Fügedi Márta: Reprezentáns népcsoportok a 19-20. század fordulójának népművészet-képében (Miskolc, 2001)
SUMMARY
tional" culture, the art and the science, but it has remarkably influenced the development of the national identity as well. It was in the middle of the 19 th century (the period of the first world exhibitions) that the typical products of the peasant culture got out of their natural environment, and became the representatives of the national industry, demonstrating the national characteristics. In the same time the entry of new scientific branches helped the attention to turn toward the popular culture. The objects, coming to be known by the different exhibitions of that period, assigned into the new sciences, became materials of collections of museums, and thus gained social respect. At the same time the products getting out of the everyday use of the people became „fashionable" in the private art collections, and gained the appreciation of „works of art". The discovery and fashion of folk art initiated that „cottage industry movement", which, being state subsidized, was used for the purposes of the national economy. „Cottage and peasant industry, folk art is not only an ethnographic point of interest, a material of history of civilization and a study on style but... the criteria of the national characteristics..., the base of our economic independence is chiefly the independent national industry. The main condition and base of it is the material tradition of the people; the roots and crown of it is the national style." Antal Herrmann says. The primary aim of favouring the cottage industry was to develop this kind of activity to be the source of supplementary income for the peasant or unemployed population in the country. This concept of the domestic industry was developing parallel with the claim to extend the support of trade, education and industry. However, the „cottage industry movement" could not cause a break-through according to either the trading and social or the artistic point of view. The revival and propagation of folk art in the three earliest discovered regions Kalotaszeg, Mezőkövesd and Sárköz - set out within the compass of domestic industry. In these regions, the inhabitants' attitude towards their own culture and tradition greatly changed. The utilization of the handicrafts brought not only social and economic safety but this process also influenced the consciousness of local identity, shaping positively the ego of the people. The discovery of folk art has brought a change in aesthetic and artistic point of view, too. According to the spirit based on the study of history, the style set up as an ideal of contemporary art was built up, firstly, of formal elements. The appreciation of the ornamentation and the collection of samples combined the national art with the folk art. This attitude also took part in the fact that the ornaments of the products of folk art, redrawn, refined and stylized, were considered to be of the same value as the original designs and motifs, indeed, more modern than them. The preservation and education of homecraft was represented by the weaving workshop in Gödöllő at the beginning of the 20 th century. That workshop was a place not only of domestic industry, but much more than that. Its artistic program kept up a claim for a new life-principle of the secession by awakening the folk art. However, the relationship of the workshop and the homecraft was more special and complex even than that; the domestic industry was only a possibility in the program to put their interest in folk art in form. The role the workshop in Gödöllő played part in discovering folk art, and the attempt of bridging the gap between art and everyday life may be considered progressive. In this regard, besides the ideal example of Kalotaszeg, Gödöllő was also a significant workshop of the folk art of the „matyóság" and Sárköz.
