# data[].attributes.body
Industrial Revolution

# data[].attributes.body
Romanticism

# data[].attributes.body
use of natural substances like wood, straw, and clay.
watercolor and pastels were often used
utilization of stencils
Stained glass

# data[].attributes.headline
Subjects and influences of the art style

# data[].attributes.subject
Subjects and influences of the art style

# data[].attributes.body
Village scenes

City scenes

Landscapes

Churches and important public structures

Seascapes

Portraits

Farmhouse scenes

Military wars

Naval battles

Horse-racing scenes

Religious groups

# data[].attributes.body
Joshua Johnson
Rufus Hathaway
Eunice Pinney
Edward Hicks

# data[].attributes.body
Brighton Beach Memories by Steve Klein

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.britannica.com/art/folk-art-visual-arts
https://owlcation.com/humanities/american-folkartpainters
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/definitions/folk-art.htm

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
folk art, predominantly functional or utilitarian visual art created by hand (or with limited mechanical facilities) for use by the maker or a small circumscribed group and containing an element of retention-the prolonged survival of tradition. Folk art is the creative expression of the human struggle toward civilization within a particular environment through the production of useful but aesthetic buildings and objects.

This article focuses on the usual sense of the term folk art-that is, on the visual arts. For folk art in the broader sense, see also folk dance; folk music; folklore; folk literature.

In the broadest sense, folk art refers to the art of the people, as distinguished from the elite or professional product that constitutes the mainstream of art in highly developed societies. The term in this comprehensive context combines some quite disparate categories of art; therefore, as a workable field of art-historical study, folk art is generally treated separately from certain other kinds of peoples' arts, notably the "primitive" (defined as the work of prehistoric and preliterate peoples). Historically, the terms folk and popular have been used interchangeably in the art field, the former being specific in English and German ( Volkskunst), the latter in the Romance languages ( populaire, popolare); the term folk, however, has increasingly been adopted in the various languages, both Western and Oriental, to designate the category under discussion here. The term popular art is widely used to denote items commercially or mass-produced to meet popular taste, a process distinguished from the manner of the folk artist, as defined above. The distinction between folk and popular art is not absolute, however: some widely collected folk art, such as the chalkwares (painted plaster ornamental figures) common in America and the popular prints turned out for wide distribution, may be seen as the genesis of popular art; and the products and motifs long established in folk art have provided a natural source for the popular field.

Although the definition of folk art is not yet firm, it may be considered as the art created among groups that exist within the framework of a developed society but, for geographic or cultural reasons, are largely separated from the cosmopolitan artistic developments of their time and that produce distinctive styles and objects for local needs and tastes. The output of such art represents a unique complex of primitive impulses and traditional practices subjected both to sophisticated influences and to highly local developments; aside from aesthetic considerations, the study of folk art is particularly revealing in regard to the relationship between art and culture.

As industry, commerce, and transportation begin to offer all people free access to the latest ideas and products, a true folk art tends to disappear; the integrity and tradition that formed its inherent character decline, and the heritage of home-produced products is undervalued for the very qualities that made it distinctive. Subsequent revivals, extensively sponsored by organizations, craft groups, governments, or commercial enterprises, are no longer the same thing.

The recognition of folk art as a special category came about during the late 19th century and was at first limited to the so-called peasant art of Europe, the "art of the land." The new intellectual climate of the time, with a romantic value attached to the simple life and the "folk soul" and the increasing spread of democratic or nationalistic ideas, brought the art of the common people into focus. It was recognized that their simple tools, utensils, and crafts had aesthetic aspects. Before industrialization, such folk art was widespread throughout Europe, exhibiting almost everywhere local styles created by people who had no access to the products of the wealthy and who were engaged largely in agricultural, pastoral, or maritime pursuits. As sophistication advanced, localism began to break down along major routes, but the folk arts continued on the periphery, particularly in geographically isolated regions, where they had an opportunity not only to survive but also to elaborate.

Having only limited contact with the outside world, the inhabitants preserved their traditions, art forms, and methods of workmanship over a long period and, at the same time, had to rely on their own invention to create new styles and products at need. These outstanding regional arts provide a well-defined core of material in the field of folk art.

As the early colonists immigrated to remote parts of the world, they, too, were isolated from the cultural developments of the homeland and forced to rely on their own skills for most of their products. The arts they took with them were transformed, and new arts emerged under the stimulus of a different environment and through contact with native cultures; the notable folk arts of the Americas were one result.

In time, it was recognized that the great Asian civilizations, like those of Europe, also had two distinct forms of art-the elitist and the folk. As Asian folk art scholarship developed, the subject gained international footing.

While most scholars agree that a folk type of art has occurred at some time in many parts of the world (and may yet appear in newly developing countries), there are various areas in which such art has so far been ignored or has not been studied as a separate category. For instance, with the notable exception of Roman folk art, the folk distinction is not usually applied to the art of ancient civilizations nor to Islamic or Western medieval art. The summary provided here is, therefore, necessarily concentrated on the more studied areas: European folk art of the 17th-19th centuries, colonial and postcolonial folk arts, and the folk art of certain major Eastern countries. In addition to the major folk regions, this article will deal with the categories, styles, content, and motifs of folk art.

Patterns of development

The extensive studies of European and American folk art over the past century have revealed certain patterns of folk art development. Though these patterns are subject to revision as the field expands or is refined, they provide a basis on which cultural variations and less widespread or random occurrences may be considered.

The utilitarian aspect of folk art

Typically, the people who created the art were immediately concerned with producing the necessities of life; as a result, the art is often described as predominantly functional or utilitarian, in spite of the fact that important categories are definitely not utilitarian, such as the widespread miniatures created simply for pleasure. It is true, however, that much artistic effort was absorbed in meeting everyday requirements. In the folk group, in which occupations were often seasonal or dependent on weather and where people had to provide their own amusements, the creation of useful objects became also a leisure-time activity on which creativity was lavished; a shuttle might be transformed with carving or a chest with painted designs, and even the corset stay came to be an art form. For this reason, folk art is best studied (as is "primitive" art) with the entire handmade product included and attention devoted to its cultural as well as its aesthetic significance. It differs from the study of sophisticated art, in which there is a long-standing distinction between fine and applied arts and a tendency to exclude, or at least segregate, the utilitarian from more strictly aesthetic forms.

wooden bucket Photograph by Katie Chao. Brooklyn Museum, New York, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alastair B. Martin, the Guennol Collection, 75.21

Folk art was not created for museums. Certainly, some was designed to endure, such as documents, family portraits, and gravestones; occasional types were made purely for display, such as the "show towel" of the Pennsylvania Germans and the sampler (a piece of needlework with letters or verses embroidered on it as an example of skill); and certain household treasures were preserved for generations. In general, however, there was an indifference to permanence, so long as the function was served; and much of the art was expected to be either consumed or discarded after a celebrative appearance. There is a substantial percentage of intentionally ephemeral folk art-the marriage bowl broken after the ceremony, paper objects burned at funerals, festival breads, carnival figures, graffiti, snowmen; temporary symbolic designs were drawn on the threshold on feast days in India, for example, and were formed of flower petals for religious processions in Italy. Folk art collections, thus dependent at least in part upon the accidents of survival, must be supplemented by photographic and written documentation in order for a representative view of the whole art to be obtained.

The role of continuous tradition

The element of retention (prolonged survivals of tradition) is considered fundamental in folk art, as it is in folklore. In an isolated situation, the sophisticated ideas that penetrate are generally belated and simplified, and there is a natural trend toward conservatism. Both local and ancient traditions maintain a strong hold. Serviceable forms and familiar motifs are likely to persist, and changes are gradual in comparison to the sudden innovations possible in sophisticated art.

Yet a constant individuality and ingenuity affect the familiar mode, and an art uninhibited by arbitrary aesthetic rules takes many fresh directions. Thus, the fluctuating combination of retained and inventive elements is of significant interest.

Characteristic materials and techniques

The most easily distinguished characteristics of folk art as a whole relate to materials and techniques. Most commonly used were the natural substances that came readily to hand; thus, various materials that have little or no place in sophisticated art, such as straw, may figure importantly in folk art. Sophisticated media, such as oil painting, might be adopted if they could be manipulated, and manufactured products-notably paper, which was cheap and versatile-might be used where available. The unique forms evolved in these sophisticated media illustrate the way in which folk art draws upon the general culture in a limited way, while developing along original lines of its own.

Tools were usually few and often multipurpose: delicate Polish cut-paper designs were often executed with clumsy sheep shears; and in woodwork, chip carving (with ax or hatchet) and notch carving (V-shaped cuts with a knife) were widely used.

Some arts were well within the compass of folk technology; textiles often rival the sophisticated handmade product in workmanship (differences being a matter of styles and themes). In many crafts, however, the folk artists evolved simpler methods of their own. Cut tin, in silhouette shapes or decorated by hand painting or pricking (marking out a design with small punctures), for example, is a common folk medium, whereas full-round bronze sculpture was not likely to be attempted. Again, the French Canadians used wood for "cathedrals" that were carpentered adaptations of their European stone prototypes.

Large-scale figures often reveal special devices that were invented to overcome technical deficiencies; some are crudely assembled from parts; many maintain a simple overall shape with details merely incised; feet might be represented by pegs inserted into bored holes. In pictorial representation, the difficulties of three-dimensional modeling, while readily solved by some groups, frequently resulted in a preference for outline and flat shapes; for the easier, profile view; and for the evolution of such forms as the silhouette and the shadow picture, made by outlining and filling in the shadow of a head cast onto the wall or paper. The limitations forced a mutation in forms.

Folk art in the urban environment

Folk art is by no means restricted to characteristic regional groups or rural arts. It occurs, for example, among minority groups bent on preserving their ethnic or religious traditions and their typical products. There are various folk manifestations within an urban environment, particularly in connection with the celebrative arts, which have a strong traditional hold; for example, at Christmas time in Warsaw, the people carry about the city models they have made of their cathedral. Covered with salvaged coloured foil, the models incorporate a Nativity scene and are lighted by candles or, more recently, by small bulbs and batteries.

Collective versus individual art

While many folk artists are known by name and many specialized in a particular art form, the skills were mainly available to all (with a distinction between the crafts of men and women), and most of the people were productive. The originality that delights the collector was not emphasized by the people themselves, who were concerned with producing the best examples they could of the desired object decorated with the appropriate and traditional image. Without consideration of the group involved and of the circumstances of folk culture in general, the art can scarcely be interpreted.

Categories of folk art

Only a part of folk art falls into the recognized sophisticated categories of visual art, and even that part has its own adaptations.

In architecture the focus is naturally on the basic dwelling and on a simple public or religious building. One of the oldest and most remarkable dwelling forms survives in the trullo of Puglia, in Italy. A circular dry-stone structure with a tall conical roof, it is often decorated with symbolic designs splashed in white; for multiple rooms, the basic construction is simply repeated. The whitewashed stone architecture of the Greek islands, combining basic cubic forms with a variety of free shapes and inventive projections of balconies, overhangs, and exterior stairways, has been extensively studied and acclaimed by modern architects-as have the wooden churches of eastern Europe, with their delicate, needlelike wooden spires, and the wooden stave churches of Scandinavia. Other unique forms are the Alpine house, with its steep, wide-eaved roof designed for snow; the cave dwellings of Spain, some with several rooms and a constructed exterior front; the adobe house; and the log cabin. A characteristic design may evolve for such outbuildings as the granary (notably the hórreos of Galicia), the dovecote, the straw shepherd's hut, or the barn. In community building, the walled agricultural villages with radial pathways to surrounding fields, the fishing villages that are oriented to a harbour, and the American stockade cluster as well as the village common exemplify the close relationship of folk design to folk activities.

The idea of a picture to be hung on the wall is by no means universal in folk art. It occurs in Europe, notably as the ex-voto, or votive offering, hung in churches and chapels, and in America, where portraits and local scenes were executed in oil, pastel, or watercolour. More typically, the painted depictions that occur in folk art are incorporated into other objects; for example, the American clock faces bearing local landscapes. A feature of some folk art is the "picture" displayed as if it were painted but executed in such media as fern, cork, shells, or embroidery. Oil paints and prepared canvasses are sophisticated materials and, though sometimes available, were often replaced by house paint or chalk and by silk, linen, or cotton fabric. Painting on velvet and underglass painting emerged as specific folk types. The amount of decorative painting on a particular object is often very extensive; among German and German-American groups, for example, every inch of a chest, bed, or chair surface might be covered. Walls or beams were commonly decorated with geometric and floral motifs and occasionally with scenes, though the available space did not encourage anything approximating the sophisticated mural. Painting on exterior walls was a feature in some areas, including parts of North Africa and India as well as Europe. Stencil painting, widely used for furniture and walls, illustrates the folk capacity for achieving varied effects within technical limitations.

In America the technique was applied to "theorem painting" (painting on velvet through a stencil, usually done with a dauber or pad and with some attempt at shading).

Some form of figural sculpture and a quantity of incised or relief decoration applied to a variety of objects appear to be almost universal among societies. Work in wood was particularly widespread, though stone, a more difficult material, was also used, especially for gravestones and religious sculpture. Papier-mâché, with its quick and bold effects, was widely adopted both in the East and West for carnival and votive figures and for a multitude of toys. The folk artist was often at his best in making small things, delighting in toys, small-scale representations of daily activities, and such oddities as ships carved inside bottles. Miniature sculptures were often skillfully executed in elaborate groups displaying a cohesive harmony; in Russia, for example, an entire herd of cattle was mounted on a jointed trellis designed to provide a scissorlike movement to the whole. Some figural types were created to be set up in groups, as were the European crèche figures (making up the Nativity or manger scene), toy soldiers, and Chinese miniature wedding processions. The creation of useful objects in an overall sculptured shape, both in pottery and wood, is also typical. In southern Europe or in Mexico, a bottle, flask, or candlestick might take human, fish, or other forms; a Moravian beehive, for example, might be a sculptured head.

The folk print

The wood block (also used for stamping textiles) was the natural folk medium for making prints. Usually simply cut and sometimes crudely coloured or stenciled, they served to illustrate popular subjects, with more interest often in the idea than in the depiction itself. Small prints of various saints were widely produced in Europe. Comic themes were popular, such as the "topsy-turvy world" and "man reversed" (e.g., "the fish catches the man") and stock characters. Block printing was also used to produce games, announcements for traveling shows, and forms for certificates. The English broadsheets and the Mexican calaveras (literally "skulls," a category of prints, sometimes made from lead cuts) offer outstanding examples of the cheap printed sheets that combined a verbal message (verses, proverbs, polemics, pious themes) with illustration. The 19th-century trade cards (notice for a shop or service) are sometimes included in folk art, but doubtfully so; they were often machine printed. In fact, it is difficult to segregate the print of truly folk character from the voluminous field of either "popular" or commercial printing.

Other arts

In the folk field, the minor arts can hardly be called minor, for such universal necessities as pottery, textiles, costume, and furniture and more unusual forms such as weather vanes and scarecrows provided the most frequent opportunities for creative expression and often absorbed the aesthetic impetus that, in the sophisticated world, was associated more with the fine arts.

Both pottery and textiles range from the everyday to elaborately decorated forms that are often symbolic or highly pictorial; even common examples are typically ornamented with design in a simple slip (a mixture of clay and water) or a woven band.

Folk costume is justly included in many general works on costume, but it differs significantly from the sophisticated in several respects: in a localism so extreme that even a particular town or valley may have its own prized style and every region is distinctive; in the complete differentiation of the festival costume from ordinary clothing; and in a prolongation of style that is little affected either by changes of fashion or by individual taste. The motifs which are typical of festival costumes, such as the twin, cone-shaped buttons symbolizing fertility in Sardinia, are too deep-rooted in the tradition of the area to be discarded.

Furniture tends toward basic, repeated shapes, which may be left purely functional but are often extensively carved or painted. The Alsatian chair, for instance, has an upright-board back, carved with a pierced, silhouetted, bilateral design; some hundreds of variations of this simple design have been recorded within the area. Certain occupational forms emerged, according to need, such as the milking stool, the cobbler's bench, and the rocking bench, or "mammy settle."

In metalwork, the materials used to produce tools and other essentials were also turned by the craftsmen into such art forms as toleware (painted tin or tinned iron), incised copper or silver, pewter toys, and lead figurines. European wrought-iron grave crosses and shop signs are distinguished by intricate scrollwork and inventive linear depictions. Delicate bone carving is very widespread, appearing on such objects as implements, game pieces (such as chessmen), figures (notably crucifixes), and ornaments. An art peculiar to North America is the whalebone carving ( scrimshaw) made by sailors while at sea.

The theatrical arts are spectacularly represented by puppetry, ranging from toy theatres, finger puppets, and the ubiquitous Punch and Judy shows to the famous puppet theatres of Sicily and Indonesia. Among the appurtenances of traveling shows and miracle plays, dating from the earlier phase of European folk art, was the hobbyhorse, which had a counterpart in festival performances in India. Musical instruments offer a profusion of types, often preserving ancient features of construction, principles of sound, and decoration: the heavy ratchets and rattles of the Alpine festivals; the shaggy bagpipes of the Abruzzi mountains; fiddles such as the rudimentary gusle of the Balkan States, with its typical horsehead or horseman scroll, and the more complicated Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, with underlying sympathetic strings; and innumerable ornamented flutes, harps, horns, and dulcimers. The simple, painted clay whistle or flute is widespread, often in mimetic bird shape.

Specific folk categories

Any attempt to analyze folk art in terms of the established, sophisticated categories, though revealing in comparison, fails to take into account a substantial bulk of the art. Many characteristic products not subject to sophisticated aesthetic treatment have become specific fields of study and collection because of the ingenuity expended upon them-mangles (laundry beaters), molds, decorated eggs, weather vanes, decoys, powder horns, trade signs, scarecrows, and figureheads, to name a few. There are also significant objects categorized according to function; for example, animal gear represented by the woven harness of donkeys in Spain, carved and painted ox yokes and sheep collars, brass-studded and tasseled headpieces, and ornaments supposedly endowed with protective powers. Other widespread types are decorated vehicles such as the caravans of Roma (Gypsies), circus wagons, boats bearing symbolic motifs, and toys and miniatures in countless media.

Freedom of media

While some of the art is executed in a recognized sophisticated medium such as wood carving, many other materials, such as hide, horn, straw, bamboo, and palm leaf, are characteristic in certain regions or for certain objects. In fact, there is scarcely an available material that is not utilized somewhere in folk art, from the hickory-nut doll to the commemorative picture made of human hair, and materials are often combined. This free-wheeling employment of any sort of material rivals the fertile adaptations of "found objects" in 20th-century sophisticated art-as many other modern "innovations" have a long-standing precedent in the spontaneous art of the folk. Collage, and assemblage are an old story in this field; embroidered pictures had faces painted in watercolour, and festival figures were made of anything that came to hand. Weather charms in southern Germany were often collages of-among other things-saints' pictures, amulets, and seeds. The many types of kinetic art include manipulated masks; jointed dolls, figures, and toys; whirligigs (spinning toys); pinwheels spun by wind or candle heat; and balance figures set in motion by a touch. Folk festivals, with their impromptu processions, costumed personages, antics, and props, offer almost a prototype of the mid-20th-century "happening."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
folk art, predominantly functional or utilitarian visual art created by hand (or with limited mechanical facilities) for use by the maker or a small circumscribed group and containing an element of retention-the prolonged survival of tradition. Folk art is the creative expression of the human

# data[].attributes.body
Late 18th century to early 20th century

# data[].attributes.body
Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative