folk art

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Compound of folk +‎ art.

Noun[edit]

folk art (countable and uncountable, plural folk arts)

  1. Craft traditions and values of various social groups.
    Coordinate term: fine art
    • 1995, Alison Hilton, Russian Folk Art, Indiana University Press, →ISBN, page 3:
      Folk art belongs to communities rather than to individuals, and to many generations rather than one period. [] Folk art reflects community ideas about what is beautiful or appropriate for a given object or function.
    • 2015, Peter B. Orlik, Media Criticism in a Digital Age[1], Routledge, →ISBN:
      Folk art is often produced by anonymous and formally untrained consumers for their own or barter use. It might later, like brothel-born jazz, be accorded the status of a fine art by subsequent audiences who assign greater complexities to its structure.
  2. Intangible art forms such as folk music and folk dance rooted in and reflective of the cultural life of a community.
    • 2012, Sharyn R. Udall, Dance and American Art: A Long Embrace, University of Wisconsin Press, →ISBN, page 108:
      Through its disarming frankness, inherent drama, and theatricality, Spanish dance had definitely moved from folk art to theatrical experience.
  3. Outsider art.
    • 2001 October 23, Roberta Smith, “Howard Finster, Folk Artist and Preacher, Dies at 84”, in The New York Times[2], →ISSN:
      Mr. Finster's work emerged at a time when traditional definitions of folk art were being expanded to include a diverse range of faith-driven, stylistically raw work known as outsider art that was frequently made by Southern blacks and whites who eked out livings as farmers or repairmen.
    • 2015, Víctor M. Espinosa, Martín Ramírez: Framing His Life and Art, University of Texas Press, →ISBN, page 183:
      Advocates of the “folk art” term stretched its meaning to the maximum in order to include under the same rubric the peaceful landscapes of Grandma Moses and the provocative and disturbing watercolors of Henry Darger.

Further reading[edit]