The gnome-painting was part of a celebration of new EU protection of quality labels, one of which has been given to handcrafted gnomes from the German village of Gräfenroda, now officially protected as “Original Thuringian Garden Gnomes.” Alas, this column’s application for a protection of quality label was rejected on the grounds of, er, quality.
Incidentally, this writer’s favorite gnome available from the shop of the company behind the painting workshop is Johannes der “Ruhende–Holzhacker” (the resting woodcutter), who is adopting a vaguely sexual pose (are you sure about that? — ed) while smoking a pipe and holding an ax (neither of which are euphemisms). Yours for just €850.
The idea of putting small stone figures in the garden is a very old one. Ancient Romans often placed statues of Priapus, the god of fertility (who, thanks to a curse by Hera, was given a massive, er, parliamentary majority), in their gardens to protect the crops.
Gnomes can also be political. There are statues of gnomes dotted around Wrocław in Poland, a nod to the Orange Alternative, which was an anti-Soviet resistance movement and not people who don’t like Donald Trump.
Then there’s the phrase “Gnomes of Zurich,” a derogatory term used to describe Swiss bankers. It was coined in 1964 by U.K. Labour politician George Brown when a currency crisis that was hurting the British pound was blamed on Swiss banks, in a classic case of Brit-blames-Europeans-for-own-problems.
And in 2014, some 400 garden gnomes belonging to Austria’s Social Democratic Party went missing. The gnomes were being used in advertising campaigns ahead of regional elections and the finger of blame was pointed at the rival Austrian People’s Party rather than the marketing genius who thought buying hundreds of gnomes was a sound use of party funds.