(no subject)

[cblj_backup]

This morning I did a research report on a famous man in the world of horse racing, and the SCANDAL that is his love life, which includes an ex-wife who owns a racing stable called the [Name Retracted] Stud Farm.

I just sent the report to my boss, who works across the corridor from me. A few minutes later I heard her voice drift hesitantly out of her office.

Boss: So....a stud farm...that's a...horse racing stable?
Me: Yeah, it's a breeding farm. Male horses of breeding age are put out to stud.
Boss: They're studs.
Me: I think it's where the term came from.
Boss: Oh...kay...
Me: You sound nervous.
Boss: No, I'm just...going to assume the high-level VP who's going to be looking at this report will know that...

Comments

[fenrischained.livejournal.com]

Wait, there's a story to that? I've been wondering that since I saw the painting when I was seven! TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME.

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

The story goes that Stubbs, as the foremost equine painter, was supposed to partner with the foremost portraitist and the foremost landscapist to paint a picture of King George III mounted on a rearing horse. Stubbs painted Whistlejacket first, and the others proclaimed it to be the most perfect picture of a horse ever painted, and they refused to do anything further to it. Recent scholarship has called this into question, but it is a perfect picture of a horse, so I choose to believe the story. :-)

[fenrischained.livejournal.com]

Heh, shiny. Thanks. I did not know that. :)

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

That is a pretty awesome story, no lie. Though I could see how people would be skeptical -- I mean, I'm not super-up on oil painting but wouldn't one paint the landscape first? Otherwise you're landscaping around a horse...

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, you wouldn't want to paint the horse over the landscape, because it would mess up the texture. You'd get bumps and stuff where they didn't belong, because oils are so 3D, so you'd kind of have to leave a vaguely horse-shaped hole and paint up to the edges of the horse afterwards anyway.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

And it makes sense that you wouldn't want to risk the horse by adding a landscape, if you think it's a really awesome horse *nods* gotcha.