马和骑手

Degas’s drawing Gentleman Rider alludes tothe steeplechase, a fashionable race in which theriders were not professional jockeys but, instead,“gentlemen.” Here, Degas demonstrated hisunceasing interest in the horse’s anatomy inmotion, playfully revising the position of theanimal’s hind legs, as he would a dancer’s. Thetop-hatted rider remains a ghostly shadow—it isclearly the horse rather than its rider who capturedthe artist’s imagination.