# The Influence of Historical Styles on Folk Architecture

The development of Hungarian houses and farm buildings was influenced, first of all, by social-economic circumstances, by natural endowments, and by tradition; certain regional differences thus came into existence. Added to these was the influence of the architectural traditions of the neighbouring peoples and nationalities. However, the influence of the great historical stylistic periods is also present in folk architecture. These reached the peasantry after considerable delay as imitations of churches, fortresses, castles and manor houses, often coming through the hands of the masters who built them.

Certain elements that were organically incorporated into the body of peasant architecture remained primarily in the peripheral regions of the linguistic territory. The reason for this is that regions, because of their isolation, were more apt to conserve various influences, and also because Turkish rule in the 16th and 17th centuries did not eradicate the majority of earlier buildings. The most beautiful wooden buildings are located in such regions: houses, towers, belfries, the Székely gate, magnificent both in structure and ornamentation, and the most beautiful house frontispieces. It is extremely difficult–and in their entirety it is impossible–to tie these to a specific period, because they always occur transformed and adjusted to the entire composition. Still, let us examine some of them.

The belfry of Transylvania and the Tiszahát preserves Gothic tradition in its form, especially the four turrets (cf. Ills. 4, 15, 51, 62). Its balcony, however, resembles Renaissance examples. The carpentry technique of the Székely gate can be traced all the way back to the Gothic.

The Renaissance, especially in Transylvania, prolifically affected, {189.} often even centuries later, folk ornamental art. The painted wooden panelling of church ceilings, the frontal plates of its choirs are the direct descendants of the flowering of the Renaissance, and even if they were created by village or town masters known by name, they are still a living, influential part of ornamental peasant art (cf. Ills. 40, 220, Plate XXII). The same is true of the tiles decorating peasant stoves and hearths, on which the stylistic marks of the Gothic and Renaissance periods can be recognized even if they happened to have been made in the 18th or 19th centuries. This is also true of the carvings of the Székely gate, and of the increased use of colouring on it from the end of the 18th century. The roots of all this reach back to the richest period of the Renaissance in Transylvania. Behind the light colonnaded porticos of Transdanubia, we can feel intimation of the Italian-style loggias of the castles and manor houses.

A whole line of castles and country houses was influenced, primarily in the Great Plain, by Neo-Classic architecture. We can find its influence here most strongly in the peasant Neo-Classic pillars of the porticos. At other places, the protruding porticos, standing out from the front of the house, changed to a certain degree the ground plan of the house. Neo-Classic characteristics are also traceable in the great variety of stucco ornamentation of the front of the house.

All these more or less important elements became part of Hungarian folk architecture in a united form, in such a way that they closely amalgamated with its older and newer elements. Often a way of constructing a wall or the shape of a fireplace may be traceable to the New Stone Age, and occurs together with elements dating from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, yet together these elements create a harmonious unit. All this is proof of the creative ability of the Hungarian folk, which also makes itself known, although in different forms, of every peasant culture.