Folk art
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| Peruvian clay vessel (4th-6th cen- tury A.D.), made by a Nazca crafts- man, is decorated with an animal holding a twig of pepper pods, who represents the god of vegetation. |
The folk artist could be a potter, weaver, carver, or furniture maker, guitarist, or singer. Although qualified, he does not have formal training but follows the traditions of his community. For example, when he is a painter, he is likely to be a decorator of useful objects rather than a pictorial painter. But even if he does paint pictures (such as symbols or devotional images), he does things that are used for specific purposes instead of things that reflect his personal vision.
For example, folk songs and rhythms also play an important part in the routines of everyday work. Weavers in North Africa and the Middle East manufacture carpets chanted aloud according to rhythmic directions. Master weavers move from place to place, in the form of such chants, carrying patterns in their memories. Some folk music is highly rhythmic; it makes you want to sing, run, or dance to it— think about it not. When folk songs tell stories-about traditional heroes, or daily events and emotions, they rarely make personal or individual remarks about them.
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| Part of an 18th-century skirt border from Crete, embroidered with figure of a crowned woman holding carnations-an example of the stylized patterns followed by folk artists. |
Folk art isn't a study of oneself. But that doesn't mean it's naive. Some folk arts ' standard is very sophisticated-as in the high quality of the Shakers ' furniture and fabrics, people belonging to an American religious sect. Here, it is believed that talent and the ability to create were God-given. Consequently, the act of making something should be an act of worship in itself, and nothing but the best is considered good enough.
Wherever people still practice folk art, we find that all of them recognize this sense of power which lies in the act of creation. In many instances, this appreciation is combined with the conviction that the folk artist will leave a deliberate mistake for his work because only God can make a perfect existence. If he does not, one might think he was trying to "copy" God. For example, a village cabinetmaker will include an "under" in his work, or leave part of it unfinished, in order to avoid such blasphemy. A decorative painter leaves his pattern an open-end, or paints in some variation that slightly upsets the symmetry. And both oriental and Finnish weavers will leave a "tail" or mistake in their work for similar reasons. They assume that if they did not, their souls would be woven into the job, and thus imprisoned.
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| In Sicily, carts are still carved and painted with colorful geometric designs-legacy of 11th-century Arab invaders. Pictured on panels are scenes from medieval Sicilian history. |
Although folk artisans usually do not have formal training, they learn from the traditional work of the past. He copied highly stylized forms from previous artists, often taking a step further in the simplification or stylization process. In this way, the folk painter does not know how to draw a flower, but how to blend colour, how much paint to put on a canvas, how to handle a brush, and, eventually, how to make the actual stroke that produces one petal. In short, he's learning an event. And it's the sum of those acts that will decide the form and beauty of a flower.
Often, most folk music is defined by the techniquo used by musicians. Folk musicians prefer to use stringed instruments that can be plucked (guitars, mandolins, zithers, etc.) because these instruments are suitable for playing strongly rhythmic melodies. Folk music is taking advantage of complicated off-beat rhythms around the world. These results largely from the playing technique: the thumb sweeps the open strings on the stroke; the fingers play the melody and harmonies on the downstroke-often with quite complex fingering. It's this technique, for example, that gives Spanish folk music its unique character.
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| Tin coffeepot, made in Pennsylvania in the the mid-19th century is painted with a traditional fruit design that was carried to the New World by emigrant Dutch craftsmen. |
The spiritual, a kind of profoundly felt North American Negro folk song, has spread in various forms all around the world. There seemed to be jazz* along with it. But, unlike the spiritual, jazz is a typical form of city art. It's more complex, more nuanced than the moral one that grew up among the Negroes on farms and cotton plantations in the American South. That's why jazz has become less of folk art than a "mass" genre— a kind of art we're researching on another blog.*
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