The Hobby Horse started publication in 1884 as the first high quality magazine committed solely to the visual arts. The contributors looked at art from a scholarly perspective, one wat is de prijs van oud ijzer that set the blueprints for how art is seen today. The magazine was an idealistic vision to create unity in the arts. This impressive rocking horse was well loved and well worn by successive generations of the Marrett family of Standish, Maine.
Photographs from the early 20th century, in the collection of Amsterdam’s Tropenmuseum , show another ritual dance, the Reog Ponogoro, involving a huge tiger mask and costume , accompanied by Jatil riding woven bamboo hobby horses who perform the Jaran Kepang dance. There are many festivals in the Catalonia region of north-east Spain which involve processions with giants and outsize animals; some also involve hobby horses (of the “tourney” type, but with a more-or-less realistic head and body, nowadays often constructed from fibreglass). The Basque country on the borders of France and Spain has a strong dance tradition.
One can image the artist requiring Ruth and George to pause in their chores or play, in order to come over and pose. The canvases show evidence of having been folded over at some point, perhaps even while the paint was not quite dry, in order to accomodate smaller frames . Modest in size and almost certainly made for his family’s pleasure (and perhaps to hone the artist’s skills) these works demonstrate Peckhams’ special affinity for young subjects.
A number of animals, real and mythical, are impersonated in the parades that form a major part of the festivities. Among them is a larger-than-life Mulassa carried by two dancers who are hidden under its skirts, apart from their legs. Known only in Lincolnshire, they are made from a farm sieve frame, with head and tail attached, suspended from the performer’s shoulders. The performer wears a horse blanket that covers them and the sieve. The Hobby Horse helped set the blueprints for how art is seen today. The contributors majorly attributed to the Arts & Crafts Movement- which influenced almost all art forms at the time.
Here, Uncle Toby’s obsession with the military leads to him and Trim – who gets caught up in Toby’s enthusiasm – to begin acting out military actions. At Ezpeize the formal dancing is suddenly interrupted by a wild invasion. An unruly gang of rustically dressed characters, wearing masks or facial disguise, rushes into the dancing area in pairs, with loud cries. There is a doctor and a nurse, in white coats with a red cross on the back. They all race around the dancing space in an anti-clockwise direction and then fall to the ground in a writhing heap.
The person acting the creature is covered by a cloth attached to the back of its head; he bends over forwards or crouches, holding the head in front of their own and resting the other end of the stick on the ground. When the cloth is long enough, such as the sheet used by the Welsh Mari Lwyd, the performer can also stand up, lifting the head in front of their face or above their head. In Newfoundland, hobby horses of the “mast” type were sometimes used by the mummers or ‘janneys’ who went mummering around the Christmas season; they also took a Christmas bull, made in a similar manner, on their house-to-house visits. The mischievous horse was not intended to be malevolent, but its appearance and antics often frightened those it visited or encountered. Mummering was dying out but has enjoyed a recent revival, and the first Mummers Festival (held in St John’s in December 2009) even had workshops on making hobby horses. Several “frisky horses”, tourney hobby horses, accompany the traditional group Les Tambourinaires de Sant-Sumian, from Brignoles, a folklore revival group founded in 1942.
These are both quarterly periodicals from London in the vein of the Hobby Horse. The Hobby Horse was “the harbinger of the growing Arts & Crafts interest in typography, graphic design, and printing.”