Hungarian Heritage Review, 1986 (15. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1986-05-01 / 5. szám

MAY 1986

HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW

27

^Hungarian JVrt* attfr (Erafte

THE POTTERY OF

TRANSYLVANIA

For more than eight centuries the center of the Transylvanian Hungarian pottery was the township of KOROND, situated at the foot of the Hargita Mountain in the Szekelyland. Due to a certain type of clay especially suitable for this industry, the Korond pottery gained fame throughout the entire Hungarian Kingdom. Though this pottery is made for every day use in simple peasant homes, every plate, bowl, crock, dish, pitcher or platter is richly decorated with the most colorful and exquisite patterns, known today as the Korond style. These patterns and motifs, handed down from generation to generation, bear the same characteristics as all the other inherited designs of the Hungarian folk art: besides some of the ancient symbols found in the ruins of UR, they reflect in their lines and colors the yearning for beauty and the reach for heaven.

For centuries the potters of Korond carried their merchandise in covered wagons from village to village, from market to market, from fair to fair, along the winding dirt roads. Today, of course, when new and more practical materials replace the burnt clay in people’s kitchens, the mastercraft of the Korond potters is forced more and more to retreat from a thriving industry to the pursuit of a special branch of folk art, appreciated only by a few. Under the iron fist of the hostile Rumanian state, the artisans of Korond are forced one by one to leave their old ancestrial homes and move into other parts of the country, where the Labor Planning Office orders them to go.

From: The Transylvanian Hungarian Folk Art Compiled by: Albert Wass de Czege Danubian Press 1983 (See Bookshop listing.)