Two for the Ride

What do Prancing Horse with Head Turned and Horse have in common, other than an elegantly raised right foreleg, as if about to canter out of the Milwaukee Art Museum? They’re each fashioned by hand, one in the Eastern Han Dynasty and the other in America, circa 1880.

However, it’s their differences that intrigue. Prancing Horse with Head Turned is missing a tail, and I guess the missing tail perhaps was earthenware with green glaze, though maybe it was real horsehair. A visitor asked me, “What happened to the tail?” as if I’d know. I guessed. “Oh, lots of parts have gone missing in ancient artifacts.” He seemed to accept my explanation.

Horse has a tail of genuine horsehair, eyes of glass, and a painted canvas saddle. He’s made of wood, carved and assembled. Was he a rich kid’s toy, or part of a display outside of a venue that sold equestrian accoutrements? His elegant neck is arched and every bit of him is as graceful as the horse from Han, but thousands of years separate their making, and at MAM, they’re separated by several floors. Prancing Horse is in the east galleria, and Horse hides (a little joke here) upstairs in the American Folk Art collection. Porcupines, monkeys and a huge spotted cat keep him company.

This is my third visit to the Summer of China exhibition. Before leaving today, I read Lee Ann Garrison’s lovely feature on the contemporary components of the event. Her discussion on the meaning of “smiling” faces in various art works gave me new insight into a piece I wrote about the Entertainers, a trio of funny guys who reside under glass in the east wing, just a bit north of where the horse with no tail prances. Perhaps (I’m wondering), the smiles on the faces of the Entertainers aren’t smiles at all, but stretched grimaces concealing the pain of lives hard-lived. Nah. Not those guys. They’re having too much fun.

China is an exhibition best taken in small bites, as if eating with delicate chopsticks. It remains on view through Sept. 11, 2011. For more information, visit the Milwaukee Art Museum online.