Folk art is a term that refers to the work of craft workers who have received little or no formal training. For this reason, it is sometimes called outsider art. Folk art is intended for use by common people rather than by the educated classes who are the audience for mainstream “fine art.” Most folk art is functional or utilitarian—that is, it consists of art for daily use and sometimes for special occasions, such as weddings and funerals.
Folk arts often flourish in particular geographical regions among people who share a common language, religion, or other unifying characteristics. Folk artists generally use traditional tools, materials, and craft techniques. Their work rarely shows an awareness of current movements and other developments in the arts. Folk art is not created for museums, though many galleries and museums show folk art and collectors pay high prices for prized examples.
Folk art has been produced in many countries for hundreds of years. This article deals with American folk art, especially during its most productive period, from about 1780 to about 1860. Most of the folk artists who worked in small towns in Illinois, New England, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania have been identified.
American folk artists created a wide variety of works, including paintings, sculptures, and such household objects as dishes, pots, and quilts. They also produced store signs, weather vanes, and other everyday objects. During the 1800’s, sailors carved whalebone and sharks’ teeth into a special kind of folk sculpture called scrimshaw.
By 1875, the demand for folk art had declined in America because of the widespread use of machines. The machines could manufacture more goods in less time–and with fewer mistakes–than could human hands. But folk art continued in isolated rural areas, and some is still created today.
For many years, scholars and art collectors paid little attention to folk art. The first real interest in American folk art occurred in the late 1920’s. At that time, a group of professional artists on vacation in Maine noticed folk art on sale in junk shops. They began to buy it because they admired its fresh, simple quality and its freedom from formal rules.
Today, much folk art is enjoyed simply for its beauty and for its skillful craftwork. In addition, folk art reflects everyday life. Much of it shows the social attitudes, political views, religious feelings, and routine habits of the people of a certain period and place. These elements make folk art a valuable source of information to historians and others who are interested in ordinary people of the past.
Kinds of folk art
Painting.
Folk artists painted some subjects from memory and others from life. In many cases, folk artists copied or adapted engravings and various other kinds of prints originally created by trained artists.
Many American folk painters began by making and decorating business signs. Until about 1870, many Americans could not read, and so shopkeepers used pictorial signs to advertise their products. For example, a sign showing a pig represented a butcher shop. A picture of a boot advertised a shoemaker. Most signs had bright colors and bold designs to catch the eye of passers-by.
The influence of sign painting can be seen in much early American portrait painting. Portraits were the most common type of folk painting. Artists called limners traveled throughout a region, painting likenesses of local residents. These portraits, like store signs, had vivid colors and simple but bold compositions.
In addition to signs and portraits, folk artists painted pictures of houses, landscapes, and ships. Many landscapes showed scenes of life on farms or in small towns. These scenes tell much about now-forgotten activities that once were so common that nobody bothered to write about them.
Sculpture.
One of the earliest types of folk sculpture was the figurehead of a ship. A figurehead is a statue that decorates the bow of a vessel. In most cases, the statue is of a woman. Early folk carving also included gravestones.
The so-called cigar store Indian was a popular subject for some carvers. A life-sized wooden figure of an Indian warrior stood outside many shops that sold tobacco products. The Indian figures were first displayed by English merchants of the late 1600’s. The merchants used this form of advertisement because Indians had introduced tobacco to the Virginia settlers.
Folk sculptors made animals and other figures for merry-go-rounds. Folk sculptors also carved and decorated toys and decoys. Decoys are wooden figures of ducks and geese that are used by hunters to attract game birds.
Weather vanes ranked among the most important kinds of folk sculpture. Farmers and sailors needed to know about changes in the weather, and so farm buildings and ships had weather vanes to show the direction of the wind.
Household objects.
Folk art included many decorative objects used at home. Some of these objects brightened the inside of a home, and others seemed to make daily chores less boring. A number of folk artists made colorful kitchen utensils of earthenware and tin. Some homemakers specialized in sewing quilts, many of which featured bright colors and lively designs of animals, flowers, and trees.
Many pieces of useful folk art substituted for expensive furniture and utensils that most people could not afford. Some craftworkers used poor-quality wood to make such items as clocks and tables. Folk artists then painted and decorated such pieces to imitate stylish furniture made from expensive woods such as mahogany or rosewood.
Scrimshaw.
During long voyages, many sailors made small carvings and engravings from sperm whale teeth, whalebone, or tortoise or sea shells. Such carvings and engravings became known as scrimshaw.
Engravings made by American sailors during the 1800’s rank as the finest examples of scrimshaw. First, the sailor smoothed and polished the object. Then he scratched a picture or design into the surface with a sharp instrument. Finally, he filled in the engraved lines with colored inks. Some sailors engraved accurate scenes of activities at sea, such as naval battles and whale hunts. Sailors also copied illustrations from books and magazines.
Many pieces of scrimshaw were useful objects, such as knitting needles and corset stays. Sailors sometimes decorated coconut shells, ostrich eggs, and other objects from nature as souvenirs of their travels.
Folk artists
Most American folk artists probably considered themselves craftworkers rather than artists. They would have used the word artist for those who studied and followed traditions of art created through the centuries by Europeans.
The names of most American folk artists have been lost. However, a few are known because they wrote their name on their works, developed a recognizable style, or created a large number of items. The best-known of these artists include Erastus Salisbury Field, Edward Hicks, Ammi Phillips, Eunice Pinney, and Wilhelm Schimmel.
Many folk artists were skilled craftworkers who could build houses and ships as well as paint or carve. Edward Hicks, for example, was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and served a seven-year apprenticeship to a local coachmaker as a painter. Then, at the age of 21, Hicks decided to work for himself. He earned his living by lettering signs, but he is best known today for his many versions of a painting he called The Peaceable Kingdom.
Some folk artists were amateurs who created folk art for fun, to pass the time, or to impress their neighbors. Still others were students, most of them teen-agers. They painted water colors, made drawings, or embroidered pieces of cloth as classroom assignments. Sometimes such schoolwork produced objects that today are valued as important pieces of folk art.
A number of folk artists had a regular job and used their artistic talent to increase their income. Schoolteachers, shopkeepers, and even physicians and lawyers earned extra money by selling objects they had created.
Some folk artists traveled throughout a region, trading pieces of their art for food and lodging. During the 1880’s, Wilhelm Schimmel wandered through Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, seeking work and begging for food. In exchange for meals, Schimmel gave people animal figures he had carved and then colored with bits of paint. Today, his figures rank among the most prized American folk sculpture.
Folk art collections
Several museums in the United States exhibit only folk art or have large folk art collections. Most are in the East, where the majority of folk artists lived.
In New England, folk art can be seen at the Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Mass. ; and at the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vt. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston also has a large collection.
The Pennsylvania Dutch region of southeastern Pennsylvania was an important center of folk art, and several museums there exhibit such art today. They include the Landis Valley Museum in Lancaster and the Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center in Pennsburg. The Museum of Art in Philadelphia and the Bucks County Historical Society in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, also have notable folk art collections.
The New York State Historical Association in Cooperstown exhibits folk art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City, has an important collection. Another collection may be seen at the the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library in Winterthur, Delaware.
The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum in Williamsburg, Virginia, is one of the world’s largest museums devoted only to folk art. In Washington, D.C., folk art can be seen at the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Institution. In the Midwest, the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, has an outstanding folk art collection.
