Horses resting

Luigi Nono's 'Horses Resting' (1885) represents the animal subject within his typically female-dominated genre practice — the equine subjects of working or resting horses occupying a different visual tradition from his sentimental domestic scenes. The resting horse, with its combination of power and vulnerability — the massive animal at ease, its guard lowered — was a subject of considerable appeal in Italian painting. Nono's treatment would bring his characteristic technical polish to an animal subject that demanded a different kind of observation from his human figures.

Nono renders the resting horses with careful attention to the animals' anatomy in repose — the distribution of weight, the relaxation of muscle tension, the characteristic postures of horses at rest. His academic technique handles the equine form with the same precise observation he brought to his human subjects. The outdoor setting provides the natural light conditions appropriate to working horses in their rural environment.