Folk Art in Texas Page: 31
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Guardians are pairs of objects placed on opposite
sides of doorways, gates, steps, walkways, fireplaces,
street entrances, highway tunnels, mausoleums, and
staircases. People look at them and hardly notice
them. Or they think that what they see is quaint or
old-fashioned. Exotic ones catch the eye; common
ones go unseen. They look as though they are only
decorative art forms, but historically they meant a
great deal more. Their origin and significance have
been either lost or forgotten, and they are now pur-
chased (sometimes made) and installed because they
"seem right." Their selection is seldom reasoned;
folkloric subcurrents are at work.
Guardians began as folk art, as objects created by
the people themselves to decorate and to serve a pur-
pose at territorial entrances. Most Guardians now are
not folk art; they are mass-produced art objects. But
as an art form they are still a part of our culture's
folklore and traditions.
Guardians, as known to us, came down from Egypt,
Persia, Greece, and Rome, although a few, bears for
example, may be traced to Oriental or Germanic
sources. These survivors of ungentler, older times
are generally not recognized for what they are. They
are now thought of as mere architectural or land-
scape decorations or as simple ornaments. Some
owners, sensitive about being thought superstitious,
state flatly that, although these objects might be Guar-
dians to others, to their owners they are art objects
only. They do not explain or understand the basis
of the attraction that prompted them to choose an
elephant-shaped ceramic planter rather than, for ex-
ample, a cast iron bulldog. Their disclaimer indicates
that the use of Guardians has now reached its denial
stage, roughly the equivalent of the Protestant use
of St. Christopher as a dashboard "decoration" or
St. Francis as part of a garden "arrangement."
It is not difficult to establish and trace solidly their
line of descent. As we know and make use of them,
Guardians may have had, actually, multiple origins,
each adding force to the main line of development
as tributaries add their characters to a river. It is easy
enough to find Guardians in Bogomil artifacts from
Yugoslavia. Gaelic and Celtic Guardians can be cited.
But there is also a traceable Roman influence in
them, or the strong possibility of one. There are, ofGuardians,
Surviving
Eolkways
Text and Photographs
by John Igo
course, some authentic independent lines of descent:
for example, the Chinese temple dog, or Maori door-
way carvings from New Zealand, or those dog-jawed
cats, called onzas, outside temples atop pyramids in
southern Mexico. The impulse to use or to have Guar-
dians appears to be natural, common, multicultural,
and widely applicable.
The most commonly seen Guardians represent
several cultures, but most have their ancestry through
Latin (or Mediterranean) Europe back to Greece,
which in turn had assimilated Egyptian and even
Assyrian elements. It is really, then, an eastern
Mediterranean phenomenon that has come down
disguised, denied, forgotten, adapted; the tradition
is now thought of as quaint, old-fashioned. New Guar-
dians, freshly designed, newly purchased or
homemade, are still being installed. Lawn supply
businesses and nurseries have a steady demand for
them.
There are basically four styles: the truly balanced
set, in which the pair in position is symmetrical or
mirror-image (heads not parallel but facing); a sim-
ple pair of identical Guardians (heads parallel); the
matched pair, such as boy/girl or closely similar
figures in different poses; and the unmatched pair
(different sizes or random in pairing).* 31 *
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Folk Art in Texas (Book)
This book describes popular folk art of Texas, including basket weaving, hat-making, yard art, sculptures, murals, cemetery art, quilt-making, tattoo art, and other miscellaneous folk art. The index begins on page 198.
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Abernethy, Francis Edward. Folk Art in Texas, book, 1985; Dallas, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc67647/m1/39/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.