Galloping Horse Overtaking a Flying Swallow-5

One would normally imagine that a swallow flies faster than agalloping horse. Now that the horse has overtaken the swallow, it inspires theviewer to imagine how fast the horse is running. Li Bai (701-762), one of thebest-known poets of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), wrote the poem “Song of theHeavenly Horse”. Two of the lines can be borrowed to describe this sculpture: “Looking back at the black swallow,/(Thehorse) laughs at its slowness.”