DOI issue:
No. 162 (September, 1906)
DOI article:Levetus, A. S.: The personal ornaments of the Austrian peasant
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20715#0355
Austrian Peasant Ornaments
FIG. II. SILVER-GILT FILIGREE HAIRPINS—DALMATIAN
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
(K. k. Museum fur Volkskunde, Vienna)
holidays are marvels of richness in artistic design and
colouring. There are other special occasions for dis-
playing them, such as births, christenings, marriages
and funerals, but throughout these lands Sunday is the
great day, when, even at the early morning mass, both
young and old, male and female, present a striking
appearance in all their
bravery. They seem in-
deed to vie with one
another in richness of
colour and ornamentation,
which, nevertheless, are
always kept within bounds.
In some districts old tra-
ditions are firmly adhered
to. Here everything is
made by hand ; the linen
is spun by the women
during the long winter
evenings, the men employ-
ing themselves carving or
forming some ornament
with their rough but skilful
fingers. I regret to say
that cheap manufactured
articles are now gradually
forcing their way into the
most distant villages ; in
some of them native art
has been killed, and the
peasant no longer carves
his own pipes or forms a
brooch for his lass, but
buys these articles at the
334
village shops. The Government is
doing much to revive these almost lost
arts, and by such exhibitions of home
art and industries as that held lately at
the Austrian Museum in Vienna, it was
brought painfully home to many how
great the loss has been to Art in
general, and how great is the need of
measures for bringing about a revival
of peasant arts and crafts. Not a little
of the success which has accompanied
the modern development of decorative
art in Austria is due to inherited
instinct in this direction.
The ornaments made by the Austrian
peasant have all been made for a
definite purpose. To complete his
attire he needed a belt, which he em-
broidered himself in tinfoil or peacock’s
feathers; heavy silver buttons for his
waistcoat, never discarded even in the hottest
weather, for this would be the laying aside of his
dignity; silver shoe buckles, without which his
dress could not be considered complete. His
pipe, too, has always come in for a large share of
attention, and so has his watch with its tortoise-
FIG. 12. DALMATIAN NECK ORNAMENTS IN SILVER SET WITH COLOURED STONES
(K. k. Museum fur Volkskunde, Vienna)
FIG. II. SILVER-GILT FILIGREE HAIRPINS—DALMATIAN
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
(K. k. Museum fur Volkskunde, Vienna)
holidays are marvels of richness in artistic design and
colouring. There are other special occasions for dis-
playing them, such as births, christenings, marriages
and funerals, but throughout these lands Sunday is the
great day, when, even at the early morning mass, both
young and old, male and female, present a striking
appearance in all their
bravery. They seem in-
deed to vie with one
another in richness of
colour and ornamentation,
which, nevertheless, are
always kept within bounds.
In some districts old tra-
ditions are firmly adhered
to. Here everything is
made by hand ; the linen
is spun by the women
during the long winter
evenings, the men employ-
ing themselves carving or
forming some ornament
with their rough but skilful
fingers. I regret to say
that cheap manufactured
articles are now gradually
forcing their way into the
most distant villages ; in
some of them native art
has been killed, and the
peasant no longer carves
his own pipes or forms a
brooch for his lass, but
buys these articles at the
334
village shops. The Government is
doing much to revive these almost lost
arts, and by such exhibitions of home
art and industries as that held lately at
the Austrian Museum in Vienna, it was
brought painfully home to many how
great the loss has been to Art in
general, and how great is the need of
measures for bringing about a revival
of peasant arts and crafts. Not a little
of the success which has accompanied
the modern development of decorative
art in Austria is due to inherited
instinct in this direction.
The ornaments made by the Austrian
peasant have all been made for a
definite purpose. To complete his
attire he needed a belt, which he em-
broidered himself in tinfoil or peacock’s
feathers; heavy silver buttons for his
waistcoat, never discarded even in the hottest
weather, for this would be the laying aside of his
dignity; silver shoe buckles, without which his
dress could not be considered complete. His
pipe, too, has always come in for a large share of
attention, and so has his watch with its tortoise-
FIG. 12. DALMATIAN NECK ORNAMENTS IN SILVER SET WITH COLOURED STONES
(K. k. Museum fur Volkskunde, Vienna)