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Leonardo's horse

Posted by spochron on 09 Dec 2012 at 03:45 GMT

As an anthropologist and equestrian, I read your article with much interest. At first, I thought your conclusion that so-called cavemen knew animal movement better that we do was fabulous. However, after reading your paper in more detail, I find myself in doubt of your results.

My doubt lies in the fact that you have incorrectly interpreted Leonardo's horse. His horse is executing a perfect dressage movement called "passage." Dressage dates back to Xenophon, and horsemen were writing about it in the 1500's. Leonardo would certainly have seen horses executing this move. The same movement is commonly used today in upper-level dressage competitions and by back-yard equestrians across the world.

You've concluded that, "On the basis of the leg attitudes Fig. 4A could, in principle, depict a trotting horse. However, because the fore legs of trotting horses are never lifted so high, and the angle between the femur and tarsus cannot be nearly 90° this should be a walking horse."

If you Google Image "Dressage Passage," you can see that your conclusion is flawed. Dressage horses frequently get their legs at this angle at a trot. ("Passage" is a very powerful, impulsive trot.) A beautiful horse named Moorlands Totilas actually gets his front leg above that 90 degree angle.

Additionally, many gaited horses (such as Fox Trotters, Saddlebreds, and Standardbred), move in un-Muybridge sequences, and those horses are frequently depicted in art. If you want to see weird quadruped movement, try watching the harness racers and their pacing trot. Even standard poodles move in un-Muybridge sequences. (They move both their left feet and then both their right at a walk and trot.)

Since you've wrongly categorized Leonardo's horse, I worry that you've mis-categorized many gaited or highly-trained horses in art, and that this skews your results. I suspect if reanalyze your data after reading up on horse gaits, you might lose your significant different.

Best,
Sharon Pochron, PhD
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, New York



No competing interests declared.

RE: Leonardo's horse

ghorvath replied to spochron on 27 Dec 2013 at 17:51 GMT

SHARON POCHRON WROTE: As an anthropologist and equestrian, I read your article with much interest. At first, I thought your conclusion that so-called cavemen knew animal movement better that we do was fabulous. However, after reading your paper in more detail, I find myself in doubt of your results.

ANSWER: Our correctly quoted statement sounds: "cavemen were better at depicting quadruped walking than MODERN ARTISTS". Hence, not generally we presently, and by no means experts of animal motion and anatomy (e.g., anthropologist and equestrian), but modern artists after Muybridge illustrate less correctly the quadruped walking. Under "cavemen" we, obviously, meant prehistoric people.

SHARON POCHRON WROTE: My doubt lies in the fact that you have incorrectly interpreted Leonardo's horse. His horse is executing a perfect dressage movement called "passage." Dressage dates back to Xenophon, and horsemen were writing about it in the 1500's. Leonardo would certainly have seen horses executing this move. The same movement is commonly used today in upper-level dressage competitions and by back-yard equestrians across the world.

ANSWER: On the one hand, even if we had indeed incorrectly interpreted the leg attitudes of Leonardo's horse, this is only one case among the 1000 analysed artistic quadruped illustrations. On the other hand, the fact is that you have incorrectly interpreted da Vinci's horse, because the tail of a quickly moving, e.g. "passaging" or trotting horse waves due to air drag, rather than hangs almost vertically, which is typical for slower motion, e.g. walking.

SHARON POCHRON WROTE: You've concluded that, "On the basis of the leg attitudes Fig. 4A could, in principle, depict a trotting horse. However, because the fore legs of trotting horses are never lifted so high, and the angle between the femur and tarsus cannot be nearly 90° this should be a walking horse." If you Google Image "Dressage Passage," you can see that your conclusion is flawed. Dressage horses frequently get their legs at this angle at a trot. ("Passage" is a very powerful, impulsive trot.) A beautiful horse named Moorlands Totilas actually gets his front leg above that 90 degree angle.

ANSWER: In all the mentioned Google images taken about "Dressage Passage," the tail of the horses are flying and waving in the wind, especially at very powerful and impulsive trot, the "passage". The tail of da Vinci's horse is not waving at all, thus this animal is definitely not a trotting or passaging horse. Consequently, your assumption is flawed.

SHARON POCHRON WROTE: Additionally, many gaited horses (such as Fox Trotters, Saddlebreds, and Standardbred), move in un-Muybridge sequences, and those horses are frequently depicted in art. If you want to see weird quadruped movement, try watching the harness racers and their pacing trot. Even standard poodles move in un-Muybridge sequences. (They move both their left feet and then both their right at a walk and trot.)

ANSWER: Your main error is that you consider also unnatural, exaggerated, weird, un-Muybridgean quadruped movements as correct depictions of natural, non-trained motion, only because certain trained horses can produce such weird leg attitudes.

SHARON POCHRON WROTE: Since you've wrongly categorized Leonardo's horse, I worry that you've mis-categorized many gaited or highly-trained horses in art, and that this skews your results. I suspect if reanalyze your data after reading up on horse gaits, you might lose your significant different.

ANSWER: Since you have wrongly categorized da Vinci's horse (which is a walking, rather than a trotting quadruped), we worry that your opinion is unsupported. We did not mis-categorize any walking horse in art, and thus our results are
correct. We suggest you to collect and analyse 1000 artistic quadruped walking depictions. You can publish your results and compare them with our error rates obtained. Let us see the outcome!

No competing interests declared.