###

# Village Life and Folk Art: Hungarians, Romanians, Saxons

The art of Hungarian villeins, Székely villagers, Romanian shepherds, and Saxon peasants was influenced by custom, as well as the rhythm and material attributes of their daily life. Transylvanian folk art, generally categorized as old-style, incorporated contemporary features. Like most manifestations of folk art, it tended both to preserve traditions and to reflect modernity.

The country's geographical divisions, between mountains and plains, river valleys and alpine regions, encouraged the development of itinerant commerce. The motifs of folk music and folk tales were transferred along the routes taken by traders and smugglers, both within the country and across its borders; fairs and markets also served to fashion popular taste and generate social links. Industrial development led to the introduction into the rural culture of new materials, such as sawn lumber, Habán tiles, various types of linen, and broadcloth of foreign as well as domestic provenance.

In the tradition-laden worlds of the alpine shepherds and manorial folk, of villagers in the Királyföld and the Székelyföld, there emerged a civic-peasant culture proper to monocultural areas. Local craftsmen had before them the example of Renaissance castles and manor-houses, and of decorated churches. Peasant women who were summoned to make embroideries at the courts of Anna Bornemissza, the prince's consort, and other aristocrats gained {2-486.} first-hand experience of the finer points of this craft. The state's development of education and its regulation of religious denominations had a profound impact on village life, as did the development of printing. In its effort to mold public opinion, the Catholic Church organized parish festivals and pilgrimages (búcsú) focused on images of the Virgin Mary, and such events mobilized many thousands of people. The messages conveyed by religious symbols, such as the churches' murals and sculptures, were imprinted on the consciousness of common people.

Although the rhythm of agricultural work was still governed by ancient folk customs, the calendar became an essential tool of reference for rural folk. Printer-publishers reached for a new readership with trashy novels, and their vast output of cheap, religious and other pictures, as well as of illustrated journals and pamphlets, had a profound visual impact on the mentality of the illiterate masses.

The close proximity of different ethnic groups facilitated the transfer of folk motifs, shaping the development of the distinctive cultures. The village intelligentsia — teachers, Catholic and Orthodox priests, preachers, cantors — was the conscious or unconscious agent of the interests of the state and other influential strata, and its impact became visible in the evolution of folk customs. In the Protestant churches, people would hear sermons that had a direct bearing on their daily activities. The Catholic Church, for its part, deliberately adapted itself to folk traditions.

The decorative styles and patterns of Transylvania's ethnic groups reflected the material word; actuality dominated their folk songs and folk tales. In both of these cultural spheres, development was governed by ancient customs and nurtured by the local communities.

In peasant homes, carved furniture predominated until the late 17th century, when it began to make way for furniture assembled from sawn lumber. By the turn of the century, the changing needs {2-487.} and tastes of village folk came to be served by a growing number of local carpenters, and painted furniture became more common. Carved furniture, often made of oak, remained popular in the mountain districts. Peasant homes had a single large bed, as well as a painted sleeping bench or cot, and a table holding a drawer that served as a cradle.

Peasant dress reflected social hierarchy within the village, regional traditions, and, increasingly, new techniques and fashions in dressmaking. Although most items of clothing were home-made, peasants also began to wear the ready-made products of city and market town, purchased for the most part at public markets. Tight-fitting trousers — knee breeches from aba cloth and halina-cloth tights — came into general use in the second half of the 17th century, as did woollen waistcoats (melles, hátibőr, kacagány). The wearing of sheepskin smocks (ködmön) spread among the gentry and the more prosperous peasants, men and women. The new fashion of the 17th century was the long, embroidered fur coat (cifraszűr). In the early 18th century, the guba, a long, sleeveless frieze cloak worn by both men and women, spread eastward, then westward from Ung and Bereg counties, and became a common garb of both Hungarians and Romanians in the region between the Szamos and Kraszna rivers and Érmellék. Thanks to the increased production of linen and cambric, people took to wearing two shirts, a plain undershirt and an embroidered top shirt. Judging from complaints and reports of damage, wills, and inventories, the peasantry owned a rich array of tablecloths and bedding.

The styles of dress and decoration testified to a peasant society marked by wide variations in income. They also mirrored the reciprocal influence between the folk art of different ethnic groups. Embroidery was done with home-dyed, thick wool or linen thread. In each region and ethnic group, one or two colours predominated, but the trend was toward a greater variety. In the Szilágyság, multicoloured embroidery appeared alongside the more traditional red and blue motifs applied to finely woven linen.

{2-488.} The decorative motifs preserved a traditional symbolism. Two birds face to face represented love; when back to back, they represented faith; and birds of fate symbolized death. There was deep-rooted meaning in such symbols as the tree of life, the dragon's head, and the decorative elements set symmetrically on either side of a wavy line. These patterns were gradually adopted throughout the country. Towards the end of the 17th century, the distinctive Székelyföld pattern of large stars spread to a region encompassing Tolna County and the Szilágyság.

The influence of the East was evident in the busy, intricate patterns that showed up in many regions. The tree of life motif may be traced back to the Volga region, but it remains to be determined whether Turkish mediation in the transfer of motifs was a recent or earlier phenomenon. The resettlement of villeins and settlement of border guards had a visible effect on the development of embroidery patterns. The acorn and apple patterns reached Transylvania by way of Slovaks who traded in cambric and lace. The commonest motif on the decorated ceilings of Calvinist churches, a pelican feeding her offspring with her own blood, also recurs on pillow cases and sheets from Upper-Hungary, Hódmezővásárhely, and Transylvania. Bird patterns are found on the embroidered, multicolored headkerchiefs of Romanians in the upper Zsil valley, at Magyarlóna in the Kalotaszeg region, and on embroidered shirts from the Hétfalú district. Traditional Transylvanian and Székely motifs were blended with typically Hungarian, Romanian, Saxon, and Slovak patterns in the embroidery of the ethnically-mixed Szilágyság. The first signs appeared of a regional differentiation in folk art patterns that became most clearly marked in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The earliest reference to the Székelys' Kilim-type rug, which reflected eastern influences, was found in the will, dated 9 February 1680, of a certain Mrs. György Kádár, from Nagyborosnyó.

{2-489.} A mixture of ancient and new motifs is also found in woodcarving, furniture painting, and pottery. The Renaissance floral patterns on provincial church ceilings and choirs reappear on furniture. The motif of two birds face to face is found not only on the lace headkerchief of brides from Kalotaszeg, but also on the headboard of big beds. Village carpenters borrowed decorative patterns from embroidery, and so did wood carvers from painted furniture.

The tradition of woodworking influenced the decoration of tiles, for the pattern was impressed on the latter by a carved wooden block. The 17th-century tile fragments found at Türe and Kolozsvár revealed medieval patterns of folk carving, including geometrical shapes, hooks and corners, serrated lines, and rosettes. Tiles from Torockó and Udvarhelyszék displayed nobiliary patterns of the 17th century: horsemen, coats-of-arms, churches, and rosettes. At tile from Korond, dating from 1667, bore the common Renaissance motif of a double Italian jug. Renaissance floral patterns, notably bouquets of tulips and carnations, were widely used. The finds at Székelykeresztúr indicate that tiles bearing geometrical patterns originate in the earliest, and least known period of folk art, and are meant to evoke scenes from folk tales and legends. Stove tiles display the designs of Transylvanian workshops and popularized versions of common European patterns. The shape of a helmeted knight with lance, found on a stove tile at Székelykeresztúr, originated in the 15th century at the royal workshop in Buda; stove tiles bearing this pattern had become common in Transylvania and throughout central Europe. A 16th-century stove tile from Székelykeresztúr bears the pattern of a diagonally-twisted runner; it offers another example of interaction between different forms of folk art, for the same pattern was painted, in the 17th century, on the front of the choir at Volkány's Lutheran church. The image of Saint Ladislas with a Cuman on a 16th-century tile from Csekefalva was probably inspired by the many frescoes in Székelyföld churches which depict the saint; it also indicates that {2-490.} the ancient legend lived on in the consciousness of Székelys. Some of the tiles dug up at Székelykeresztúr were inscribed with an axiom much favoured by the Transylvanian princes John Sigismund, Gabriel Bethlen, and György Rákóczi I: Si Deus pro nobis, quis contra nos. Some ceramic workshops experimented with baroque decorative patterns as well.