Parish Fair

In an Austrian village the Kirchtag, the feast of the local church's consecration, was one of the high points of the year, and every parish kept its own date. In the middle of the painted village a tall stripped pole rises into the sky, hung with prizes at the top, and a young man is already halfway up. Around it people dance, and at a doorway a man lifts a tankard. In the 1780s, some 20 years after Aigen's death, Emperor Joseph II cut back on holidays and ordered every parish to hold its fair on one common day in October. People resented losing the separate dates that let relatives visit each other's feasts, and the rule did not last. Aigen painted this scene as a companion to his Fair Before a City Gate, and the two canvases are exactly the same size.