Reveller Mare 1834 - 1872

Fritz Thomsen painted this 'Reveller Mare', now at the SMK, using oil on canvas. The horse, a creature long associated with nobility, power, and vitality, stands poised at a threshold. The motif of an animal at a doorway is resonant. Consider ancient depictions of horses in mythology, like those drawing Poseidon's chariot. Here, Thomsen's mare is less a symbol of divine power and more a representation of domesticated strength, but the echo of those earlier associations remains. Her gaze turned back over her shoulder invites us into a contemplative space, evoking a sense of longing and anticipation, a potent, universal human experience. The positioning of the animal—neither fully inside nor outside—creates a tension, a symbolic representation of the liminal spaces that have always fascinated artists and thinkers. From cave paintings to Renaissance frescoes, animals have served as powerful vehicles for expressing our deepest, often subconscious, desires and fears. The mare is a vessel laden with cultural memory, a symbol ever shifting, yet forever tethered to our primal connection with the natural world.