Dalecarlian horse
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Dalecarlian horse (Swedish: Dalahäst) is a traditional wooden statuette of a horse originating in the Swedish province of Dalarna (Dalecarlia). In the older days the dala horse was mostly a toy for children, but nowadays it is used as a symbol for Dalarna or sometimes the whole of Sweden.
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[edit] History
Traditionally a dala horse is painted bright red with details and a harness in white, green, yellow and blue. It may also be painted bright blue or, in the Rättvik area, grey. The somewhat odd shape of the horse is said to be derived from the clocks industry in the region. The horses were originally made of the cutoff corners when making the round clock face.
It was in the small log cabins deep in the forests during the long winter nights in front of a log fire that the forerunner of the dala horse was born. Using simple tools, generally only a knife, woodcarvers made toys for their children. It was only natural that many of these toys were horses, because the horse was invaluable in those days -- a trusty friend and worker who could pull great loads of timber from the forests during the winter months, and in the summer could be of just as much use on the farm. The Dalecarlian horse is said by some to be a model of Odin's horse Sleipner, but unlike Sleipner it does not have eight legs.
The earliest references to wooden horses for sale are from 1623 -- nearly 400 years ago. The pattern of today is about 150 years old, and it reflects a style of painting known as kurbits. In the 19th century, Stickå-Erik Hansson from Mora introduced the technique of painting with two colours on the same brush, still used today. The Dalecarlian horse of today is still a handcrafted article, made of pine. At least nine different people contribute their skills to create each horse.
[edit] Origins
The carving of Dala horses is thought to have started in the village of Bergkarlas, though the nearby "horse" villages of Risa, Vattnas and Nusnas were also centers of horse making. The villages were involved in the art of furniture and clock-making, and it is likely the leftover scraps of wood were at first whittled into toy horses for children as a winter pastime.
But the art of carving and painting the small horses quickly flourished in the 1800's, as economic hardship in the region inspired greater production of the little horses, and they became an important item of barter. Horse-making may have started as something to while away the hours during the long winter months but soon the Dala horses were traded in exhange for household goods and their carving and painting blossomed into a full-fledged cottage industry. The rural families depended on horse production to help keep food on the table, as the skills of horse carving and painting were passed from one generation to the next.
The decoration on the Dala horse (the first horses were not painted or were only one color) has its roots in furniture painting and was perfected over the years. Perhaps the most famous decorator was Mora artist Stika Erik Hansson from Risa, the first of the horse painters to paint with two colors on the brush at one time.
There were the horse whittlers and there were the horse painters - and it was considered a great honor for a whittler to have his horse painted by a reknowned painter such as Stika Erik! (Interestingly, in the book "The Wooden Horses of Sweden," the author discovered that this famous Dala painter is buried in a small churchyard in Nebraska after having immigrated to the Midwest in 1887 at the age of 64.) Stika Erik's method of using 2 colors at one time with a very fine brush is still used today.
[edit] Geographical differences
Individual artists each had their particular style of painting, and the few who are old enough to remember first- or second-hand the history can often tell which parish, and in some cases which carver or painter, turned out a particular horse!
The horses have distinctive shapes. Some horses like the Nusnas horse are stocky work horses; others are lean and upright with stately countenance like the Rattvik horse. Many of the works by the earliest horse makers are no longer in existence but those that remain are cherished and their unique designs are reproduced.
Today, Nusnas is the center of Dala horse production with the most famous being the Nils Olsson and Grannas Olsson workshops. The old-style horses are hand-carved and painted to replicate the style of the antique horses found in Swedish museums or held in private family collections.
[edit] Production
Grannas A. Olssons Hemslöjd AB, founded in 1922, is the oldest company which still makes Dalecarlian horses. Nils Olssons Hemslöjd is almost as old. Today most horses are made in Nusnäs, a little village outside Mora.
The wood from which the figures are carved comes from the slow-growing pine forest around Lake Siljan. The wood is ideal for carpentry and carving. The trees to be made into horses are marked out while still standing in the forest. Only the best timber will be selected for carving into horses. The trees are felled and sawn into pieces of a suitable size for the blanks that will eventually be made into Dalecarlian horses.
The blanks are sawn and carved by hand. Because of this, no two horses are exactly alike. The horses are dipped in primer immediately after carving, to reveal any defects in the wood that may need to be fixed. After priming, any cavities in the wood are filled in to ensure extra smoothness. The horses are polished to give them a smooth, attractive finish.
After sanding, the horses are dipped into paint of the appropriate colour. The traditional pattern is painted free-hand by practised "ripple" painters. The art of rippling requires great skill and takes many years to learn. Finally, "all the fine horses" are varnished and sent out from Nusnäs to serve as a symbol of Sweden in the outside world.
