Paarden rond een voederbak op de Stadhouderskade te Amsterdam, ter hoogte van het Vondelpark c. 1886s

George Hendrik Breitner made this drawing of horses around a feeding trough near the Vondelpark in Amsterdam using chalk. Note the horse, a symbol deeply rooted in human history, representing everything from primal power to freedom. Its presence here is not merely representational; it evokes centuries of human-animal partnership, a visual echo resonating with ancestral memories of domestication and shared labor. Consider how the horse appears in ancient Greek sculptures, idealized and triumphant, or in medieval tapestries, emblems of chivalry and nobility. Here, Breitner strips away the romanticism, presenting the horse in a more quotidian light, yet the animal retains a vestige of its symbolic past. This echoes the deep subconscious, where ancestral memories shape our understanding of the world. The horse, caught in the act of feeding, becomes a potent symbol of sustenance, of life's primal needs, reminding us of our own reliance on the natural world.