Monday, November 01, 2021
Uniformity Came In
Gerald Brenan (1894-1987), South from Granada (1957; rpt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 45:
Newer› ‹Older
Historians, if such backwaters interest them, will note that the second decade of the twentieth century marked a wholesale destruction of peasant arts and customs in Southern Europe. German dyes replaced mineral ones in pottery; local costumes, folk customs, country dances vanished. Uniformity came in. The roads built for the motorists put an end to the autochthonous life of the villages, and with that to the remnants of a culture that went back to classical times. Only the church with its pagan ritual remained.
