of the horse. Also in the gallery, presented as a visual coup, was Whistlejacket, united together for the first time, the greatest painting of a horse, together with the skeleton of the greatest racehorse. And now as I speak, Whistlejacket and his new stable mate Eclipse have made another journey, this time to the Moritz House in the Hague, which forms the second venue for the exhibition. This is the shot I took of the installation on my phone when I was there in February 2020, just as the exhibition was about to open. I've not seen Whistlejacket since, but I'm looking forward to seeing him again. For even though Whistlejacket the horse is long gone, through Stubs' extraordinary painting, he has attained immortality.