HAIG AND HIS HORSE.

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVI, Issue 68, 25 February 1938, Page 1

HAIG AND HIS HORSE.

A LONDON BATTLE. HUNTERS AND ARTISTS. There has been a fearful row in England over a statue of Lord Haig on horseback, says the “Winnipeg Free Press.” Art lovers and horse lovers have been at each other’s throats, and the statue now stands in Whitehall a forlorn subject of public controversy. Hardly had the statue been unveiled before the storm broke. The “Daily Telegraph” led the assault. Its art critic, T. W. Earp, said that “the commemoration of a great leader has not received the artistic or imaginative appropriateness that was hoped,” while the hunting correspondent, a former “Morning Post” man, said “the enormous quarters—stretched out behind like a liapkney in a show ring—exaggerate an unnatural stance. One foreleg is planted so far forward as to make it doubtful whether the horse could stand thus at all. The other is raised in tlie conventional pawing attitude which is intended to indicate that the horse is being sharply reined in. Yet its rider’s hands show no indication of performing such an operation. ’ “A MONSTROSITY.” Lord Gisborough, who had often played polo and hunted with Lord Ilai"' called it a “horrible monstrosity.” Apart from the absence of any hat (unheard of) and the cloak, “the worst part is the horse's neck and head. I do not believe it is physically possible for a head to be in that position.” Besides, he wrote, Lord Haig had “good hands” and would certainly not ride like that, ever. Mr George E. Collins (late R.F.A.) wrote “why tell it- lie to future generations' by making him appear to have had such a shockingtaste in horseflesh, half hackney, half carthorse.” Lord Rosebery, for many years M.F.H. ol the Whirldon Chase delivered himself briefly: “No horse’was ever foaled remotely resembling the one in the statue, and if one ever had been born Lord Haig would have been the last to have ridden it. Yours very truly.” Mr H. G. Duly asked plaintively if a general should be hatless: “Surely a general never rode without

his hat.” This question was promptly answered bv another writer, who said: “The whole attitude of the general is one of dignity and repose, while that of the horse is impossibly restive. I can readily understand that any rider might have lost Iris hat upon such a horse.” THE ARTISTS REPLY. By this time aesthetes were beginning to protest the entrance of military men into art criticism. One such said that the horse was nol a real horse but a symbolic horse, emblem of power, lie reminded people of the Assyrian friezes in tile British Museum. Sir Herbert Baker wrote nt the mysterious .sculptural values nt rhythmical design so admirably expressed. But his voice was shouted down by the aged Lord Lonsdale, who said the horse in question was “the most awful thing 1 ever saw . . . un metrically impossible. 1 very much regret that Lord Haig should be per mauently represented on an annual ot a class he certainly never rode in his life." Another writer suggesl.nl the sculptor si Id have studied a cast of St. Simon, a famous Borin win ner, before tackling his subject But I lie aesthetes were not xol done for.- One wrote that "if 01 the future an equestrian statue of a sol dior is to he creeled, the assessors should he one portrait photographer, two veterinary surgeons, and two niiliinrx tailors." The battle alill goes on.