The artistic work of Archipenko can be divided into three periods.

During his European era in the 1910s-’20s he stood out as a genius of his time with his new views, shapes and ideas. The Horseman is an intellectual masterpiece of this era.

His second period began with his emigration to the United States and lasted until his death in 1964. During these years his work can be characterized by being spent and barren, he mostly worked on the recreation of pieces from his European period that had disappeared or had been destroyed.

His new pieces of art, like The Queen of Sheba and the King Solomon were just grey shades of his pristine brilliance.

It is often mentioned in professional lectures, that Archipenko is the Picasso of 20th century sculpture.

The main difference between these two geniuses, though, is that while Picasso was the creator of the spirit of the age himself, Archipenko was created by the spirit of the age. This fact is justified by his spent and less original work in America.

The third period of his work is often called the Grey era, when museums were flooded by Archipenko-copies, that created the foundation of a closed, vertical and horizontal business cartel-system, that ignores universal trademark protection and floods the artwork market with mould copies. The work of Archipenko is degraded to cheap mass-produced items by this mercantilism. 

But the Horseman counterbalances this as a rider of the Apocalypse.