Fügedi Márta: Állatábrázolások a magyar népművészetben (Officina Musei 1. Miskolc, 1993)

Representation of animals in the hungarian folk art (summary)

embroideries. We find cockstail and cockscomb denominations among the ornaments on the shawl of Kalotaszeg. In summary it can be stated examining the ornaments used in the Hungarian folk art, that the animal forms are numerically in minority compared with the plant ornaments, however their significance cannot be disregarded. The majority of animal motifs of different origin reached the Hungarian peasantry through different channels. On the folk relics of the 17th and 18th centuries - since these are primarily the products of handicraftsmen - the representation of animal motifs stands closer to the sources, to each-other and to the culture of other people. The typical and special features of the ornaments evolved in the 19th century, in the brightest period of the Hungarian peasantry and pastoral art, when the removal from the patterns and préfigurations, representations of stronger characters, as well as the dirrentiating effects of the local taste and individual creative fantasy can be observed. From the end of the 19th century a decline has started concerning the attitudes and the thematical, aesthetical aspects. The bird occupies a dominant place among the animal motifs both in quantity and significance. The animal motifs adopted from the Christian symbolism, the animal figures of heraldic origin have disappeared from the artistical representation, as the natural part of a historical process; some animal motifs had significance only in the 19th century in the folk ornamentation. The frequently mentioned thesis that in the folk art the creators represented the animals and plants as they saw them in the nature, i. e. they immortalized their direct experiences, is too simplified and not acceptable. The world of ornaments appearing in the Hungarian folk art, including the animal motifs, has a complex cultural historical background. The characteristic Hungarian pattern variations which can be considered to be typical with regard to the themes and compositions, have emerged from the adoption and rearrangement of préfigurations and from the survival of iconographical traditions.