This leaning toward individual caricature
nevertheless was maintained throughout the entire age of the Pigtail.
Indeed the very figure in the escutcheon of this period, the pigtail of
hair, grew out of the contradictory effort to restrain and render
uniform the natural luxuriance of the hair, and yet at the same time to
append to men's backs a pure freak, a little, absolutely original
scroll.
One might say, in short, one extreme challenged the other. When people
had banished the old professional clown from the stage, they felt the
necessity of running about themselves as clowns. The sober, enlightened
age protested against the old folk-tales with goblins, gnomes, elves,
and other kindred sprites, but, to make up for it, thousands of living
caricatures played in their own rooms the part of goblins and gnomes,
and lady shepherdesses appropriated the roles of the elves, nixies, and
nymphs.
This phenomenon, however, leads to facts of much deeper significance for
the history of culture. Let us first define the conceptions. The words
"rococo" and "pigtail" at first applied only to the plastic arts; we
are, however, gradually becoming accustomed to employ them to designate
the whole period of culture. That is right and commendable, for those
words have been taken from real life, from experience by the senses,
whereas, as a rule, we almost always fabricate lifeless scholastic terms
for such things.
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