Kunt Ernő szerk.: Kép-hagyomány – Nép-hagyomány (Miskolc, 1990)

I. RÉSZTANULMÁNYOK - Olga Danglová: Tájképek paraszti lakásbelsőkben

place where one would like to rest. This point is illustrated in a statement by one of the informants, when he viewed a picture of a mill: „I liked the mill and the environs. It is beautiful here. It would be an ideal life to live here and have a good wife." These sentimentally nostalgic and romantic associations of idyllic country life corresponded with images of the quiet life in a beautiful natural setting. Furthermore, it was important to present an illusion about a faithful depiction of reality: „Beautiful is that like in reality, as in a photograph!" Such comments were recorded during our experimental research on the taste in present-day rural environment. They were also decisive in ascertaining the value scale wherein the first position was occupied by the picture of the water mill along with an effective depiction of Italian landscape. The painting originated from the year 1848, and the artist was Karol Marko. It was typical to find the frontal location of the second painting. Evidently, this proves the trend, which is common in folk environments: namely, the visual aftereffects of the European creative tradition and the folklorization of easthetic taste may also be emotional images of the nineteenth century. Picturesque landscapes from the region of Záhorie were the manifestations of this folklorization. „Mass art is represented by deers," Stanislaw Blaszcyzk stated when commenting on the folk production of „dyvany" - textile mural pictures decorated by oil-painting in Poland.

5 „They are widespread, overstepping regional differences and the limits between town and village"; we presume that they overreached ethnic borders as well. There are records on painting production of a similar nature in the USSR. In the Hungarian marketplace, multi-colarad wall posters printed on linen and depicting phantasmal landscapes according to the customs of the eighteenth century are visually of the same rank. They also have gained popularity in Slovakia. From the comparative aspect one should mention an interesting occurrence of the „mountain-chalet-path-treesbridge-water-swans" formula in the paintings of window screens in one section of Baltimore in the United States.

6 In the first half of the twentieth century, a part of Baltimore was inhabited by blue collar immigrants from Italy, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. One should note that the paintings of this kind are identical as to theme and style with the landscapes from the region of Záhorie. Richard Oktavec, an immigrant from Czechoslovakia, was the first artist to paint these window screens. The most popular and most frequently ordered motif was the Swiss chalet with a lake and swans in the foreground. We are not acquainted with the situation of our Western neighbors. The visual necessity of idyllic scenes may have been replaced there with other themes reflecting visual and emotional needs. However, if one could shift time backwards, one would possibly find the above topics because the effectiveness of paintings with picturesque landscapes on a mass scale is much greater than the impact of the officially acknowledged art which is less accessible and less attractive to the sphere of spectators in rural environments. NOTES 1. A detailed characteristics see in Plicková, E. 1982. 2. Data were obtained by field work in 1974 and 1980. The part of them was published. See Danglová, O. 1974. 3. These pictures were

1 not solved technicaly as a subpainting. They were painted on the external side of galss by oil colour and covered by clear panel of galss. 4. Ornamental painting of pillars beside the entrance door, placed between windows, interior walls, and especially the walls around the fireplace was spread in Bratislave district, Moravian Slovakia and in the surroundigs of the towns Stráznica, Skalice. In fact, it was found everywhere, where we have later met the decorative painting of landscape. The meaning of