THE AMERICAN HORSE

This majestic sculpture is entitled ‘The American Horse’ and is located at the Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The idea for this statue began with Leonardo da Vinci back in 1482 when he imagined the creation of an enormous two-story tall equine sculpture for the city of Milan, Italy. He succeeded in making a full-size clay model, but the when the French troops invaded Italy in 1498, they used it for target practice which ended his dream. Five hundred years later, having heard of da Vinci’s dream, Frederik Meijer commissioned world renowned animal sculpture Nina Akamu to create this 24 foot tall sculpture. Meijer also had an identical sculpture installed in Milan in honor of da Vinci.

My daughter and I spent two wonderful days touring ‘ArtPrize’, an art competition and exhibition in Grand Rapids with over 15,000 works of new art. It takes over the entire city in over a hundred venues, one of which was the Frederik Meijer Gardens. That’s my daughter standing by the horse to show perspective. (Obviously this horse sculpture is part of the Gardens, not part of the competition.)