Horse Pictures Images Wallpapers Photos 2013: Carousel Horse Pictures Images Wallpapers Photos 2013

Saturday, 20 July 2013

Carousel Horse Pictures Images Wallpapers Photos 2013

Carousel Horse Pictures Biography

Source(Google.com)

A carousel (from French carrousel, from Italian carosello), or merry-go-round, is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating circular platform with seats for riders. The "seats" are traditionally in the form of rows of wooden horses or other animals mounted on posts, many of which are moved up and down by gearwork to simulate galloping, to the accompaniment of looped circus music. This leads to one of the alternative names, the galloper. Other popular names are jumper, roundabout, horseabout and flying horses.
The Golden Age of the Carousel
The Painted Ponies. The Merry-Go-Round. The Roundabout. All names for the carousel, that magic machine full of brightly colored wooden animals, mirrors, lights, and carnival music usually provided by a Wurlitzer band organ.
The word carousel comes from the Italian word carosello (meaning "little war"). Carosello was a 12th-century game played by the Arabs and Turks, on horseback, using scented balls tossed from one to another. Anyone missing a catch was readily identified by the perfume they were doused with when the scented ball broke on impact.
Carosello was adopted by the French into an exhibition (now called carousel) of many types of horsemanship pageantry and competition, including spearing a ring suspended from a post or tree, while riding at full speed. A practice machine was created to help young knights prepare for this competition - a series of legless wooden horses attached to a rotating platform (driven by human-power or horse-power). When this practice machine proved to be as popular with women and children as it was with the young knights, the carousel was born.
The carousel gained even more popularity when steam power was harnessed to drive the platform around and around. Now the carousel wasn't limited to just the size and weight that could be managed by horse, mule, or man.
Though there were a few carousels operating in the US by the end of the Civil War, the real "golden age" of the carousel was from about 1880 to about 1930. During that time, there were many companies making carousels, including the Dentzel Company, Philadelphia Toboggan Company, M.C. Illions, Herschell-Spillman, Stein & Goldstein, Looff, and C.W. Parker, to name a few.
In addition to the master carvers whose companies bore their name (such as Dentzel and Illions), there were several other 'master' carvers who worked for various companies at different times (and some who even briefly had their own companies). Some of the most famous master carvers included Daniel Muller, Charles Carmel, John Zalar, and Salvatore Cerniglario.
Sadly, out of the many thousands of hand-carved carousels that were built during the 'golden age', only a small fraction have survived, less than 200. Conservation organizations such as the National Carousel Association have done much to preserve the few remaining carousels for future generations. After all - they are magic...just try to ride one with a frown on your face! It won't stay there for long....

Carousel Horse Pictures Images Wallpapers Photos 2013