Leonardo’s Horse

Leonardo’s Horse by Jean Fritz and Hudson Talbott (2001) is a masterpiece. Young readers will appreciate the reading level at grades 1 – 4. Middle and high schoolers can research the many references to Leonardo de Vinci, his endeavors, his contemporaries, and the setting in which he lived. This book condenses a huge amount of information into a cohesive, easily readable story. The gifted and talented child struggling in a one-size-fits-all educational system may identify with Leonardo.

We meet Leonardo as a teenager, a child who is remarkably different from his peers. Lucky for him, his parents appreciate his talent. They send him to Florence, Italy, to study art. “He could never be just one thing. He was an engineer, an architect, a musician, a philosopher, an astronomer.” Multiple interests and responsibilities combined with the limitations of his moment in history make it difficult to manifest all his dreams. His lifelong aspiration to cast a 24-foot horse never materializes. But Leonardo’s passing in 1519 is not the end of the story.

Several more pages explain that an American named Charlie Dent revives Leonardo’s dream in 1977. He studies, funds, and builds the horse. “By 1993 the eight-foot plaster model of the clay horse was completed and ready to be cast into a twenty-four-foot bronze horse.” Sadly, Charlie Dent passes away in 1994. He continues to fund the horse project in his will. Despite setbacks, Leonardo’s horse, revisited by the highly qualified Nina Akamu, arrives in Milan in 1999.

And guess what? There are two horses! One is in Italy, and the other is at the Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Many artists receive credit for this book. One of the final pages reads:

~ text by Jean Fritz
~ illustrations by Hudson Talbott (watercolor, pen, ink, colored pencil, collage)
~ lettering by David Gatti
~ typography by Cecilia Yung and Gunta Alexander

Charlie Dent’s sculpture differs from the finished version. “He borrowed two champion Morgan horses and studied them for months. . .” Talbott draws the outline of a huge Morgan on the side of a barn while Dent seems to measure one of the horses. Talbott also shows Dent finishing his clay horse. In both of these images, the horse’s head is slightly lifted. My perception is that Dent’s horse leaves room for its windpipe to be open. (Although, this head placement may represent resistance, leading to bulging muscles on the underside of the neck.)

Dressage riders aim for “engagement” in which the entire body flows as a unit, the head beyond the vertical, in submission to a gentle horse-rider connection through the bit. At the location where the head meets neck, there must be enough space for the horse to breathe easily. Talbott shows us Akamu’s many sketches of Leonardo’s horse. She chooses one in which the horse’s head angles in quite tightly, very close to its neck. I wonder how it can breathe. Perhaps this is how horses were ridden in Leonardo’s time, just as horses back then were trained to “amble.” I shudder to wonder why their mouths are so wide open. Perhaps ignorance makes me too critical here.

I thank all involved for sharing this incredible artistic achievement.