Sante Barelli - Mounted Officer

The subject of the equestrian monument, or the man on horseback, has very ancient origins. It dates back to the classical world, and the oldest example is the "Rampin Rider," a masterpiece of archaic Greece. Equestrian monuments were of fundamental importance to Roman art, including from a political perspective. Generally, they are sculptures in the round, but there are also cases where this subject appears on painted supports or genre prints. The theme of the man on horseback has pervaded the entire history of art, not only Western art, and has become a focus of research for contemporary artists such as Marino Marini, Arturo Martini, and Aligi Sassu.

This work is a highly interesting example of official military portraiture. Indeed, the painting's artistic and pictorial value is complemented by its historical value, derived from its noble didactic and illustrative nature. The artist perfectly depicts the officer's clothing, his uniform with its decorations, as well as the horse's harness and trappings. Furthermore, the portrait is set in a perfect historical context, with a battle scene in the background, perfectly blurred by the dust-filled atmosphere. There is a conventional, idealized quality, typical of this type of official representation. This idealization can be seen in the statuesque forms of the horse and rider and their stately poses. Formally, precisely because clarity is the painter's primary objective, the composition is based on clean lines and the volumes are concretely delineated. Regarding the color, there is perfect tonal consistency throughout the work, with earthy shades of brown.

As we can deduce from an analysis of this work, the artist Sante Barelli stands out for his rigorous and traditional interpretation of official portraiture, which he executes with a confident technique based on solid academic training. His work is of great value not only from an artistic perspective but also as a faithful, timely, and detailed historical record.

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