From auspicious horse-themed phrases and couplets to whether your luck is in, check out our Year of the Horse 2026 series to discover all you need to know about the coming Lunar New Year.
In Chinese culture, horses often symbolise power, vitality and ambition. But in the eyes of Xu Beihong – the father of modern Chinese art, who was especially revered for his horse paintings – the strong animal represented something solemn, persistent and even tragic.
Xu was born in 1895, after the end of the first Sino-Japanese war, and he witnessed intense changes in China throughout his lifetime, including the end of imperial China, Japanese aggression, World War II and the rise of the Communist Party. His work, therefore, reflected the country’s turbulent transformation in the first half of the 20th century.
