" BARN SWALLOW & HORSE COLLAR "
Robert Bateman

950 s/n Limited Edition Print
17" x 11.25"
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Barn Swallow and Horse Collar - Robert Bateman

"I am an unabashed nostalgist. Although I believe the times in which we live are
the most exciting in history, I feel that the richness of past eras is equally exciting.
One of the greatest phases of human history which began a couple of thousand
years ago has just passed. that is the era of the horse. From the early days of
ancient babylon until the early 20th century, the horse was the major means
of transportation and was also important in agriculture and industry. When I
was a boy, horses were still used for daily deliveries of bread and milk to
our door in the city. In the countryside, the horse was a more
common sight than a tractor.

When I saw this old horse collar hanging in an abandoned barn, it conjured up all the
richness of past eras. All of those little straps and buckles would be common knowledge
to the men and boys who hitched up “Old Nellie” to whatever she had to pull. They
are meaningless to most of us today. The collar was probably hung on the peg
with a view to repairing it someday. That day never came. The barn swallow,
however, is still as active in this new world as it was in the old, flitting by the
collar that his ancestor would have seen in use." 
Robert Bateman

Barn Swallow and Horse Collar - Robert Bateman

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