Alexandre domptant Bucéphale ("Alexander taming Bucephalus") by Nicolas-André Monsiau

Bucephalus and Alexander form a unique "hero-horse" pairing in mythology, since this horse actually existed according to the sources, unlike Pegasus or Aerion, the famous horses of Greek stories. As Plutarch recounts in the Life of Alexander, Bucephalus accompanied Alexander throughout the conquest of his empire. This stallion, descended from one of Diomedes' mares in mythical tales, is so fierce and rebellious that Philip II of Macedonia refuses the mount.

Faced with his son Alexander's regrets, Philip II of Macedonia promised him Bucephalus if he could tame it. The young prince, having observed that the beast was frightened by his shadow, managed to calm it by placing it facing the sun. Bucephalus now accepts no rider other than Alexander. This is the part of the story illustrated here by Nicolas-André Monsiau, when Alexander manages to subdue a horse with a terrible whinny and a frightened look on his face.

Bucephalus designates him not only as his master, but also as the future king of the world. Like Darius the Great, Emperor of the Persians, Alexander was proclaimed king by his heroic horse, who became a kind of "equine double". Nothing could stop the mythical duo: together, they extended the borders of the Greek Empire from Egypt, where the king founded the city of Alexandria, to India, spreading Hellenistic culture to all conquered peoples.

While the gestures and composition are reminiscent of traditional 18th-century mythological painting, the rendering of the flesh is neoclassical in influence, with its smooth, sculptural rendering, a cold use of anatomical knowledge and a non-existent sense of muscle action in relation to the swinging legs on either side of the horse's flanks. Nicolas-André Monsiau was trained at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris by the neoclassical painter Pierre Peyron (1744-1814). In many respects, however, his style is "Poussinist", both in terms of color and didactic clarity. Peyron was admitted to the Academy in 1787 with this painting, Alexandre domptant Bucéphale (Alexander taming Bucephalus), which allowed him to exhibit at the official Salon.

The composition is reminiscent of one of Jacques Louis David's most famous paintings, Le Premier Consul franchissant les Alpes au col du Grand Saint-Bernard. In fact, the composition is strictly reproduced, and the symbolic effect is powerful, with its reference to Alexander the Great. However, Jacques-Louis David is far more realistic in the posture of the horse's feet.

On the other hand, the First Consul's outstretched arm, somewhat disjointed from his body, is a reference to popular imagery rather than to frozen mythological legend. The figure of the horse is remarkable in Jacques-Louis David's work: the horse's mane is not raised artificially, as in Monsiau's work, but is carried away in the ardor of a gust of wind, establishing the romantic codes of the sublime moment and conferring on the horse an aura as important as that of its rider. Like Darius and Alexander, the First Consul is adored by his horse, reputed to be untamable.

Nicolas-André Monsiau's classical treatment of the scene is best illustrated by the studies left by Baron Antoine-Jean Gros of Alexander and Bucephalus, now in the Musée du Louvre. The history painter born around twenty years after Monsiau delivers a dramatic, vigorous scene of hand-to-hand combat between hero and horse.

Christophe Chandezon, « Bucéphale et Alexandre. Histoire, imaginaire et images de rois et de chevaux », p. 178-179, dans Armelle Gardeisen (dir.), Histoire d’équidés : des textes, des images et des os, Lattes, l’Association pour le développement de l’archéologie en Languedoc-Roussillon, 2010.

Annie Schnapp-Gourbeillon, Lions, héros, masques : les représentations de l’animal chez Homère, Paris, François Maspero, 1981, p. 173-178.