The Hobby Horse

Hobby Horse

Sample Issue of the Century Guild Hobby Horse
Editor	Herbert Horne
Former editors	Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo
Publisher	Chiswick Press
First issue	Apr 1884
Final issue — Number	Oct 1894 Issue 28

The Hobby Horse was a quarterly Victorian periodical in England published by the Century Guild of Artists. The magazine ran from 1884–1894 and spanned a total of seven volumes and 28 issues. It featured various articles not only on arts and design but other subjects including literature and social issues as well. It also featured artwork such as sketches, plates, photographs, engravings, wood cuts, lithographs and reproduced paintings.

The Hobby Horse started publication in 1884 as the first high quality magazine committed solely to the visual arts. The Century Guild Hobby Horse "was one of the last (and in many ways the ultimate) versions of the literature and art journal, a genre born with the Pre-Raphaelite Germ in 1850. Unlike its successors, The Yellow Book and The Savoy, The Hobby Horse was not solely committed to an elite aestheticism. Its pages were filled with essays arguing for recognition of the vital social role of art and artists." The Century Guild Hobby Horse was a magazine for the most dedicated of art enthusiasts at the time, a magazine that helped cement what purpose art served in the English Victorian community. The contributors looked at art from a scholarly perspective, one that set the blueprints for how art is seen today. The magazine was an idealistic vision to create unity in the arts.

The Century Guild of Artists was an English group of art enthusiasts that were most active between 1883 and 1888. It was founded in 1882 by Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, and was influenced by the likes of William Morris, John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, Walter Pater. The Century Guild also drew many of their ideas from the growing Arts & Crafts Movement, the Pre-Raphealites, the Decadent movement and the new Aestheticism.

The Century Guild aimed to preserve the artistic trade and the authenticity of the craftsmen behind it. In 1884 the Century Guild created a journal called The Century Guild Hobby Horse to publicize their views. The magazine was titled The Century Guild Hobby Horse during its publication from 1884–1892, but in its final years in 1893 and 1894 it was simply The Hobby Horse. The Hobby Horse served as a way of sharing the views of the Guild and promoted crafted art as opposed to mechanical industry. The Century Guild disbanded once members Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, Herbert Horne and Selwyn Image became busy with their individual work. Though The Hobby Horse managed to exist longer after the Guild fell apart (and was even titled as just The Hobby Horse), it ultimately was soon to cease production without the Guild in force.