‘Stubbs and the Wild’ Review: The Sublime on Four Legs

Mary Tompkin Lewis | Wall St Journal | 6th July 2016

Discoveries of new species in Australia and elsewhere stimulated Georgian society’s taste for exotica. With Charles Darwin’s theories still a century away debate about the natural order had both scientific and moral elements. Stubbs was captivated by all this. His horse portraits were famous but, more important, his work combined the detached curiosity of the scientist and his artistic empathy for other living creatures.