Talk:Concepts in folk art

= not written as a personal essay style =

I am not in agreement that the text is written in a personal style. I have identified the different aspects of this subject area, and presented them accurately, using references and quotes from the experts in the field. This is a complex topic, with 6 main identification points. These have been summerized at the beginning and then have been expanded on in the main area. There is nothing argumentative about it, rather it is a clarification of some difficult words, i.e. what is art, what is beauty, what is folk. I am a degreed folklorist and this text has been reviewed by the president of the American Folklore Society and found good. For specific points of criticism, please list them and we can discuss them individually. Smithriedel 03:02, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I have started a discussion here. Unfortunately, one problem is that the article reads like a dissertation rather than an encyclopedia article. I can't see any justification for the rename to "Folk art objects", as another big problem is that you never get down to discuss any actual objects. Johnbod (talk) 03:27, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Old "Folk art" replaced. (copied from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Visual_arts)
It's not really on my beat, but the old "Folk art" has been entirely replaced and redirected to Folk art objects - a jump from 7kb to 80kb. A very short & odd Folk arts has also been set up. The new article has many obvious issues, even on a cursory scan. The same editor created Mexican-American folklore in December, which also had big problems. He doesn't seem very responsive. The old page got [https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&range=latest-20&pages=Folk_art avge. 335 views pd], so it should be decent. What we have now seems to me a rambling top-level essay on the theory of folk art, with almost no discussion of even broad categories of actual examples, nor any new images. It seems unlikely to be what the reader wants. Meanwhile, Folk arts seems to draw from one of those long UNESCO committee-written screeds that were being dumped around the place. Johnbod (talk) 02:39, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * , are you suggesting a revert to the former page or to improve the article at the link. Please do what you think works best with this. Thanks for pointing it out. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:58, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * At the moment, I think the easiest might be moving the new Folk art objects to Theory of folk art, for gradual digestion, and reinstating the old "Folk art" version - poor though it was. Then hopefully improving it. Johnbod (talk) 03:12, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * At Folk arts, in the Forms of folk arts section, I find the wording "tangible objects". It occurs to me that perhaps the title Folk art objects should be changed to Folk art (tangible objects). Bus stop (talk) 03:56, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * How does that help? In general, we keep to art=visual art, ie (normally) "tangible objects" - & treat "artist" likewise, avoiding "artist" for musicians etc. And there's really no discussion at all in the article of any actual "tangible objects", it's all theory. I think it's very generally understood that Folk art means tangible stuff. At the moment Folk art just redirects to the objects article, but I don't think that will do. Johnbod (talk) 04:14, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Smithriedel 04:17, 5 February 2019 (UTC) Thanks Johnbod for giving me specifics to respond to.

1) I did not create the text on the page Mexican-American folklore in December. That text landed on my page Folklore, without context, and I simply moved it to its own page. I do not know anything about that topic, so I can't fix it. Maybe you should delete it.

2) The very short Folk arts page is to separate all the different forms of Folk arts. Dancing, singing, and objects. My page only deals with the material folk arts, i.e. objects. Any title Folk art will get muddled with both intangible and tangible folk art forms. I created that page to distinguish and point to the different forms, each of which has their own page.

3) All folk art objects are tied to a specific region and culture. I have put a list somewhere to include links to pages of regional folk arts. Maybe the list needs to be made more prominent. In this page, I cannot pick any one folk art form, because  they are literally all over the globe.

4) I don't do pictures, but other people love to add images. Just not my thing.

5) I would be fine with a rename of the page to Folk art (tangible objects), or Folk art theory keeping the Folk art on the front of the title. The old article is inaccurate and wrong, please don't use it again. You cannot have a single article on material Folk art. You can only have articles on different cultural folk art forms.

6) I have no problem working with you to clean this up. I have written other folklore pages, and they have all stayed quite stabile. This one uses a lot of quotes and citations, because it is quite difficult to pin down, between what is art and what is beauty, etc. I looked for consensus in the professional literature. Smithriedel 04:17, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, I see you wrote Family folklore, mostly in 2014, & that is stable. But that gets >10 views a day, while Folk art got 300+, so you must expect a lot more scrutiny. After 5+ years, you still don't realize we don't randomly bold words and phrases in the middle of text? I could live with a move to Folk art theory. I don't agree at all that "art" is ambiguous (see just above - if anyone thinks that German art will cover music or literature, they find out differently as soon as they arrive. Johnbod (talk) 04:30, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

I also wrote the pages Folklore, Folklore studies, Jokes, etc. I know my stuff in folklore. In cultural heritage, the rules are a little different. I would be very happy with a title change to Folk art (tangible objects). Have to go to bed now, please don't do anything drastic until I am up again tomorrow. Smithriedel 04:35, 5 February 2019 (UTC) Smithriedel 04:35, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * No, I don't think Folk art (tangible objects) is good or necessary. Another thing you haven't learnt is how to indent on talk pages I see. Johnbod (talk) 04:43, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * For now, I have reinstated the old Folk art there, leaving Folk art objects where it is, though I still think it should be moved. Both pages have considerable issues - in particular the "objects" page is clearly largely concerned with North America, and has many statements that are not applicable to Europe, let alone the rest of the world. I will comment on this at the talk page there. Johnbod (talk) 16:45, 5 February 2019 (UTC)


 * I'm copying this section to Talk:Folk art objects, and will continue the discussion there; please add there rather than here. If a move proposal comes, I will notify it here also. Johnbod (talk) 00:21, 6 February 2019 (UTC)


 * I retract my suggestion concerning a suggested title of Folk art (tangible objects). I agree that "art" refers to visual art and not music, and "artist" refers to visual artist and not musician or singer. Bus stop (talk) 01:40, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Specific points
I've given the article more of a read, and have specific and general points:
 * I think the bias to America in several sections is so strong that the article should probably be split into two: Folk art in theory and American folk art. I've edited the sections on folk artists and "Workshops and Apprentices" to make it clear that they only refer to America - especially in the latter they were just wholly inaccurate if supposed to cover Europe as well, where the Industrial Revolution was well underway by 1801, so that for example in pottery by 1801 "folk"/village level production had essentially ceased in Britain and the Netherlands, and largely in France, Italy and Germany. I don't think the article mentions pottery at all, which is simply astonishing, since it is, if only because it was so common and survives in the ground so well, by far the best type of object to consider for most questions around the "folkness" of art.  It also shortcuts the issue of art and utility, as a plate is eminently useful, even if it is from the Swan Service.
 * The old narrative trotted out here about "art" as an invention of the Renaissance is wildly over-stated. While this was a trend among contemporary theorists, it was not much reflected in the activities of producers and consumers of objects at any level in society. I don't think art historians, as opposed to sociologists and related humanities types, give much credence to this line. The break in the habits of elite consumers at the start of the Renaissance (whenever that is supposed to be) is wildly overstated, as is the shock of encountering the "Other", when European elites had been paying large sums for Islamic and East Asian art for a few centuries.
 * The opening line: "Folk art objects are a subset of material culture, and include objects which are experienced through the senses, by seeing, feeling, smelling and tasting (foodways)" bites off a deal more than you go on to chew - foodways I believe count as "intangible", even though you can feel and taste them. And "feeling" is ambiguous here.  Better to restrict the subject clearly to physical objects of some durability that can be considered as visual art.
 * In the section I have renamed "Key characteristics" for clarity (and because a WP:LEAD was needed), I was somewhat puzzled by the lack of differentiation these gave between "folk art" and other types of art that would certainly not be considered "folk", especially in the decorative arts, but not just them. You contradict yourself between paras 1 "individual creativity – which implied personal aesthetic choices and technical virtuosity – saved received or inherited traditions from stagnating..." and 3 "Folk art does not strive for individual expression" - on the whole, I'm with Riegl.
 * Your repeated emphasis on "exceptionally skillful technical execution of an existing form and design" (lead) is odd - if folk art objects are the "exceptions", what about the norm? I don't believe this stress is sustainable.
 * I won't say much about the all-American sections, but around "industrial manufacturing had only reached a few industries in 1801", you should really mention imported English pottery, which was already very significant in the cities and beyond by then.
 * The stuff about Bruegel is pretty fair nonsense - his paintings were very expensive, and keenly collected by the absolute top of Netherlandish and European society, which is why most of them belonged to the Habsburg emperors within a few decades of his death. They kept them in their houses, which the general public never saw. Even the audience for his prints was well off & pretty exclusively literate (as the lengthy inscriptions on many of them show). I see this section is unreferenced.
 * The Western-centric emphasis is relentless. One would think that any consideration of the subject with global ambitions would pay a lot of attention to the illuminatingly different histories and traditions of at least Japan, China, and India, and touch on how much art from past cultures known from archaeology might be considered "folk". Then there's African art, where everything was folk art, but rarely ever so called.  But none of this is mentioned, or even linked to.
 * Sorry to be so negative, but there we are. Johnbod (talk) 01:32, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Smithriedel 03:53, 6 February 2019 (UTC) I would like to take these points one at a time, and try to sort them out.

1) there may be an American bias, and we could retitle this article as American Folk art. The topic is too large to include all of Europe and the British Isles. It could be that some of the information is applicable for all areas, but for the moment I am fine with making this just American folk art.
 * Ok - I think some of it could be copied back to a general "Folk art". Johnbod (talk) 16:30, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

2) I think your corrections for the "Workshops and Apprentices" are fine. Actually I was not thinking of pottery at all for this. I was thinking of the blacksmith, carpenter, cabintry, thatching, leathergoods, basketry. Things that you need on the farm regularly but don't necessarily have the equipment or skills or time to make yourself. You would go into the village workshop and order a one-off. These were the village workshops where the family also farmed, but the majority of the income came from these specialized services. I would be surprised if villages in Europe and the British Isles did not have a similar setup (read Thomas Hardy), but if you feel strongly to limit this to North America, it is true there also. Pottery did not come up in the sources I was using, it was the other handicrafts.
 * In most parts of Europe, partly because of tighter geography (most rural people could walk to the local town in a couple of hours, and did) the move of most crafts to specialized professional artisans, usually in towns, happened far earlier than the account you give, which may well be true for America. Much of this had happened in the Middle Ages. "Cottage industry" was more typically using the putting-out system, normally regarded as part of Proto-industrialization. Villages often had blacksmiths and carpenters, and thatching was done on site, but if you wanted a saddle you normally went to the nearest market town. Baskets to a large extent were made in regions that specialized in them (and had the reed beds etc) and distributed to other regions through commercial channels.  So your picture doesn't work for Europe, or the earlier equivalent of the Blue Banana anyway (it might be fine for say Lithuania). Johnbod (talk) 16:30, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

3) I think pottery needs its own page if you feel strongly about it. My goal was not to single out any single art form, but rather to find the commonality in all forms of folk art, across all media.
 * Pottery has very many pages! And even if this is restricted to America, things like American redware ought to be at least linked. Johnbod (talk) 16:30, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

I'd suggest we start with these points, and get clarity on them. Tomorrow I will make comments on the further points. Let me know what you think. Smithriedel 03:53, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Smithriedel 21:29, 6 February 2019 (UTC)CONCERNING THIS The opening line: "Folk art objects are a subset of material culture, and include objects which are experienced through the senses, by seeing, feeling, smelling and tasting (foodways)" bites off a deal more than you go on to chew - foodways I believe count as "intangible", even though you can feel and taste them. And "feeling" is ambiguous here. Better to restrict the subject clearly to physical objects of some durability that can be considered as visual art. Smithriedel 21:29, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Food and Foodways is tangible, experienced through the senses. It is also always a major part of many customs and celebrations. It stays.
 * I corrected the ambiguity about feeling. Found another word to use in its place. feeling=handling.
 * I will move this lead to the main page of Folk art to replace what is there. I think it works well.
 * Of course "Food and Foodways is tangible, experienced through the senses", and of course it is very significant in folk culture, but it is not visual art, and on WP, as in the rest of the world, "art" has, as well as a more general sense, an important sense which which restricts it to visual art. That's an important line to hold, so that when someone is described as an "artist" it is clear they are some sort of practictioner of a branch of the visual arts, rather than a musician ("Recording artist") or dancer, or a cook. So it should go. Food was never mentioned after the first line anyway. I wouldn't make a battle over this. I get the impression that you aren't much interested in art, and don't know much about it (the reluctance to do anything with images is a bit of a giveaway). Your other articles I've looked at also read much better than this, probably because you know more and are more engaged with the subject.  You should realize that "folk art" essentially comes under art history, and articles on it need to be compatable with that well-established discipline as well as folklore studies.  Your division between "tangible" and "intangible" is, btw, not that used by UNESCO, fwiw.  Johnbod (talk) 18:06, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Ok - I think some of it could be copied back to a general "Folk art". Johnbod (talk) 16:30, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I have moved the more general text over to the page "Folk art". Let's get that page stabilized before working on this page. Once that page gets settled, then I can see that a rewrite and new title might be appropriate for this page. But we need the basic page stable before I can address more detailed concerns here. Smithriedel 21:59, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

suggestions for new title for this page
I think this page needs to be retitled to avoid confusion. The page "Folk art" will continue to be the primary page for the topic. This page contains more in depth info that would be important for a more extensive discussion of the individual characteristics. I am thinking that maybe "Concepts in folk art" might work. But I am looking for other suggestions.

Once the page has a new title, I can delete the top level points that got moved to the primary page. I will also write a new lead to connect the title with the content here. thanks Smithriedel 15:14, 7 February 2019 (UTC)


 * I can agree to that name, & the general scheme. But I think rather too much has now been taken over to "Folk art", and that should just have a concise encyclopedic summary of the "characteristics" for example.  Far too much of what has gone over still doesn't really work outside North America. Not only the actual folk art, but also ideas about what "folk art" means and covers vary hugely around the world, and this article is all too clearly written entirely from a north American perspective. Folk art should have a much more terse account of the (actually one particular) theory, and much more in sections on different parts of the world, with links to the very many articles that WP has on them, almost none of which are currently linked.  See for example the (very incomplete) Category:Japanese folk art, Category:Lithuanian folk art and so on (we probably have 100+ pages that should be in the Indian category, but for now aren't). Johnbod (talk) 17:48, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I notice, btw, that there is a well-established and highly-viewed Folklore of the United States, which deals entirely with "intangibles" - you don't ever seem to have edited it. Johnbod (talk) 18:20, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Smithriedel 18:58, 7 February 2019 (UTC) the lists on these 2 pages, and the established category lists on folk art you mention above need a lot of cleanup and work. For the two new pages which I written for folk art, I put the lists in, hoping that other people will add new links. My goal was to define a workable structure for the topic, with place holders to add new info as it was identified.
 * I have not worked on the page Folklore of the United States. Each of those stories needs their own page. Instead of summaries, I would create lists of each of the topics. That is what I did for Joke and I find it more effective than a short summary.
 * I will move the page to the new name and write a new lead today or tomorrow when I have more time and focus. Smithriedel 18:58, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
 * All of those topics (in Folklore of the United States) has their own page, which is linked there, with a quick summary - this is a version of how much of "folk art" should be, dealing with the global subject. Generally, this has been found better than lists, especially long ones. Johnbod (talk) 19:26, 7 February 2019 (UTC)