We can almost envy the old pigtails for this blind belief in
themselves, which grows out of the boastful arbitrariness of the Rococo,
in the midst of and in spite of the constraint of the Pigtail, and is
closely connected with the mad cult of originality practised by so many
individual types. We have strong doubts concerning the excellence of our
advanced mental development, while in the days of our great-grandfathers
nobody doubted that that age, which we properly stigmatize with the
sobriquet of the Pigtail Age, was really the golden age of art and
science.
Our South-German peasants still live completely in the Rococo as regards
artistic taste. They have forgotten the Middle Ages and have not yet
found modern art. To the peasant of the Black Forest, the splendid,
baroque, dome-shaped church of St. Blasien is a much greater marvel of
native art than the Freiburg cathedral. Gaudy, exaggeratedly fantastic
Rococo saints are generally considered by Catholic country people very
much more edifying than a picture in the severe style of the Middle Ages
or of the modern school. In the ornamentation of utensils and houses of
our peasants the Rococo style has quite naively been carried along into
our own times, and whoever nowadays wishes to have genuine Rococo chairs
in his parlor not infrequently searches through the peasants' houses.
The pleasure which the peasant takes in the Rococo, which has bravely
survived so many changes in taste, is easily explained.
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