For Thursday is Art Day I’m featuring Sawrey Gilpin’s painting ‘Gulliver talking to the Houyhnhms’

Oil painting reproduction of “Gulliver Addressing the Houyhnhnms” a painting by Sawrey Gilpin.

I’m quite fascinated by this painting, so recently, I revisited the book Gulliver’s Travels and became absorbed in Book IV and his voyage to the Houyhnhms. Do you know it?

Most people know the book Gulliver’s Travels, it’s a story that involves the voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, who works on board a ship as a surgeon. Due to a series of ill fated journey’s to specific ports, Gulliver ends up on several unknown islands living with people and animals of unusual sizes, strange behaviours, interesting philosophies. Somehow, after each adventure, Gulliver is able to return to his home in England and once recovered he sets out on yet another new voyage. It seems Gulliver never quite learns his lesson or maybe he just has a serious case of wanderlust!

In a simple explanation, the Houyhnhms are gentle, philosophical horses and man (on this island) is ape-like and called a Yahoo. The hierarchy is changed, with the horses being the leaders and the man the followers. The painting by Sawrey Gilpin titled, Gulliver talking to the Houyhnhms is as thought provoking as the idea of horses actually ruling the world. I wonder what life would be like if our horses were the ‘boss of us.’ Come to think of it? I actually think they are the boss of us! Horses are very good at working together, for their survival, with a very clear hierarchy within their herd environment. What do you think?

GULLIVER’S TRAVELS

http://www.cliffsnotes.com – adapted from a book summary by Jonathon Swift

While Gulliver is captain of a merchant ship bound for Barbados and the Leeward Islands, several of his crew become ill and die on the voyage. Gulliver hires several replacement sailors in Barbados. These replacements turn out to be pirates who convince the other crew members to mutiny. As a result, Gulliver is deposited on a “strand” (an island) to fend for himself. Almost immediately, he is discovered by a herd of ugly, despicable human-like creatures who are called, he later learns, Yahoos. They attack him by climbing trees and defecating on him. He is saved from this disgrace by the appearance of a horse, identified, he later learns, by the name Houyhnhnm. The grey horse (a Houyhnhnm) takes Gulliver to his home, where he is introduced to the grey’s mare (wife), a colt and a foal (children), and a sorrel nag (the servant). Gulliver also sees that the Yahoos are kept in pens away from the house. It becomes immediately clear that, except for Gulliver’s clothing, he and the Yahoos are the same animal. From this point on, Gulliver and his master (the grey) begin a series of discussions about the evolution of Yahoos, about topics, concepts, and behaviors related to the Yahoo society, which Gulliver represents, and about the society of the Houyhnhnms.

Despite his favoured treatment in the grey steed’s home, the kingdom’s Assembly determines that Gulliver is a Yahoo and must either live with the uncivilized Yahoos or return to his own world. With great sadness, Gulliver takes his leave of the Houyhnhnms. He builds a canoe and sails to a nearby island where he is eventually found hiding by a crew from a Portuguese ship. The ship’s captain returns Gulliver to Lisbon, where he lives in the captain’s home. Gulliver is so repelled by the sight and smell of these “civilized Yahoos” that he can’t stand to be around them. Eventually, however, Gulliver agrees to return to his family in England. Upon his arrival, he is repelled by his Yahoo family, so he buys two horses and spends most of his days caring for and conversing with the horses in the stable in order to be as far away from his Yahoo family as possible.