"Dalahäst" redirects here. Not to be confused with Dølehest.
The world's largest Dala horse, made of concrete and located in Avesta, Sweden.The world's largest Dala horse painting, painted by Shai Dahan in New York City 2019.
A Dala horse or Dalecarlian horse is a traditional carved, painted wooden statue of a horse originating in the Swedish province of Dalarna (Dalecarlia). In the old days,[when?] the Dala horse was mostly used as a toy for children; in modern times it has become a symbol of Dalarna, as well as of Sweden in general.
Several types of Dala horses are made with distinguishing features common to the locality of the site where they are produced. One particular style has, however, become much more common and widespread than others. It is stoutly carved and was traditionally painted Iron oxide red at first. Now it is usually reddish orange with details and a harness in white, green, yellow and blue.
History
The wooden horses are painted in the kurbits style. This one is from around 1950.
The carving of Dala horses as a livelihood is thought to have started in the village of Bergkarlås[sv] in central Sweden, though the nearby "horse" villages of Risa[sv], Vattnäs, and Nusnäs were also centres 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 put to use in the production of Dala horses.[1] Many early Dala horses were not painted at all, but in the beginning of the 19th century painting them in a single color, white or red, became common practice. The decoration of the Dala horse has its roots in furniture painting and was perfected over the years. According to a local tale, a wandering painter in the style of kurbits came across one of these Dala horses in a farm he was decorating. When asked by one of the children why that horse was not as beautifully painted as the ones in the decorations, he painted the Dala horse in the same style. This tradition was then carried on in order to raise the market value of the Dala horses.
The earliest references to wooden horses for sale are from 1623. In the 19th century,Stikå Erik Hansson[sv] from the village Risa in the parish of Mora introduced the technique of painting with two colours on the same brush, still used today. In the book "The Wooden Horses of Sweden," the author mentions 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. He changed his name to Erik Erikson upon coming to America and is buried at Bega Cemetery in Stanton County Nebraska, outside of Norfolk.
While there were many horse whittlers in the early production of Dala horses, there were comparatively few horse painters. The large number of whittlers and a lack of distinguishing features makes it difficult to distinguish between different whittlers. Early painters very rarely signed their work, but they did have their own distinct pattern from which it is often possible to identify who painted a particular horse. In the 1930s, (especially after the World's Expo in Paris 1937 and World's Fair in New York 1939 in which Dala horses were shown) mass production of Dala horses started. This marks the beginning of a new era for the Dala horse, transitioning from toy to a national symbol and popular souvenir.
The Dala horse of today is still a handcrafted article, made of pine, and its pattern is about 150 years old. At least nine different people contribute their skills to create each horse. The distinctive shape of the horse is due to the usage of flat-plane style carving.
Folklore and popular culture
An apocryphal legend of the Dala horse is that they became the national toy in 1716. According to the legend, soldiers loyal to King Charles XII were quartered in Dalarna and carved the toys as gifts for their hosts.[2]
In the 2003 Norwegian film Kitchen Stories, a small Dala horse is part of a joke when a character expected a real horse as a reward.
Geographical differences
A Dala horse painted by Rytter Olof Matsson, Risa, around 1910.
Early production of Dala horses was concentrated to four villages: Bergkarlås, Risa, Vattnäs, and Nusnäs, all in the parish of Mora. Production is believed to have started in Bergkarlås and later spread to nearby villages Risa and Vattnäs through kindred. At about the same time production started independently in Nusnäs, and being farther away their style was less influenced by those of the other villages. The individual painters each had their particular style, and the few who are old enough to remember first- or second-hand the history can often tell which village, and in some cases which carver or painter, turned out a particular horse. The distinguishing features of many early painters from these villages have now been documented.[3][4]
Many of the works by the earliest horse makers are no longer in existence but those that remain are cherished by their owners and have often been passed down through generations. These are also coveted by collectors, and their value has risen markedly over the years.
Today, many of the villages in Dalarna county make Dala horses with individual styles representing the district of origin. These horses also have distinctive shapes and often come in different sizes. Some horses like the Nusnäs horse are stocky work horses; others are lean and upright with stately countenance like the Rättvik horse. Many of these can be seen at a yearly exhibition (since the year 2000), which is held at Klockargården in Leksand, Sweden. Currently, about forty present carvers and painters show their Dala horses and put them up for sale.
Today, Nusnäs is the centre of Dala horse production with the most famous being the Nils Olsson and Grannas Olsson workshops. Grannas A. Olssons Hemslöjd AB, founded in 1922, is the oldest company which still makes Dala horses. Nils Olssons Hemslöjd is almost as old. The horses made at these workshops share the same familiar pattern which most people associate to Dala horses. Apart from these, old-style horses are also hand-carved and painted in limited editions to replicate the style of the antique horses found in Swedish museums or held in private family collections. These are numbered and signed, so that they cannot be confused with an original early Dala horse.
The wood from which the figures are carved comes from the slow-growing pine forests 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 sawed into pieces of a suitable size for the blanks that will eventually be made into Dala horses.
The blanks are sawed 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.
In the United States, you can also view the production of Dala horses at the Hemslöjd, in Lindsborg, Kansas. This workshop is modelled after the hemslöjds you will find throughout Sweden's countryside. Guests are welcome to watch and talk as woodworkers and artists create the handcrafted horses. Artists work in shop Monday through Saturday, and woodworkers are busy in the mornings Monday through Friday. You can also find the beautiful Dala horses that are imported from workshops in Sweden.
Production of Dala horses
Bertil Grund in the "Grannas A. Olsson Hemslöjd" Factory
Dala horses were introduced to North America at the 1939 World's Fair in New York.[5] The architects Sven Markelius and Anders Beckman chose the Dala horse because they were searching for a powerful symbol for the Swedish pavilion at the fair.
A similar Dala horse can be seen in Andersonville, Chicago, donated by the Swedish American Women's Educational Association (SWEA) to the Swedish American Museum. SWAE commissioned the Swedish Artist Lars Gillis to paint the Dala horse in a way that represents the connection between Sweden and Chicago. After eight years, the original Dala horse could not withstand the harsh Chicago weather conditions and was removed in 2013 for restoration that took a year.[6] It is now kept in the lobby of the Swedish American Museum, which provided a fiberglass replica placed on the corner of Clark and Farragut streets.[7][8]
Notes
↑ Art & Technique of Scandinavian Style Woodcarving by Harley Refsal (2004) - Fox Chapel Publishing
↑ Oddball Minnesota: A Guide to Some Really Strange Places by Jerome Pohlen (2003) - Chicago Review Press
Lindsborg is a city in McPherson County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 3,776. Lindsborg is known for its large Swedish, other Nordic and Scandinavian heritages. It is home to the biennial Svensk Hyllningsfest.
Anders Leonard Zorn was a Swedish artist. He attained international success as a painter, sculptor, and etching artist. Among Zorn's portrait subjects include King Oscar II of Sweden and three American Presidents: Grover Cleveland, William H. Taft, and Theodore Roosevelt. At the end of his life, he established the Swedish literary Bellman Prize in 1920.
Dalarna, also referred to by the English exonyms Dalecarlia and the Dales, is a landskap in central Sweden.
Grinling Gibbons was an Anglo-Dutch sculptor and wood carver known for his work in England, including Windsor Castle, the Royal Hospital Chelsea and Hampton Court Palace, St Paul's Cathedral and other London churches, Petworth House and other country houses, Trinity College, Oxford and Trinity College, Cambridge. Gibbons was born to English parents in Holland, where he was educated.
Wood carving is a form of woodworking by means of a cutting tool (knife) in one hand or a chisel by two hands or with one hand on a chisel and one hand on a mallet, resulting in a wooden figure or figurine, or in the sculptural ornamentation of a wooden object. The phrase may also refer to the finished product, from individual sculptures to hand-worked mouldings composing part of a tracery.
Matryoshka dolls, also known as stacking dolls, nesting dolls, Russian tea dolls, or Russian dolls, are a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside another. The name matryoshka, literally 'little matron', is a diminutive form of Matryosha (Матрёша), in turn a diminutive of the Russian female first name Matryona (Матрёна).
Rose-painting, rosemaling, rosemåling or rosmålning is a Scandinavian decorative folk painting that flourished from the 1700s to the mid-1800s, particularly in Norway. In Sweden, rose-painting began to be called dalmålning, c. 1901, for the region Dalecarlia where it had been most popular and kurbits, in the 1920s, for a characteristic trait, but in Norway the old name still predominates beside terms for local variants. Rose-painting was used to decorate church walls and ceilings. It then spread to wooden items commonly used in daily life, such as ale bowls, stools, chairs, cupboards, boxes, and trunks. Using stylized ornamentation made up of fantasy flowers, scrollwork, fine line work, flowing patterns and sometimes geometric elements give rose-painting its unique feel. Some paintings may include landscapes and architectural elements. Rose-painting also utilizes other decorative painting techniques such as glazing, spattering, marbleizing, manipulating the paint with the fingers or other objects. Regional styles of rose-painting developed, and some varied only slightly from others, while others may be noticeably distinct.
Mora is a locality and the seat of Mora Municipality in Dalarna County, Sweden, with 10,896 inhabitants in 2010.
Alebrijes are brightly colored Mexican folk art sculptures of fantastical (fantasy/mythical) creatures.
A rocking horse is a child's toy, usually shaped like a horse and mounted on rockers similar to a rocking chair. There are two sorts, the one where the horse part sits rigidly attached to a pair of curved rockers that are in contact with the ground, and a second sort, where the horse hangs on a rigid frame by iron straps the horse moves only relative to the frame, which does not move.
Carl Johan Trygg, formally Carl Johan Thrygg, also knowns as C. J. Trygg, woodcarver, was one of the recognized masters of twentieth century woodcarving, most famous for Scandinavian flat-plane style of woodcarving. Between C. J. Trygg and his sons they carved over 10,000 figures. Many of his carvings were sold to tourists for approximately $10.00 USD. Adjusted for inflation what cost $10.00 in 1929 would cost $108.05 in 2005.
Carl Olof Trygg, was one of the recognized masters of 20th century woodcarving, most famous for Scandinavian flat-plane style of woodcarving.
Axel "Döderhultarn" Petersson, formerly Axel Petersson, was a Swedish wood carver who was one of the recognized masters of wood carving, most famous for Scandinavian flat-plane-style woodcarving.
Nils Trygg (1914–1951) was one of the recognized masters of twentieth century woodcarving, most famous for the Scandinavian flat-plane style of woodcarving. Nils Trygg was born in Småland, Sweden. He was one of three sons of Carl Johan Trygg and Maria Axelina Andersson. Nils worked with his father carving wooden figures of various common people in the Scandinavian flat-plane style of woodcarving. Between Nils Trygg, his father and two brothers, they carved over 10,000 figures. Many of his carvings were sold to tourists for approximately US$10. Adjusted for inflation what cost $10 in 1929 would cost $108 in 2005.
Emil Janel was a Swedish-born, American artist. A still life painter, he is mainly known for his caricatures in the Scandinavian flat-plane style of woodcarving, and is considered by many to be one of the best of this genre.
Swedish art refers to the visual arts produced in Sweden or by Swedish artists. Sweden has existed as a country for over 1,000 years, and for times before this, as well as many subsequent periods, Swedish art is usually considered as part of the wider Nordic art of Scandinavia. It has, especially since about 1100, been strongly influenced by wider trends in European art. After World War II, the influence of the United States strengthened substantially. Due to generous art subsidies, contemporary Swedish art has a big production per capita.
The Ferry County Carousel is an operational wooden carousel located three miles (5 km) east of the town of Republic, Washington on the Ferry County Fairgrounds. This carousel features 24 horses in two rows and is fitted with a jumping mechanism. The Ferry County Carousel is one of only seven classic wooden carousels in Washington state and possibly the oldest.
Vahanas or "vehicles" of Hindu Gods are mythical characters having significant religious value. Temples in India use depictions of these vehicles in many forms during temple processions. National Museum, New Delhi houses a collection of Carved Wood Vahanas in the gallery of decorative arts. This collection at the National Museum is unique among museums in India, which includes large images of Garuda, Hanuman, elephant, horse, swan and lion and these artefacts are mostly from the period between the 17th and 20th century. Ancient Indian temples house numerous kinds of wood carvings having religious context to be used for various temple activities. The majority of Vahanas are made of wood and decorated with designs made with varied techniques. Vahanas have been mentioned in temple inscriptions dating back to the 13th century.
Jacobo Angeles is a Mexican artisan from San Martín Tilcajete, Oaxaca who is known for his hand carved and distinctly painted alebrije figures. The town is noted for its production of these figures which generally are carvings of animals painted in bright colors and bold designs, and Angeles grew up carving the local wood they are made from. The artisan's work has become distinguished for the painting of fine, intricate designs over the base paint, often inspired by Zapotec and other indigenous designs. He works with his wife María del Carmen Mendoza, at the couple's home and workshop in their hometown. While Angeles continues to create alebrijes, much of the production of the workshop is done by younger members of the Angeles family, which is a tourist attraction in the town. Angeles travels frequently to promote alebrijes and Zapotec culture, especially in the United States, and his work has been shown in major venues in Mexico and abroad, as well as featured in two books. In 2014, he was invited to the Vatican to meet Pope Francis and set alebrije nativity scenes and Christmas tree ornaments.
The Embriachi workshop was an important producer of objects in carved ivory and carved bone, set in a framework of inlaid wood. They operated in north Italy from around 1375 to perhaps as late as 1433, apparently moving from Florence to Venice about 1395. They are especially known for what are now called marriage caskets or wedding caskets, hexagonal or oblong caskets about a foot across, with lids that rise up in the centre. Their output of these was probably made for stock rather than individual commissions, and filled a market for gifts for betrothals and weddings. They sold mirrors framed in a similar style, though fewer of these have survived, and religious pieces both small and in a few cases very large.
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