Trained in the traditions of European realism, Castiglione skillfully adapted techniques, such as perspective and shading, to Chinese materials and aesthetic conventions, forging a distinctive Sino-European style.
His paintings of horses, as well as portraits of Emperor Qianlong in ceremonial armor astride his steed, stand among the most influential visual expressions of cultural exchange between China and Europe in the 18th century.
“Against the driving wind, the horse lifts its cry, its ardor yearning to mount the clouds,” wrote Qianlong of Castiglione’s horse paintings.
Perhaps the most compelling — and tragic — tale of a hero and his horse is that of Xiang Yu (232-202 BC), the formidable warlord famed for his unmatched valor and martial prowess.
In 202 BC, encircled by hostile forces led by Liu Bang, the would-be founder of China’s Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), Xiang Yu recognized that defeat was inevitable. After breaking through the enemy lines, he ended his life by the river, having first released his beloved warhorse Wuzhui.
Legend holds that Wuzhui, refusing to live without its master, leaped into the river and drowned itself.
In memory and myth, the fates of warrior and horse are inseparable — twin emblems of a doomed grandeur befitting a tragic hero in his final reckoning with destiny.
“No open reach denies the horse’s onward course — to it, indeed, one may entrust life and death.” Nearly 950 years after Xiang Yu’s death, renowned Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu wrote those lines, probably with Wuzhui in mind.
Heartbreaking as Xiang Yu’s fall may be, the Han Dynasty — founded by his archrival Liu Bang (256-195 BC) — emerged as a durable and far-reaching one. With its rise, the Silk Road gradually opened to commerce and cultural exchange, and a steady flow of fine steeds from the western regions came to safeguard the realm’s distant frontiers.
New legends arose, and with them more legendary horses. When his country faced peril, the Han general Ma Yuan famously remarked that a man should die on the frontier, his body wrapped in horsehide.
The words have been repeated across the centuries — not as a cry for glory, but as a measure of resolve and how one chooses to meet fate.
And for all people — whether remembered as emperors and generals, or lost to anonymity — the question remains, gently and inexorably: “Should one lift his head like a powerful steed, or drift with the current like a duck upon the water?”
