Estate Culture

Delfitan

Man and Society

The objects of a historical collection of po-pular art stem for the most part from the feudalsystem and its transition into modern class society.They are not only products of social conditions butthey also mirror social perceptions and realities. If theorganization of estates is itself the theme, then it isalmost always as an idealized system, ordained by God,in which the individual estates have their fixedposition and destiny. This is just as true of subjects asof the ecclesiastical and secular rulers.

There are enormous differences in what hasbeen handed down from the individual estates. As aresult, social conditions are depicted in a very unevenway and in some cases there appears to be no historyat all. When the lower classes are the subject of popu-lar pictorial works, they are mostly seen from the view-point of the" higher estates". Objects from the everydaylife of the privileged have survived much better and ingreater numbers than objects of the masses.

Despite snobbery and the fact that thedifferent estates ridiculed each other, their mutualrelationships were also characterized by Christiancharity. The conception of the world coupledpatriarchal privilege with duties, even when thesewere limited to gestures and symbols.

Chess Game

By Rupert Griessl for Count Hans Wilczek

Dated 1898