Johnny Palacios Hidalgo
Peruvian Surrealist/Hyperrealist painter Johnny Palacios Hidalgo (b. 1970) studied art at the National School of Fine Arts. He has exhibited regularly since 1984, developing a surreal hyperrealism style with unique powerful images full of beauty, depicting animals aswell as the female form. This oil on canvas is called “Caballos de Neptuno” and dates from 2011.
‘Caballos the Neptuno’
The painting “Caballos of Neptune” is full of wonderful contradictions, which makes it fascinating to dissect. There are two classic elements present in this work, air and water. The horses (hippocamps), who are usually associated with the god of the sea Neptune, seem to be soaring though the air with the aid of small pegasus wings, seagulls flying by their side. At the same time there are sea elements present, such as shells and starfish, giving the viewer the illusion of it being an underwater scene. The flying fish sums it all up perfectly, combining both worlds.
Hippocamps appear in Greek, Roman, and Etruscan mythology, but they also are seen in Scotland and Ireland as kelpies, usually depicted with webbed feet instead of hooves. Neptune (as Poseidon) has long been associated with horses and was described in Homer’s Iliad:
Down Poseidon dove and yoked his bronze-hoofed horses
onto his battle-car, his pair that raced the wind
with their golden manes streaming on behind them,
and strapping the golden armor round his body,
seized his whip that coils lithe and gold
and boarded his chariot launching up and out,
skimming the waves, and over the swells they came,
dolphins leaving their lairs to sport across his wake,
leaping left and right — well they knew their lord.
And the sea heaved in joy, cleaving a path for him
and the team flew on in a blurring burst of speed,
the bronze axle under the war-car never flecked with foam,
the stallions vaulting, speeding Poseidon toward Achaea’s fleet.–Homer, The Iliad, Book XIII
JTH
