ABOUT PAINTINGS FROM “THE MUSEUM OF ORLOV TROTTER AND RUSSIAN TROIKA”
When the visitors of “The museum of ORLOV TROTTER and RUSSIAN TROIKA» see painting of horses they have a lot of questions. What are peasant sledges and what are urban sledges? Why did harness an racehorse to the sled?
It is interesting and useful to offer you small annotations to paintings of Dmitry Finagenov which are in the Scene of rural life.
“They have mislaid”
An episode of a peasant life.
Someone was driving an unfamiliar road for anything and mislaid. It was quickly getting dark. It was necessary to find a shelter. One of the fellow travelers went to find out the road, so as they did not to rack a horse on the virgin snow.
There is a sleigh in this picture. There are several differences of this sleigh from urban sleigh. Primarily the sled runners are narrow, they are suitable for riding along the path.
Rural roads were not cleared and it was very hard for horses towing sled on the virgin snowy road. There is another difference from urban sleigh – «uckos».There are brackets on the sides of the sleigh. These brackets prevent rollover the sled.
We see that the horse has not a hard work.
“Koval from Boulogne horse”
( farrier – a blacksmith shoeing horses master )
The scene from the life of the XIX century, we can see and now such scene.
A Boulogne horse was rare for Russia of the XIX century. And now this horse is uncommon. Such horses were bought for fun. This horse was considered “foreign rarity” and therefore the owner of a Boulogne horse had more social status and there was more interest to owner.
In the picture we can see that the owner
looks after very well the horse. This horse is very attractive and beautiful. It is coddle.This horse is not like the other horses which do hard labor.
The Orlov Trotter. Prichul.
There is a wonderful representative of the breed horse – an Orlov Trotter called Prichul in the picture.
There were a few problems: to create the perfect breed functional and to create a perfect appearance.It was necessary: a horse body must have the proportion of the quadrate, the horse muzzle must be narrow like the Arabian racehorse with wide nostrils, expressive snoring horse, with saucer eyes, shoulders horses must be properly set, the neck must be graceful, breast should be muscular.
This stallion meets all requirements of the breed.
During the road
The peasant is hurrying to take back one officer to the village. This trip was business because the harness of horse is usual and simple. The face of the peasant is austere. It is problematically to go with someone in winter when it darkens quickly the night falls but it is impossible to refuse a gentleman at that time. We see there is a submissive horse in this picture but now she gallops sad because the cabman is grumpy and he abruptly controls his horse.
“The Cossacks”
There is a patrol of Cossack in the park «Sokolniki» in Moscow. In Moscow the police patrol (a cavalry)were often formed accordingly to color of the horses in Moscow. It was possible to determine in which regiment the riders were serving. The Cossacks also served in such patrols. The Cossacks outposts, the Cossacks patrols were made in the army across Russia. One of the patrols in the park “Sokolniki” is illustrated in the picture.