THE HORSE IN FOLK ART
1984. 127 pages. 48 color photographs, 35 black and white photographs. Related readings list. Commentaries by Millard Sheets, Bradley Smith, and Martha Longenecker, Director.
From our previous exhibition. Co-curated by Joan Heaney and Martha Longenecker.
Mingei International documentary publication with commentaries by Millard Sheets and Bradley Smith.
The horse in many media as depicted in the art of people around the world. A comprehensive exhibition including Tang Dynasty clay horses and Mexico's wood and papier maché horses. A rich variety of materials enhanced the articles epitomizing the horse as man's mount. These articles included Navaho horse blankets, horse-hair reins and unique leather and silver American horse trappings. To climax the exhibition, the Museum brought two potters from India, who constructed larger-than-life Indian votive horses.
Excerpt from the publication
THE HORSE IN ART by Millard Sheets
My lifelong admiration for the horse seems quite normal when we realize that mankind, from the prehistoric cave painters to the peoples of today has always loved the power and the beauty of this great animal.
Throughout the ages the horse has been indispensable to mankind; as tiller of his fields, as carrier of his burdens, as partner in his endless wars and as comrade in his sports. The image of the horse is interwoven in the imagination, the affection, the very core of humanity and this deep relationship has, inevitably, been manifested vividly in all of the arts.
More than any other creature, other than the human, in every medium of the plastic arts as well as in all forms of literature, the horse has continuously inspired sculptors, painters, ceramists, weavers, carvers in wood, stone, jade and ivory. From monumental sculpture to folk art and children's toys, wherever the horse existed it appears in unlimited styles and characterizations.
The mythology of the ancient world was rich with the power and mystery of the horse and with man's mystical relationship to it in such creations as the virile Centaur, half man, half horse, the soaring Pegasus, symbol of the arts and poetry who sprang full grown from the neck of the dying Medusa, and, in Medieval times, the beautiful white Unicorn, symbol of chastity and of the Virgin Mary.
The range of qualities in the art and the purposes in depicting the horse is tremendously wide. From the five hundred, life size, individually modeled clay horses, created as part of the the vast entourage which accompanied the first Chinese Emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, to the next world twenty two centuries ago, to the nineteenth century weathervane, beaten out of copper for a farmer's barn, with an infinite variety of expressions in between, the horse has been immortalized.
Although the horse existed in the American continents it disappeared before humans migrated across the Bering Straits from Asia, so there are no depictions of it in the great PreColumbian arts. When introduced by the Spanish this majestic creature, which so awed and astonished the indigenous peoples, soon became an indispensable part of their cultures as they depicted so vividly in their arts, especially in those of the nomadic, warring plains Indians.
In sports and competitions, its powerful movements and rhythms are an unlimited source of challenge and excitement to the artist. It is almost incomprehensible to understand how the mass of the animal's body can be born by those slender legs which must absorb the tremendous pressure and pounding in racing, polo, jumping, hunting and every kind of activity.
The artist soon discovers great importance in a few basic lines of balance in the horse. The first discovery is the effect of the angle of a line when it is drawn from the withers to the chest. The more horizontal this angle becomes the greater the quality of the total animal. But if the line is more toward the vertical the horse loses character, beauty and balance. With the line more horizontal the neck rises vertically. It places the front legs forward, shortens the back and lengthens the belly line while the opposite is true of the more vertical line
Horses have been bred into every imaginable size and conformation, based upon the needs of its uses. Enormous eighteen hand horses were developed for war and for work in the fields, contrasting with the slender, elegant ones for riding and carriage horses. The race horse, the regal Lippizzaner, hunters, jumpers, cow ponies and even tiny miniature creatures, have been created over the centuries.
