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55-442: The monument was constructed by Enrico Cerracchio in 1924 and dedicated on August 16, 1925. Modeled on Stephen Seymour Thomas' painting, General Sam Houston at San Jacinto , the equestrian statue depicts Sam Houston atop his horse, wearing military attire and a long cape. He has a beard and points with his right arm. The bronze sculpture measures approximately 20 feet (6.1 m) x 20 feet (6.1 m) x 9 feet (2.7 m), and

110-407: A "symbol-using, symbol making, and symbol misusing animal" to suggest that a person creates symbols as well as misuses them. One example he uses to indicate what he means by the misuse of the symbol is the story of a man who, when told that a particular food item was whale blubber, could barely keep from throwing it up. Later, his friend discovered it was actually just a dumpling. But the man's reaction

165-686: A means of complex communication that often can have multiple levels of meaning. Symbols are the basis of all human understanding and serve as vehicles of conception for all human knowledge. Symbols facilitate understanding of the world in which we live, thus serving as the grounds upon which we make judgments. In this way, people use symbols not only to make sense of the world around them but also to identify and cooperate in society through constitutive rhetoric . Human cultures use symbols to express specific ideologies and social structures and to represent aspects of their specific culture. Thus, symbols carry meanings that depend upon one's cultural background. As

220-483: A more abstract idea. In cartography , an organized collection of symbols forms a legend for a map. The word symbol derives from the late Middle French masculine noun symbole , which appeared around 1380 in a theological sense signifying a formula used in the Roman Catholic Church as a sort of synonym for 'the credo'; by extension in the early Renaissance it came to mean 'a maxim' or 'the external sign of

275-701: A number of times, and an equestrian statue of Queen Victoria features prominently in George Square , Glasgow). In America, the late 1970s and early 1980s witnessed something of a revival in equestrian monuments, largely in the Southwestern United States . There, art centers such as Loveland, Colorado , Shidoni Foundry in New Mexico , and various studios in Texas once again began producing equestrian sculpture. These revival works fall into two general categories,

330-552: A particular symbol's apparent meaning. Consequently, symbols with emotive power carry problems analogous to false etymologies . The context of a symbol may change its meaning. Similar five-pointed stars might signify a law enforcement officer or a member of the armed services , depending upon the uniform . Symbols are used in cartography to communicate geographical information (generally as point, line, or area features). As with other symbols, visual variables such as size, shape, orientation, texture, and pattern provide meaning to

385-446: A relatively small scale. No Chinese portrait equestrian statues were made until modern times; statues of rulers are not part of traditional Chinese art, and indeed even painted portraits were only shown to high officials on special occasions until the eleventh century. Such statues frequently commemorated military leaders, and those statesmen who wished to symbolically emphasize the active leadership role undertaken since Roman times by

440-481: A result, the meaning of a symbol is not inherent in the symbol itself but is culturally learned. Heinrich Zimmer gives a concise overview of the nature, and perennial relevance, of symbols. Concepts and words are symbols, just as visions, rituals, and images are; so too are the manners and customs of daily life. Through all of these, a transcendent reality is mirrored. There are so many metaphors reflecting and implying something which, though thus variously expressed,

495-540: A sacrament'; these meanings were lost in secular contexts. It was during the Renaissance in the mid-16th century that the word took on the meaning that is dominant today, that of 'a natural fact or object evoking by its form or its nature an association of ideas with something abstract or absent'; this appears, for example, in François Rabelais , Le Quart Livre , in 1552. This French word derives from Latin, where both

550-438: A symbol always "points beyond itself" to something that is unquantifiable and mysterious; symbols open up the "depth dimension of reality itself". Symbols are complex, and their meanings can evolve as the individual or culture evolves. When a symbol loses its meaning and power for an individual or culture, it becomes a dead symbol. When a symbol becomes identified with the deeper reality to which it refers, it becomes idolatrous as

605-483: Is a statue of a rider mounted on a horse , from the Latin eques , meaning ' knight ', deriving from equus , meaning 'horse'. A statue of a riderless horse is strictly an equine statue . A full-sized equestrian statue is a difficult and expensive object for any culture to produce, and figures have typically been portraits of rulers or, in the Renaissance and more recently, military commanders. Although there are outliers,

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660-422: Is a common symbol for " STOP "; on maps , blue lines often represent rivers; and a red rose often symbolizes love and compassion. Numerals are symbols for numbers ; letters of an alphabet may be symbols for certain phonemes ; and personal names are symbols representing individuals. The academic study of symbols is called semiotics . In the arts, symbolism is the use of a concrete element to represent

715-720: Is a small version in the Louvre . The near life-size equestrian statue of Charles I of England by Hubert Le Sueur of 1633 at Charing Cross in London is the earliest large English example, which was followed by many. The equestrian statue of King José I of Portugal , in the Praça do Comércio , was designed by Joaquim Machado de Castro after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and is a pinnacle of Absolutist age statues in Europe. The Bronze Horseman ( Russian : Медный всадник , literally "The Copper Horseman")

770-558: Is a well-known relief including an equestrian portrait. As the twentieth century progressed, the popularity of the equestrian monument declined sharply, as monarchies fell and the military use of horses virtually vanished. The statue of Queen Elizabeth II riding Burmese in Canada , and statues of Rani Lakshmibai in Gwalior and Jhansi , India, are some of the rare portrait statues with female riders. (Although Joan of Arc has been so portrayed

825-535: Is an iconic equestrian statue, on a huge base, of Peter the Great of 1782 by Étienne Maurice Falconet in Saint Petersburg , Russia . The use of French artists for both examples demonstrates the slow spread of the skills necessary for creating large works, but by the nineteenth century most large Western countries could produce them without the need to import skills, and most statues of earlier figures are actually from

880-401: Is ineffable, though thus rendered multiform, remains inscrutable. Symbols hold the mind to truth but are not themselves the truth, hence it is delusory to borrow them. Each civilisation, every age, must bring forth its own." In the book Signs and Symbols , it is stated that A symbol   ... is a visual image or sign representing an idea – a deeper indicator of universal truth. Semiotics

935-501: Is memorialised, mounted passant , outside the Palace of Westminster by Carlo Marochetti ; the former died 11 days after his wound, sustained in siege, turned septic. A survey of 15 equestrian statues in central London by the Londonist website found that nine of them corresponded to the supposed rule, and considered it "not a reliable system for reading the fate of any particular rider". In

990-469: Is set on a gray granite arch fabricated by Frank Teich that measures approximately 25 feet (7.6 m) x 18 feet (5.5 m) x 9 feet (2.7 m) with a Lone Star on its keystone . It is administered by the City of Houston's Municipal Arts Commission. A monument circle in the statue's current location was proposed by landscape architect George Kessler in his 1916 plan for Hermann Park. As early as 1917,

1045-597: Is substituted for another in order to change the meaning. In other words, if one person does not understand a certain word or phrase, another person may substitute a synonym or symbol in order to get the meaning across. However, upon learning the new way of interpreting a specific symbol, the person may change his or her already-formed ideas to incorporate the new information. Jean Dalby Clift says that people not only add their own interpretations to symbols, but they also create personal symbols that represent their own understanding of their lives: what she calls "core images" of

1100-513: Is the study of signs, symbols, and signification as communicative behavior. Semiotics studies focus on the relationship of the signifier and the signified, also taking into account the interpretation of visual cues, body language, sound, and other contextual clues. Semiotics is linked with linguistics and psychology. Semioticians not only study what a symbol implies but also how it got its meaning and how it functions to make meaning in society. For example, symbols can cause confusion in translation when

1155-532: Is the world's tallest equestrian statue of a polo player. It depicts ancient Meitei deity Marjing ,a Meitei horse (Manipuri pony) and Sagol Kangjei ( Meitei for ' polo '). The world's largest equestrian sculpture, when completed, will be the Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota , at a planned 641 feet (195 m) wide and 563 feet (172 m) high, even though only the upper torso and head of

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1210-576: The condottiere , erected in Padua . In fifteenth-century Italy, this became a form to memorialize successful mercenary generals, as evidenced by the painted equestrian funerary monuments to Sir John Hawkwood and Niccolò da Tolentino in Florence Cathedral , and the statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni (1478–1488) cast by Verrocchio in Venice . Leonardo da Vinci had planned a colossal equestrian monument to

1265-692: The American Revolutionary War . Some fragments survived and in 2016 the statue was recreated for a museum. In the United States, the first three full-scale equestrian sculptures erected were Clark Mills' Andrew Jackson (1852) in Washington, D.C. ; Henry Kirke Brown 's George Washington (1856) in New York City ; and Thomas Crawford 's George Washington in Richmond, Virginia (1858). Mills

1320-738: The Bamberg Horseman (German: Der Bamberger Reiter ), in Bamberg Cathedral . Another example is the Magdeburg Reiter , in the city of Magdeburg , that depicts Emperor Otto I . This is in stone, which is fairly unusual at any period, though the Gothic statues at less than life-size at the Scaliger Tombs in Verona are also in stone. There are a few roughly half-size statues of Saint George and

1375-500: The Battle of the Wilderness the following year. This is not a traditional statue, as it does not place him on a pedestal . One writer claims that any correlation between the positioning of hooves in a statue and the manner in which a Gettysburg soldier died is a coincidence. There is no proper evidence that these hoof positions correlate consistently with the rider's history but some hold to

1430-603: The Houston Chronicle was gathering money to build one for Sam Houston. Fabrication required $ 75,000, of which $ 40,000 was collected by the Women's City Club, $ 10,000 was provided by city government, and $ 25,000 was provided by state government. Potential designs were collected after advertising the project in national magazines. Entries were then displayed in a three night exhibition in the Humble Oil Building . The competition

1485-411: The "symbol is taken for reality." The symbol itself is substituted for the deeper meaning it intends to convey. The unique nature of a symbol is that it gives access to deeper layers of reality that are otherwise inaccessible. A symbol's meaning may be modified by various factors including popular usage, history , and contextual intent . The history of a symbol is one of many factors in determining

1540-626: The Dragon , including the famous ones in Prague and Stockholm . A well-known small bronze equestrian statuette of Charlemagne (or another emperor) in Paris may be a contemporary portrait of Charlemagne , although its date and subject are uncertain. After the Romans, no surviving monumental equestrian bronze was cast in Europe until 1415–1450, when Donatello created the heroic bronze equestrian statue of Gattamelata

1595-633: The Italian Renaissance but destroyed in 1796 in the wake of the French Revolution . It was originally erected at Ravenna , but moved to Pavia in the Middle Ages, where it stood on a column before the cathedral. A fragment of an equestrian portrait sculpture of Augustus has also survived. Equestrian statues were not very frequent in the Middle Ages . Nevertheless, there are some examples, like

1650-604: The Milanese ruler, Francesco Sforza , but was only able to create a clay model. The bronze was reallocated for military use in the First Italian War . Similar sculptures have survived in small scale: The Wax Horse and Rider ( c.  1506 –1508) is a fragmentary model for an equestrian statue of Charles d'Amboise . The Rearing Horse and Mounted Warrior in bronze was also attributed to Leonardo. Titian's equestrian portrait of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor , of 1548 applied

1705-836: The Renaissance. The riders in these may not be portraits, but figures from classical mythology or generic figures such as Native Americans . Equestrian statuary in the West dates back at least as far as Archaic Greece . Found on the Athenian acropolis , the sixth-century BC statue known as the Rampin Rider depicts a kouros mounted on horseback. A number of ancient Egyptian , Assyrian and Persian reliefs show mounted figures, usually rulers, though no free-standing statues are known. The Chinese Terracotta Army has no mounted riders, though cavalrymen stand beside their mounts, but smaller Tang dynasty pottery tomb Qua figures often include them, at

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1760-534: The United States, the rule is especially held to apply to equestrian statues commemorating the American Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg . One such statue was erected in 1998 in Gettysburg National Military Park , and is of James Longstreet , who is featured on his horse with one foot raised, even though Longstreet was not wounded in that battle. However, he was seriously wounded in

1815-507: The age of Absolutism , especially in France , equestrian statues were popular with rulers; Louis XIV was typical in having one outside his Palace of Versailles , and the over life-size statue in the Place des Victoires in Paris by François Girardon (1699) is supposed to be the first large modern equestrian statue to be cast in a single piece; it was destroyed in the French Revolution , though there

1870-402: The belief regardless. Symbol A symbol is a mark, sign , or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea , object , or relationship . Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise different concepts and experiences. All communication is achieved through the use of symbols: for example, a red octagon

1925-455: The equestrian class, the equites (plural of eques ) or knights. There were numerous bronze equestrian portraits (particularly of the emperors) in ancient Rome , but they did not survive because they were melted down for reuse of the alloy as coin , church bells , or other, smaller projects (such as new sculptures for Christian churches); the standing Colossus of Barletta lost parts of his legs and arms to Dominican bells in 1309. Almost

1980-517: The form again to a ruler. The equestrian statue of Cosimo I de' Medici (1598) by Giambologna in the center of Florence was a life size representation of the Grand-Duke, erected by his son Ferdinand I. Ferdinand himself would be memorialized in 1608 with an equestrian statue in Piazza della Annunziata was completed by Giambologna's assistant, Pietro Tacca . Tacca's studio would produce such models for

2035-616: The form is essentially a tradition in Western art , used for imperial propaganda by the Roman emperors, with a significant revival in Italian Renaissance sculpture , which continued across Europe in the Baroque, as mastering the large-scale casting of bronze became more widespread, and later periods. Statues at well under life-size have been popular in various materials, including porcelain , since

2090-486: The masculine noun symbolus and the neuter noun symbolum refer to "a mark or sign as a means of recognition." The Latin word derives from Ancient Greek : σύμβολον symbolon , from a verb meaning 'put together', 'compare', alluding to the Classical practice of breaking a piece of ceramic in two and giving one half to the person who would receive a future message, and one half to the person who would send it: when

2145-641: The memorialization of a particular individual or the portrayal of general figures, notably the American cowboy or Native Americans . Such monuments can be found throughout the American Southwest. In Glasgow, the sculpture of Lobey Dosser on El Fidelio, erected in tribute to Bud Neill , is claimed to be the only two-legged equestrian statue in the world. The monument to general Jose Gervasio Artigas in Minas, Uruguay (18 meters tall, 9 meters long, 150,000 kg),

2200-496: The monument was adopted by Bunker Hill Elementary 's 5th grade. In 2006, the statue underwent an $ 18,000 restoration funded entirely by the students. As of 2009, 5th grade students at Bunker Hill Elementary and their corporate sponsors had raised money for the monument each year since 1993 and donated a total of more than $ 71,000 to the Houston Arts Foundation for its care. Equestrian statue An equestrian statue

2255-511: The nineteenth or early twentieth century. In the colonial era, an equestrian statue of George III by English sculptor Joseph Wilton stood on Bowling Green in New York City . This was the first such statue in the United States, erected in 1770 but destroyed on July 9, 1776, six days after the Declaration of Independence . The 4,000-pound (1,800 kg) gilded lead statue was toppled and cut into pieces, which were made into bullets for use in

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2310-558: The only sole surviving Roman equestrian bronze, the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, owes its preservation on the Campidoglio , to the popular misidentification of Marcus Aurelius , the philosopher-emperor, with Constantine the Great , the Christian emperor. The Regisole ("Sun King") was a bronze classical or Late Antique equestrian monument of a ruler, highly influential during

2365-852: The person. Clift argues that symbolic work with these personal symbols or core images can be as useful as working with dream symbols in psychoanalysis or counseling. William Indick suggests that the symbols that are commonly found in myth, legend, and fantasy fulfill psychological functions and hence are why archetypes such as "the hero", "the princess" and "the witch" have remained popular for centuries. Symbols can carry symbolic value in three primary forms: Ideological, comparative, and isomorphic. Ideological symbols such as religious and state symbols convey complex sets of beliefs and ideas that indicate "the right thing to do". Comparative symbols such as prestigious office addresses, fine art, and prominent awards indicate answers to questions of "better or worse" and "superior or inferior". Isomorphic symbols blend in with

2420-698: The rider and front half of the horse will be depicted. Also on a huge scale, the carvings on Stone Mountain in Georgia , the United States, are equestrian sculpture rather than true statues, the largest bas-relief in the world. The world's largest equestrian bronze statues are the Juan de Oñate statue (2006) in El Paso, Texas ; a 1911 statue in Altare della Patria in Rome ; and the statue of Jan Žižka (1950) in Prague . In many parts of

2475-532: The rulers in France and Spain. His last public commission was the colossal equestrian bronze of Philip IV , begun in 1634 and shipped to Madrid in 1640. In Tacca's sculpture, atop a fountain composition that forms the centerpiece of the façade of the Royal Palace, the horse rears, and the entire weight of the sculpture balances on the two rear legs, and discreetly, its tail, a novel feat for a statue of this size. During

2530-590: The same symbol means different things in the source and target languages. A potential error documented in survey translation is the symbol of "x" used to denote "yes" when marking a response in the English language surveys, but "x" usually means "no" in the Chinese convention. Symbols allow the human brain continuously to create meaning using sensory input and decode symbols through both denotation and connotation . An alternative definition of symbol , distinguishing it from

2585-774: The surrounding cultural environment such that they enable individuals and organizations to conform to their surroundings and evade social and political scrutiny. Examples of symbols with isomorphic value include wearing a professional dress during business meetings, shaking hands to greet others in the West, or bowing to greet others in the East. A single symbol can carry multiple distinct meanings such that it provides multiple types of symbolic value. Paul Tillich argued that, while signs are invented and forgotten, symbols are born and die. There are, therefore, dead and living symbols. A living symbol can reveal to an individual hidden levels of meaning and transcendent or religious realities. For Tillich

2640-454: The symbol. According to semiotics , map symbols are "read" by map users when they make a connection between the graphic mark on the map (the sign ), a general concept (the interpretant ), and a particular feature of the real world (the referent ). Map symbols can thus be categorized by how they suggest this connection: A symbolic action is an action that symbolizes or signals what the actor wants or believes. The action conveys meaning to

2695-448: The term sign was proposed by Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung . In his studies on what is now called Jungian archetypes , a sign stands for something known, as a word stands for its referent. He contrasted a sign with a symbol : something that is unknown and that cannot be made clear or precise. An example of a symbol in this sense is Christ as a symbol of the archetype called self . Kenneth Burke described Homo sapiens as

2750-518: The two fit perfectly together, the receiver could be sure that the messenger bearing it did indeed also carry a genuine message from the intended person. A literary or artistic symbol as an "outward sign" of something else is a metaphorical extension of this notion of a message from a sender to a recipient. In English, the meaning "something which stands for something else" was first recorded in 1590, in Edmund Spenser 's Faerie Queene . Symbols are

2805-455: The world, an urban legend states that if the horse is rearing (both front legs in the air), the rider died in battle; one front leg up means the rider was wounded in battle; and if all four hooves are on the ground, the rider died outside battle. A rider depicted as dismounted and standing next to their horse often indicates that both were killed during battle. For example, Richard the Lionheart

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2860-514: Was a direct consequence of the symbol of "blubber" representing something inedible in his mind. In addition, the symbol of "blubber" was created by the man through various kinds of learning . Burke goes on to describe symbols as also being derived from Sigmund Freud 's work on condensation and displacement , further stating that symbols are not just relevant to the theory of dreams but also to "normal symbol systems". He says they are related through "substitution", where one word, phrase, or symbol

2915-583: Was judged by a panel of notable Houstonians, who selected Cerracchio's design. On August 16, 1925, the monument was unveiled by Sam Houston's great-granddaughter and dedicated by John Henry Kirby . At the time, three of Sam Houston's own children were alive, and he was still remembered by many elderly Texans. The monument's condition was deemed "treatment urgent" by the Smithsonian Institution 's " Save Outdoor Sculpture! " program in March 1993. In 1997,

2970-631: Was the first American sculptor to overcome the challenge of casting a rider on a rearing horse. The resulting sculpture (of Jackson) was so popular he repeated it for New Orleans , Nashville , and Jacksonville . Cyrus Edwin Dallin made a specialty of equestrian sculptures of American Indians: his Appeal to the Great Spirit stands before the Museum of Fine Arts , Boston . The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial in Boston

3025-462: Was the world's largest equestrian statue until 2008. The current largest is the 40-meter-tall equestrian statue of Genghis Khan at Boldog, 54 km from Ulaanbaatar , Mongolia , where, according to legend, Genghis Khan found the golden whip . The Marjing Polo Statue , standing in the Marjing Polo Complex , Imphal East , Manipur (122 feet (37 m) tall ), completed in 2022–23,

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