Communities and Their Pasts

Abstract

The rich floral patterns of Kalocsa's embroideries and wall paintings have come to represent Hungarian folk art throughout the world. The folk art of Kalocsa is in fact the art form of the traditional peasant culture of the villages established around the town of Kalocsa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centurie,s and the twenty-five or so farmsteads and minor satellite villages tied to them. This peasant culture is rooted in the traditions of the people who have inhabited this region and comprise their own ethnic group: they speak their own dialect of Hungarian, are Roman Catholic, have maintained their own distinct folk art tradition. The folk art of Kalocsa has been influenced in various ways in each of its four periods. Changes in folk art could soon be detected in folk costumes, which were only experienced in the sense that new products were marketed, and even then, only when these products became integrated into the style of folk costumes. In every historical period of the folk art of Kalocsa, the motifs and colors of folk costumes has had its own function and meaning.