Pôster Woman with a Horse

Oil on canvas by Jean Metzinger entitled, "Woman with a Horse" (La Femme au Cheval) 1911-1912. As the title indicates, the painting represents a woman and a horse. The rather elegant woman wearing only a pearl necklace and the horse are immersed in a landscape with trees and a window (in the 'background'), a vase, with fruits and vegetation (in the 'foreground') clearly taken from the natural world. The woman is seated on what appears to be a rectangular block or cube, perhaps a model's pedestal (visible to the left). The horse occupies the upper right-hand quadrant as if observed from above. Its head is turned toward the monumental woman while she strokes the horses right ear with her left hand. She cups her hand underneath the horse's mouth, as if feeding the horse a pieces of fruit. The reconstruction of the total image was left, according to Metzinger, to 'creative intuition' of the observer. While one viewer may see a woman riding a horse, another may see her sitting beside the horse, and yet others may not see a horse at all. That there even exists such ambiguity with respect to what is transpiring on the canvas is remarkable.