History and Appreciation of Folk Art

Catalog description

This survey of folk and outsider art history will cover art and artists’ creative activity that takes place outside of the professional mainstream of art, including the art of the self-taught, folk, visionary, vernacular, naïve, and untrained. Students will see significant overlap and limitations in these categories, and with intersections of the mainstream art world. The class is an exploration of this work that exists on the shifting margins of the art world. Students will look at the early 20th century movement Art Brut, with its interest in the art of children and those with mental illness, and move thematically through the visionary writings and illustrations of religious mystics, folk arts, craft traditions, street art, and the more recent art world embrace of artists outside the mainstream. Special focus will be given to the folk and visionary art of our region, such as the pottery of Lanier Meaders and family, and Howard Finster’s Paradise Garden in Summerville.