Carousel horse by Ric Druet - freedom at last...
A horse’s head was probably the second thing I learned how to draw. I don’t mean at the stage of crayoning matchstick people and houses, but later, around the age of eight or nine, when my talented sister-in-law Vicky started to instruct me (don’t get too excited – I never did become an artist!)
The iconic shape of a horse's head, simply drawn, is a chess knight...
The first thing I learned to draw with a pencil was a human head – a woman with her hair up, Victorian-style, although I never did quite get it right where the head joins on to a body. Then the second image was the profile of a horse. It’s so easy, so stylised, that wonderful curve of jaw and arc of mane. At its simplest it’s a chess knight – but let’s hold our horses, as that iconic form may lead to a whole other blog post.
Here I am looking at that other beautifully seductive form – the carousel horse. I always wanted to ride on one but I very rarely had the chance. Instead I was always persuaded to spend fairground time shying at coconuts and throwing ping-bong balls into goldfish bowls.
What’s the attraction of the carousel horse? Apart from the obvious My Little Pony aspect?
Maybe it’s because you are galloping along on a beautiful horse with hypnotic piping organ music, apparently going faster and faster and getting dizzy with delight… But the sense of freedom is an illusion – in the end you are tethered, having ups and downs but in the end you are just going around in circles.
Carousel, the musical and film, was about life and death and love...
A bit like life, really? Which is no doubt why the carousel was the central image of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical (and film) of the same name, set in newly industrialised New England in the 1870s and all about life and death and love. Some great songs, such as You’ll Never Walk Alone. I cry every time.
Fairgrounds and amusement arcades always have that certain feeling of danger attached to them. In the USA it’s “the carny” (carnival), in the UK funfairs are traditionally associated with travelling folk and gypsies.
Because they come and go they are “outsiders” and for this reason they make settled people nervous and are often blamed for thefts and crimes in the area during their brief stays. Cher’s Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves ring a bell?
But back to the horses. Here I am searching out wonderful images of carousel horses – and zebras, and unicorns and maybe even carousel centaurs…
Please click on the pictures to go to the original sources of the images.
These pretty little horses on a mini merry-go-round on Bournemouth Pier started me thinking...
A couple of pretty little horses on a roundabout at the end of Bournemouth Pier the other week started me off on this. Roundabout? Merry-go-round? Carousel? I’d better investigate these names…
Carousel comes from the French carrousel but originally the Spanish carosella, meaning “little battle”, as originally it was a cavalry training device with riders suspended in baskets around a central pole. There’s lots more about that on Wikipedia.
The idea developed into an amusement ride with “flying horses” suspended from a central pillar and flung out by its rotation. But the music-accompanied steam-powered rotating platforms we know and love as carousels today date from about the middle of the 19th century. Eventually the machinery evolved to enable the up-and-down movement of the horses on their own barley-sugar brass poles.
A glorious Venetian carousel at night in Japan – so inviting...
Early carousels and most modern American carousels have nothing but horses, so are often called gallopers. In the UK it’s more common to have an assortment of animals real and mythical and chairs or sleds as well, although these don’t go up and down. In the UK we tend to call them merry-go-rounds or even roundabouts (although that name often refers to much smaller push-around rides in playgrounds).
Here are a selection of standard, but colourful, carousel horses.
Another Venetian carousel, this time in Helsinki, by Muu-karhu – note that it has other animals and sleighs as well as horses...
Horse on Carousel, San Francisco, by Christy Currey
Black carousel horse by Jack Harwick
Glorious carousel horse with roses at Roger Williams Park, Providence, Rhode Island, USA, by Alcinoe
Rather wild white carousel horse at Lake Quassy by Craig Houghton
This battered carousel horse prop was on display at Treasures in Paradise in Disney's California Adventure park
And here are some carousel horse designs…
Carousel horse poster - with roses - by Margaret Horvat
A spiky one inspired by Carousel by Siouxsie and the Banshees, by RagdollStiches for Deviant Art
A very fleshy carousel horse by apollo22 for Deviant Art
Then they are found in home decor…
Carousel horse from Designer Stencils
Carousel horse cross-stitch chart from Maria Diaz
Carousel horses are also found in stained glass…
Carousel horse - with roses - in stained glass from Mamzelle du M
Stained glass carousel horse by Jennifer Howard
Carousel horse stained-glass design by FireDragon101
Carousel horse stained glass pattern from The Oak Tree
Then there are various carousel horse trinkets and toys…
Prancing Irish carousel horse trinket made of resin
Black carousel horse children's ride from Kiddie Rides USA
Sterling silver and gold horse with diamonds from Balgara, makers of miniature musical carousels
Personally I love the horses in armour
Horse head from the Riverfront Carousel in Salem, Oregon, by Crossmark
Carousel horse - with gems - created in PhotoShop from Freaking News
The lead horse or King Horse, the most elaborately carved horse on the Euro Disney Carousel outside Paris. It is one of 17 horses designed and made for Euro Disney by Joe Leonard
Prince the lead horse on the 1909 Louff carousel at Spokane, Washington, by the Trailer Gypsies
Carved armoured carousel horse by Joe Leonard
Realistic black carousel horse in peacock livery by Hbruton for Deviant Art
And then what about carousel unicorns?
Of course the easiest way to make a horse into a unicorn is to give it unicorn armour - this is a beautiful one on a Victorian carousel at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, pictured by Judy Watt
A close up view of the head of a very similar unicorn-armoured carousel horse at a wonderful old amusement park called Trimpers, just off the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland, by Terry McTigue
Carousel unicorn poster by Margaret Horvat
Carousel unicorn by BronzePig
An ethereal carousel unicorn by Beltane Egyptian for Deviant Art - no way could you ride on the back of this one!
Sapphire jewelled carousel unicorn from the Hamilton Collection
And then let’s not forget carousel zebras…
Zebra Carousel Horse in Salisbury, North Carolina, by Veena Waziri
Carousel zebra poster by Margaret Horvat
Zebra in the Carousel Animals pattern by Lenox China
Beautiful hand-carved wooden carousel zebra from b2b Fine Art
And finally what about a centaur as a carousel ride, I thought? Well at least one person had the same idea…
I thought I might find one somewhere - here's a comic carousel centaur by The Antarctican
Links:
Here’s an interesting German fairground museum website
The Squirrelbasket 
Thanks so much for featuring one of my photos! I like the article and hope you will be able to get to a fair soon and take a twirl on a roundabout. Thanks again.
Christy Currey
Well, thank you for not minding my using one of your pictures – it was a very lovely and colourful one!
Best wishes in all that you do!
x
Interesting – even puzzling, considering carousels are for children – to see how many horses here either mimic the stance of the destrier (the stances and movements of dressage, which they also resemble, are also based upon those of the destrier, but far more formalised), or actually are scaled-down deptictions of the armoured war-horse itself – those with the head spikes, particularly.
The spike, rather than to emulate a unicorn, was actually functional, as armoured knight and armoured horse fought as a unit, both equally lethal. This is demonstrated, again, in the large, prominent, teeth of the armoured horses – this is not a friendly grin . . .
The Euro Disney King Horse, of all the carousel destrier-types here, has the only authentic saddle, the high cantle (at the rear), being designed to keep the rider in place in the even of a frontal impact**. The historical accuracy suggests (to me at least), that this horse is probably French in origin, or in design, at least.
**It also makes a great deal of sense in terms of keeping little kids in place.
Ron.
Thanks for dropping in to comment, Ron. Hope you are feeling brighter now Christmas is over (and the snow). I think you said you felt a bit low a week or two ago. Have a good 2011.
As for the carousel horses, you know, it never crossed my mind that they were for children! Interesting that you mention armour – I’ve always loved arms and armour and had a little notebook in which I drew various sorts. By the way, have you seen this squirrel armour? You’ll either like it or hate it – could go either way!
By the way, I think I might like to know more about using teasers on my home page, as you were kind of suggesting the other day. Is it possible to do a proper extract with images that links into a full post (rather than into a static page)? Do tell…
best wishes…
Hi Pat,
Completely forgot about your blog – I’ve been very ill since just before Christmas, and only now getting back slowly to some sort of normality (the post that said normal service was about to be resumed was just a tad over-optimistic).
I’ve been a lot worse since then; I seem to have picked up a bug which makes me feel appallingly ill, without providing any objective symptoms, other that a temperature of 102F, that I could take to a doctor. Not even a sniffle.
Anyway, the simplest way to put extracts from your posts on the home page and in subscribers’ emails is to use the “read more” tag. In the New Post pane it’s the fourth from the right on the top row of the main buttons, immediately left of the spell-check button (looks like a page-break symbol).
Just insert the cursor at a point in the post which should encourage people to read on, then click the button. That displays the post up to the cut-off point, and inserts a “Continue Reading” link. You can see how it works on my home page. Mind you, my posts tend to be more text-heavy than yours, which makes it easy to find a good lead-in word . . .
Some themes will allow you to create hand-crafted excerpts, rather than just a snippet from the beginning (you can see the box on the New Post page). At least that’s the answer when the question has been asked in the forums, but I’ve just searched for themes that allow excerpts, and there seems to be only Hemingway (white text on a black ground – which should be a crime against blogging).
Static pages are a no-no. Google loves new content, and will stop seeing a static page quite quickly.
I know you said page rankings don’t matter much to you, but they actually do for someone trying to find you on Google. Type in carousel horses and see how deep you have to dig to find your post. OK, if you add +squirrelbasket to the search string, it’ll pop right up, but you need to attract people who are looking at carousel horses, not just those who know you’re there.
Ron.
Great, thanks for that advice – glad I asked instead of trying for myself, as I thought that “hand-crafted excerpts” bit was the one I needed. I’m not keen on changing my theme, as this one works for me – although I may change the pic at the top eventually.
So that “more” button was staring me in the face all along.
And I was just being defensive about page rankings when I said I didn’t care! Of course I do, but you caught me at a down moment.
Best wishes – glad you are getting back to normal…
Oh, I love this post of beautiful carousel horses. We have a gorgeous carousel in the middle of Central Park, where my friend and I used to go, even as teenagers, to ride and ride. When we were little, we would fantasize about hiding out and being locked into the carousel shed. At night, of course, the horses come alive. But everyone knows that!
Hi My name is Susan Harris and I am starting a childrens consignment store in Virginia called Carousell Consignments I have been looking for a carousel image for our store logo. I have come across your photo of realistic black carousel horse in peacock. I love it! I was wondering if I may use this photo for our store. Thank you Susan Harris
I’m afraid I don’t have the copyright. The picture is by the wonderful Heather Bruton. If you go to this link: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Peacock-Carousel-Horse-21529368 you could perhaps leave a comment and ask her?
Best of luck with your store – come back here and leave another comment with a link if you have a website!
I thought you may like to see the beautiful carousel which is driven by a water wheel in the Isle of Man in Silverdale Glen. I’ve extracted photo from the blog from an Australian lady who visited… so hope these work
http://jannimary.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/abc-tour-crikey-theyre-fast-closer-to.html
I love getting your posts, always interesting! 🙂 I found you first via Aqua Manda and after a trip into Manchester with a friend when we were wondering what the purple flowered trees were in St Peter’s Square, one of your posts identified them! 🙂
Ever so glad you find something of interest in the blog!
And I admire the brightly-painted water-powered carousel horses you have linked to – I see they are made for two people to ride.
All the best 🙂