Thursday 29 May 2014

Horses

I like horses not because I was born in the year of the horse.

Horses are great animals. They serve mankind diligently, in peace time and also in times of war. Once the animal is tamed, it will listen to you and take you wherever you want to go. All you need to do is to ensure the animal is well fed and well taken care of. Before cars and trains were invented, people relied on horses for transport. I only had one experience riding a horse. That was a few years ago in China where I paid only 10 RMB for a ride on the horse back in a farm. It was fun and exciting as I was worried I might fall off the horse.

Horses are also a favourite subject for artists all over the world. The Chinese Xu Beihong was famous for painting horses and his paintings of horses are auctioned for huge sum of money.

I have here a shoushan stone carving on horses, a total of eight horse galloping into the sky. I really admire the creator of this piece of art who could effortlessly carve out the horses to show off the power and strength of these animals. Ordinary people would have great difficulty drawing the animal on paper, not to mentioned eight of them in different posture. Here the master was able to use his carving tools to create the horses in lively positions.


Horses are great animals. So please do not ill-treat them. I often heard of stories how in ancient times, soldiers had to kill them for food when they ran out of supplies. It saddened me to know that these animals had to die in this way so fellow human could survive.

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