Felix Innokentievich Belsky’s *Equestrian* (1983) captures the speed and force of steeplechase through bold, expressionist design. A massive horse and rider dominate the canvas, frozen mid-leap, their bodies stretched and simplified to emphasise motion over realism.
The pair dominates the upper two-thirds of the canvas—their exaggerated scale and forward thrust pull the viewer directly into the action. A brick-red obstacle in the foreground anchors the scene while also propelling the eye upward, reinforcing the jump’s force.
Belsky’s style here recalls the rhythm, colour, and simplified forms of Matisse’s *Dance* (1910). Like Matisse, Belsky distills his figures to their most expressive elements, emphasizing motion over realism.
Below the central figure, smaller horses and riders, rendered more abstractly, form a visual rhythm that adds context and amplifies the sense of motion. These smaller figures, like Matisse’s dancers, pulse with their own energy and support the larger composition’s drive.
There’s also a clear nod to Russian avant-garde artists like Kazimir Malevich in Belsky’s geometric simplification and bold use of flat colour. The rich burgundy of the horse set against a stark azure sky is outlined in bright white, emphasizing the figures’ contours and creating a sense of light and lift—as if horse and rider are cutting clean through the air.
This ability to express motion and feeling through bold, minimal form was honed under the guidance of the renowned Soviet graphic artist Evgeny Adolfovich Kibrik, during Belsky’s studies at the Moscow State Academic Art Institute.
Felix Innokentievich Belsky (1929–2009) was a major Soviet and Russian graphic artist. He became a member of the Russian Academy of Arts in 2007 and graduated from the Moscow State Academic Art Institute in 1968, where he studied under Kibrik. He later taught drawing and plastic anatomy at the Moscow Institute of Technology and MGHI.
A longtime member of the Union of Artists of the USSR, Belsky’s work appeared in nearly 80 exhibitions across Eastern Europe, Mongolia, and India. His career culminated in a significant solo show in the U.S. in 1991, and his work is now held in private collections in Russia and internationally.
