{"id":2765,"date":"2017-05-17T10:19:48","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T09:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sussex.ac.uk\/english\/dalziel\/?p=2765"},"modified":"2018-11-07T16:15:51","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T16:15:51","slug":"white-knights-and-errant-engravings-reading-the-horse-in-dalziel-by-emma-newport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sussex.ac.uk\/english\/dalziel\/2017\/05\/17\/white-knights-and-errant-engravings-reading-the-horse-in-dalziel-by-emma-newport\/","title":{"rendered":"White Knights and Errant Engravings: Reading the Horse in Dalziel, by Emma Newport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emma Newport is a Teaching Fellow at the University of Sussex, having previously been a Research Fellow at King\u2019s College London. She is interested in eighteenth-century attitudes to China and, more broadly, in women\u2019s positions in a network of global exchanges of ideas and objects. Emma teaches Romantic poetry, with a focus on lyric poetry, William Blake and women writers; Jane Austen and her fellow women novelists in context; and creative writing.<\/p>\n

Emma recently organised\u00a0a conference at King\u2019s College London on \u201cWomen, Money and Markets (1750-1850)\u201d; the main speakers were Professor Hannah Barker (University of Manchester) and Caroline Criado-Perez OBE, a campaigner for women in the media. Please see womenmoneymarkets.co.uk<\/a> for further information.<\/p>\n

White Knights and Errant Engravings: Reading the Horse in Dalziel<\/h2>\n
\"\"
Alice walking beside the White Knight, riding a horse, Dalziel after John Tenniel,\u00a0printed in 1957 from the original blocks from 1871,\u00a0\u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An anxious eye fixed on Alice, the White Knight\u2019s horse piaffes \u2013 or, more accurately, passages \u2013 elegantly beneath a jumble of equipment so numerous that saddle and numnah have almost been obscured. With a nicely developed topline (the neck and back muscles that are exercised to increase the strength, balance and condition of the horse), the grey is presented in a slightly overbent shape to emphasise his power and refinement. The movement is very much that of a highly-trained cavalry horse. Mid-nineteenth-century equestrianism developed piaffe and passage for the parade ground in order to demonstrate the skill of the rider, as well as the power, suppleness and obedience of the horse. As the cavalry instructor John Adams noted in 1805:<\/p>\n

These high airs [such as passage and piaffe] are ornamental; as such, many are proper for parade, and when a commandant displays a proficiency in horsemanship, it portends the regiment will profit much by his discrimination and selection of proper and capable persons to ride it; for without he is a horseman himself, he can be but a very indifferent judge of others, unless their abilities are extraordinary, and very conspicuous, which is rarely to be met with.<\/p>\n

John Adams, An Analysis of Horsemanship:\u00a0Teaching the Whole Art of Riding, in the Manege, Military, Hunting, Racing, and Travelling System. Together with the Method of Breaking Horses<\/em> (1805).<\/p>\n

Take a look at an example of passage here: note the elegance of these movements and the military aesthetic of the Spanish Riding School, whose classical dressage performances are the closest modern equivalent to mid-nineteenth-century equestrianism.<\/p>\n

Passage:<\/strong><\/p>\n