Kutztown University - Keystonia Yearbook (Kutztown, PA)

Page 23 text:

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN ART Everyone of us, at some time or another, has seen articles of Pennsylvania German art, per- haps in our homes or elsewhere, but have we ever stopped to realize its significance? In recent years this art, though apparently unnoticed before, has come very definitely into the limelight not only in Pennsylvania, but all over the art world. What could be more fitting then, than for us who live in the Pennsylvania German section to look at it a second time and learn to appre- ciate it and evaluate it for what it is? When the New World was being colonized by almost all the nations of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the German states made no attempt whatsoever to establish col- onies. However, thousands of German families of the peasant class, repressed, persecuted, driven out of their native country because of their religious beliefs, came over of their own ac- cord. Some of them coming to these shores moved up the Hudson and settled in New York. Others, the majority, settled at the invitation of the governor to the state in the eastern section of Pennsylvania, in the counties of Philadelphia, Montgomery, Bucks, Northampton, Lehigh, Berks, Schuylkill, Dauphin, Lebanon, Lancaster, and York, and called themselves the Penn- sylvania Dietsche ( Deutsche in high German). Simple hard-working farmers, they brought with them from the old country a love of the beautiful, and a desire to preserve the old Ger- man arts. As a result, it wasn't long before they had built up many crafts. Although their comfortable homes were almost devoid of color and although their religion for- bade the use of color on their persons they attempted to put a gay note into their otherwise dull surroundings by using all sorts of devices—decorating in gaudy reds, greens, and yellows all the articles which were used every day in the home. This is the distinctive note in their art. It was not the luxurious art of the rich man; it was the practical art of the common, ordinary, down-to-earth people. It was the simple, colorful expression of the things the people loved and worshipped, and as such was used in the things which were a part of their daily existence. As is typical of a folk art, the designs adhered closely to the things with which the people were most familiar. Hence we find that the most frequently used designs were flowers such as the tulip and fuschia; birds such as peacocks, ducks and swans; and animals such as the deer, rabbit, lion and dog. Familiar objects were drawn well, while unfamiliar ones were rather crude. Human figures were the weakest point.