Folk art

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.

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.

Through its disarming frankness, inherent drama, and theatricality, Spanish dance had definitely moved from folk art to theatrical experience.

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.

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.