Lengyel László (szerk.): Devóció és dekoráció - 18. és 19. századi korolstormunkák Magyarországon - Studia Agriensia 7. (Eger, 1987)

Summary

WORKS MADE FROM HAIR

The cult of human hair has a thousand year old tradition. The humans thought that hair possesed magic powers. Cultural history safeguards a number of stories in connection with images of hair.

In convents hair had a ritual meaning. There were regulations about the shaving of the monks’ skull, about the wearing of the so-called tonsure and the plaitting of nuns’ hair.

The typical products of the 19. century were pictures embroidered with children’s hair and composed from cut and glued hair. These compositions which nowadays look a little macabre were the results of works done with patient humility. Sometimes the characteristic of these works which has become a little vacuous is the simple intention the reproduce, prepon- darance of diligence and the absence of sacred meaning.

Classical examples of the flattening out of the genre and the absence of devotion are the bvuquets made from hair.

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Examining the convent works which can be found on Hungary the question arises, who created the products and why. As much as we know about the reasons for creating devotional works, as little we know about the date- able and name-linked works of convents, religious orders, monks and nuns. Several times only written records remain about the members of the orders who made the works but we cannot link an object to a date. Written records remained from the 17. century that we know of, but objects remained from the 18. century. This is partly due to the poverty of research in this field and partly to different phases of history which did not serve the preservation of sacred objects and convent archives.

After such historical traditions the organizers of this exhibition were surprised by the large number of convent works to be found in the territory of Hungary and which are of an international quality. This fact is demonstrated by the 300 exhibited objects.

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