Cherry Sweig - The Ancient Greek Horse Endures - Spring 2008 Issue of Horses in Art Magazine

Cherry Sweig - The Ancient Greek Horse Endures

Equine Flight – Oil with Special Effect Acrylics: Scroll Style, 40 x 48, by Cherry Sweig. “They seem to be catching up with their past as this art represents the echoes of their ancestors in stone.”
Painting en pleine aire, or out in the open air, while traveling to many destinations in Europe including Venice, Sicily, Tuscany, Greece, and Southern France has produced some beautiful landscapes by artist Cherry Sweig. But a serendipitous meeting during a month spent in Greece led to a unique series of paintings that inspired Sweig to combine ancient and current history.

While visiting the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, the Sacred Rock city of the Parthenon, Sweig was taken with the equestrian frieze art, the low relief marble sculpture fashioned in 400 BC. Continuing her travels to the Ionian island of Corfu, she attended a horse art show hosted by the Silva Project that is dedicated to saving the ancient Skyros horse from extinction.

Skyros horses may be the ones depicted on the walls of the Parthenon and are possibly the horses that Alexander The Great used to conquer the world. The small breed of horse has survived for the last two centuries primarily on the Greek island of Skyros.

Sweig was invited to sketch the endangered Skyros horses in person at the family estate where the horses are residing. She comments, “It was like encountering a pack of lovable golden retriever puppies, yet they were horses! With their wild manes, thick chestnut colored coats and expressive eyes, I was instantly motivated and thrilled to capture them in art.”

Leonidas Foreshadows – Oil with Special Effect Acrylics: Scroll Style, 25 x 50 by Cherry Sweig. “This scroll depicts the revered stallion, Leonidas, as he posed for me in the olive groves of Corfu – forceful, determined, yet approachable and kind.”

The technique used in the resulting large paintings portrays the ancient Greek images, ghost-like behind the Skyros horses Sweig observed. The backgrounds have under-paintings of acrylic gel mediums, crushed garnets and pumice to achieve the rough stone special effect. The foreground is oil. She painted the canvas stretched around the edges so they can be hung without a frame. She also created canvases for hanging on rods, scroll style. When she exhibits the scroll style canvas, Sweig loves to encourage people to touch them.

Cherry Sweig donates proceeds from the sale of these paintings to the Silva Project. She states, “Through an ancestral connection depicted in this new imagery, it is my hope that I will assist in saving an entire lineage of horses that helped build a vital part of history.”

To view the Skyros horse series and other artwork by Cherry Sweig visit www.cherrysweig.com.

The Skyros Horse and the Silva Project

Corfu Zephyr – Oil with Special Effect Acrylics on Canvas: Scroll Style, 24 x 44, by Cherry Sweig. “A spiritual mood in this piece conveys an unexpected moment when a soft Ionian Sea breeze moved Sunshine’s mane and the sunset left a warm glow over her shoulder. The background hints of the olive branches and the Greek key symbolism for eternity.”

The Silva Project is dedicated to the preservation and breeding of the Hellenic Hipparion or Skyros small-horse. The Silva Project started when Sylvia Dimitriadis-Steen was approached in Corfu and asked to provide lodgings for four Skyros horses, two stallions and two mares. By visiting the island of Skyros, she became aware of the horses’ situation and their imminent danger of becoming extinct.

In 2004, a census taken on Skyros revealed 90 horses left on the island. Only 14 were pure. In a wider context, the Silva Project is in the process of establishing a herd book. The major problem on Skyros is identifying the horses, but by 2007 they expect to have all horses microchipped. Eventually it is hoped that, by taking blood and hair from all the existing horses, it will be possible to produce a dendogram placing the Skyrian horse in its correct category in the equine family tree.

The Silva Project was initiated in 1996 on the Silva estate, which is located on the Kanoni peninsula near Corfu Town. Artist Cherry Sweig has exhibited her artwork in Greece and now in the US to help raise funds to support the Skyros horse. For more information visit horseart.org.

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