A Short History of Folk Art

Folk Art can be defined as originating among the common people of a nation or region and usually reflecting their traditional culture, especially everyday or festive items produced or decorated by unschooled artists.

It is predominantly functional, typically produced by hand for use by the maker or by a small group or community. Paintings are usually incorporated as decorative features on clock faces, chests, chairs, and interior and exterior walls. Sculptural objects in wood, stone, and metal include toys, spoons, candlesticks, and religious items. Folk architecture may include public and residential buildings, such as eastern European wooden churches and U.S. frontier log cabins. Other examples of visual folk arts are woodcuts, scrimshaw, pottery, textiles, and traditional clothing.

Common people have been creating art works since the beginning of time. Starting with early man who painted on the walls of caves. Art work of this type was used for daily life and was not always meant to be viewed as fine art. It had a purpose and brought with it the spirit and beliefs of the people who created it. Folk art plays an important role in studying the daily life of the time in which it was created. It helps historians understand day-to-day life for the multitude of peasants, tradesmen and craftsmen who lived all over the world.

Since Folk Art has been created by the multitude it is not constrained by rules like the fine art world has been. It is a free form of art that derieves it's inspiration and creavitity from the people who make it. The colors and forms are normally crude and simple as compared to fine art. It is sought after for it's one-of-a-kind aspect and original designs. Folk art cannot be catagorized in to any one catagory since these objects were made for a multitude of purposes.

Certainly the early settlers in the New World colonies had little concern for the qualities of fine art. A portrait for them was a pictorial document that indicated a significant position of power and wealth within the community. At the same time, it recorded the sitter for future generations. This notion of art, as social icon and economic indicator, was repeated in the Hudson River Valley where, in the early eighteenth century, the rich merchants and planters dominated every aspect of colonial life between New York City in the south to Albany in the north.

The first real appreciation of American folk art began during the 1920s when artists, returning from World War I, began to search for what was American about American art. Since that time, collectors and scholars have attempted to identify and classify the naive art that at different times has been called by such diverse terms as amateur, artisan, pioneer, popular, primitive, and provincial. The confusion about this vast body of work, which for the most part was executed by self-trained artists in a state of relative artistic innocence, is not surprising, for the art falls into several broad categories based upon medium and type.

Oil and tempera paintings on canvas and board, watercolors on paper and cardboard, drawings, sketches, and pastels are the mediums most often encountered. Portraits, silhouettes, landscapes, pinprick pictures, calligraphic drawings, wall murals, furniture decoration, coach decoration, shop signs' fireboards, overmantel paintings, and theorems on paper, velvet, and silk are but a few of the types of art that are included in the catchall term American folk painting. Folk sculpture, also multifaceted, includes such diverse objects as carved gravestones, both painted and carved signs, weathervanes and whirligigs, ships' figureheads and nautical ornaments, scrimshaw, waterfowl and fish decoys, religious carvings, pottery, carousel and circus carvings, and chalkware ornaments. All may reasonably be considered folk art.

Regardless of the medium, several characteristics consistently appear in folk art. In the best examples there is a combination of naturalness and simplicity, resulting in a directness that has come to be much admired by contemporary art historians, critics, and collectors.

For many years it was generally thought that the folk artist was essentially anonymous, itinerant, and untrained, but research has altered these views. A number of artists have been identified, such as the Massachusetts painter Rufus Hathaway, the Hudson Valley artist Gerardus Duyckinck, the youthful Benjamin West who flourished in Pennsylvania prior to an illustrious career in England, and Sheldon Peck who worked first in Vermont and later moved with the frontier to western New York.

In recent decades the folk arts have come to a new prominence. The Museum of American Folk Art in New York City has been at the forefront of folk-art scholarship, presenting national and international exhibitions, engaging in an ambitious publishing program, including a quarterly magazine, the Clarion, and conducting far-reaching educational programs.

The field in some ways has been redefined in recent years as well. The pioneer collectors steadfastly refused to acknowledge that naive artists working in our own time are capable of creating works of art of enduring quality. Now, however, interest in contemporary folk art is widespread, and as the efforts of the modern-day folk artists gain credibility with collectors, museums, and the academic world, new definitions for the field will have to be devised.

There are two types of contemporary folk expression that are of great interest to the modern-day collector. The first, and probably the most universal, is called "memory" painting. Generally older, self-taught artists record scenes from their early life and in the process document a way of life that was rural, less complex, and free from the changes wrought by improved communications and transportation in America during the twentieth century. Their idyllic renderings have immense popular appeal. Probably the best known of these twentieth-century artists are Grandma Moses, Mattie Lou O'Kelley, and Kathy Jakobsen.

A separate contemporary category of folk art is the raw, expressive, seemingly childlike efforts of artists like Howard Finster, Will Hawkins, and Thornton Dial, who are related to contemporary art at least as much as they are to folk art. They represent an individual vision that reflects the artist's concern with oneself, one's place in society, and one's highly personal point of view. These somewhat eccentric, self-taught painters and sculptors are referred to as "outsider" artists or "isolate" artists. Though their work is created outside of the traditions generally associated with folk artists, many of their pieces will endure and add significantly to the patchwork of naive creativity in America in the twentieth century.

Contributors and Authors:
American History Companion
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Robert Bishop
Victoria Wilson

A Brief Look at
Folk Art Around the World

African Folk Art consists of a wide variety of items: household objects, metal objects, toys, textiles, masks, and wood sculpture, among others.

Metal objects have many functions and meanings in Africa where forging has been regarded as an almost magical, transformative process that is likened to the creation of life itself. Ceremonial pieces, often based on utilitarian forms such as the agricultural hoe, an iwenga from the Nkutshu people of southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, were used as special-purpose currency. Not everyday money, this currency was exchanged in the course of a significant social transaction such as marriage. Utilitarian, symbolic, and decorative; cultural significance is hammered into the products of the forge with every blow.

Pottery is made all over the continent of Africa for functional and ritual use. Pottery, along with basketry vessels, was essential to carry and store food and water. Collecting interests includes Zambian pottery with its beautifully proportioned clay bodies decorated with fine lines that form a decorative geometric pattern. Today in Zambia, most pottery has been replaced by sheet metal and plastic, materials that are more durable and less expensive but also less attractive than a handmade clay jar.

Chinese folk art are artistic forms inherited from a regional or ethnic scene in China. Usually there are some variation between provinces. Individual folk arts have a long history, and many traditions are still practiced today. The general definition of folk art incorporates Chinese art forms that are not classified as fine arts.

The first two forms of paper art began in the Han Dynasty with Chinese Paper Cutting and Chinese Paper Folding. These arts have expanded globally.

One of the oldest forms of folk art is puppetry. Puppeteers use various kinds of puppets, including marionettes, glove puppets, rod puppets, cloth puppets, and wire puppets in performances incorporating folk songs and dances over some dialogues. The subject matter is derived mainly from children's stories and fables.

Chinese Shadow theatre is a form of puppetry that is performed by moving figures made of animal skins or cardboard held behind a screen lit by lamplight. The subject matter and singing style in shadow plays are closely related to Chinese opera, except without using live actors or actresses.

Chinese knot is a decorative handicraft art that creates knot patterns. It is one of the more traditional art forms almost completely lost in the transition from Imperial to modern China.

Pottery is probably the most popular Mexican folk art, and one of the most ancient. Pottery is found throughout the country, in many different styles and forms. Mexican pottery was traditionally made by hand, using coils or molds. Called earthenware, this clay was fired at low temperatures. Before the Spanish came to Mexico, the firing took place in bonfires. Mineral glazes, the potter's wheel and open top kilns were introduced by the Spanish and are sometimes used today.

Common everyday pottery (la loza corriente) is simply decorated. It comes in a range of shapes and sizes. Most of this pottery is used to hold food or liquids. The more decorative pottery is often used for ceremonies or household decoration. Pots are decorated with slips (layers of liquid clay), paints, and glazes. Animal and human figurines are often made for sale.

Villages often specialize in making certain types of pottery. In many areas of the country, women might make the common ware and men the decorative. In some villages the entire family will work together to make a certain type of pottery. Pottery, like all other Mexican crafts, has changed in the last 100 years. Traditional pottery is still made, but now usually for sale.

Oaxacan Woodcarving in Mexico is another important form of Folk Art. Oaxaca Valley is in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Many of the carvers are descendants of the Zapotec Indians, native to this area. The soft wood of the copal tree is used to carve these amazing creatures. These figures are crafted with a great deal of imagi- nation. They are carved, sanded and then painted by hand using bright colors. The carvings are usually made for sale. Men often carve the fig- ures, when they are not farming, in order to earn extra money to sup- port their families. Sometimes an entire family may help create these fantastic and amusing figures.

French-Canadian Folk Art dates as early as 1670, under the sponsorship of Bishop François de Laval (1623–1708), a school was founded near Québec where carving, painting, and other crafts were taught to the sons of the habitants (French settlers). Although its primary purpose was to provide art for the churches, it seems to have nurtured a carving tradition that survives to this day.

The predominant theme in Canadian folk carving is religious, especially the crucifix intended for the family shrine, but there is a considerable body of minisculpture, predominantly of birds and animals. The carving of animals may well have derived from the animals made for the crèches that were popular both inside and outside the homes. One ubiquitous figure is, of course, the beaver, symbol of Canada, which appears as a decorative element on a wide variety of objects and as a subject of carving in life-size. Carvings, usually of pine, were often painted in bright colors, reflecting the exuberant use of color inside and outside the French-Canadian home. In contrast, the figures on the crucifixes were often painted with a white finish similar to enamel.

The weather vane is still seen on country churches and barns. Most often it is in the form of a cock, either of wood or tin, but made in the round rather than in flat profile. Three other forms of folk art are common and characteristically French-Canadian: the small carved wooden pipes that go back to the days of the voyageurs; the carved molds for maple sugar, with such designs as maple leaves, snowshoes, and abstractions; and the handsome flèches—wide woven belts, colored by natural dyes, that young Indian women were taught to weave by Ursuline nuns. The overall spirit of French-Canadian folk art is colorful, happy, and, at the same time, devout.

Folk art has existed in every culture, past and present. Folk art describes a wide range of objects that reflect the craft traditions and traditional social values of various social groups. Folk art is generally produced by people who have little or no academic artistic training, nor a desire to emulate "fine art", and use established techniques and styles of a particular region or culture. Along with painting, sculpture, and other decorative art forms, some also consider utilitarian objects such as tools and costume as folk art.