Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Hex signs are a form of Pennsylvania Dutch folk art, related to fraktur, found in the Fancy Dutch tradition in Pennsylvania Dutch Country. [1] Barn paintings, usually in the form of "stars in circles", began to appear on the landscape in the early 19th century and became widespread decades later when commercial ready-mixed paint became readily ...
The stylized leaves of the white oak in their fall colors on this Pennsylvania Dutch hex sign are a symbol of strength; acorns denote youth and great prospects.{{{1}}} Template documentation [ view ] [ edit ] [ history ] [ purge ]
It frequently appears in Pennsylvania Dutch folk art. [2] It represents happiness and good fortune and the Pennsylvania German people, and is a common theme in hex signs and in fraktur . The word distelfink (literally 'thistle-finch') is (besides Stieglitz ) the German name for the European goldfinch .
Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs are a familiar type of motif in the eastern portions of the United States. Their circular and symmetric design, and their use of brightly colored patterns from nature, such as stars, compass roses, doves, hearts, tulips, leaves, and feathers have made them quite popular. [citation needed]
The tradition of hex signs painted on Pennsylvania barns in some areas is believed by some to relate to this tradition; the paintings consisted of geometric star patterns thought to have talismanic properties, though many hex signs are made simply for decoration.
Some hex signs incorporate star shapes, while others may take the form of a rosette or contain pictures of birds and other animals. [ 7 ] The term barnstar has been applied to star-shaped anchor plates that are used for structural reinforcement, particularly on masonry buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Anglo-Americans created the stereotypes of "the stubborn Dutchman" or "the dumb Dutchman", and made Pennsylvania Dutch the butt of ethnic jokes in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, though these stereotypes were never specific to the Plain Folk; most of the Pennsylvania Dutch people in those centuries were Church people. The prejudice is now ...
The birds, tulips, hearts, etc., found on contemporary hex signs were first painted when painters started painting on rounds of plywood rather than directly up on the barns. See: Yoder, Don, and Thomas E. Graves. Hex Signs: Pennsylvania Dutch Barn Symbols and Their Meaning, Second Edition, Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 1999. Graves, Thomas E.