Folk Art
Folk Art
Folk art is produced by an individual or group working together in response to the religious, ceremonial, cultural, and artisanal traditions of the particular ethnic or tribal group to which he or she or they belong. Called arte popular, arte folk-lórico, or artesanías (artisan goods) in Spanish and artesenato in Portuguese, the genre includes religious or ceremonial art and sculpture, toys, masks, pottery, basketry, textile arts, musical instruments, decorative items, equestrian gear, jewelry, and other objects that are both artistic and folkloric in nature. The folk artist is generally untrained in academic art, and uses at-hand materials. At its best and most traditional, folk art in Latin America is spontaneous, colorful, whimsical, thought-provoking, and crafted by skilled artisans. At its worst, the work—often derided as "airport art"—is the mass-produced degeneration of traditional folk art forms, produced by impoverished, unskilled workers responding to consumer demand from outside their cultural and economic circle.
In the pre-Columbian era, highly skilled metallurgists, weavers, ceramicists, jewelers, lapidaries, stonemasons, muralists, and other artisans created works of timeless beauty for political and religious elites, primarily in the urban centers of Mesoamerica and the Andes. In the homes and villages of ordinary people, less well-trained artists created objects for their own needs and those of the common folk. Although many fine examples of elite art from this period have survived to the present, little of the pre-Columbian folk art created for the masses exists today, although its influence endures. Much of this work was made of highly perishable materials, such as straw, flowers, and wax.
The arrival of Europeans in the late fifteenth century had a major impact on the folk arts of Latin America. Diseases and mistreatment at the hands of the Iberian conquerors led to the extinction of many native groups and to the irretrievable loss of much knowledge and many artistic skills. Europeans destroyed much of the art, especially that made of precious metals and objects they considered idolatrous.
On the positive side, however, Europeans introduced new materials and technologies into the Americas. Artists were quick to incorporate such novelties as glass, sheep's wool, iron, cowhide, canvas, linen, paper, and silk into their art. Forged iron and steel tools meant improved techniques for working metal, wood, leather, and stone. The pottery wheel and glazing techniques revolutionized ceramic art. Domestic animals, the wheel, oceangoing vessels, written languages, and other imports from Europe led to better communication and transportation, as well as advances in mining, farming, marketing, and supply. The galleon trade between Acapulco and Manila, which began in 1570 and ended with Mexican Independence from Spain in 1821, brought additional new materials and artistic influences to the Americas from the Orient. The galleons, which also called at ports such as Lima and San Salvador de Bahia, introduced Latin America to such Asian influences as glazing techniques and forms in ceramics: silk and metallic threads in textile arts; incrustation of mother-of-pearl and tortoise shell in furniture; ivory carving for religious imagery; and lacquer techniques. Black slaves from Africa brought to many parts of Latin America other artistic techniques and cultural heritages. Their skills at working gold, silver and iron, as well as their textile art traditions, had a lasting impact on popular arts in those regions, where, even during slavery, blacks were allowed to practice their ancient arts. Within a short period after contact with Europe, Latin American folk art, while still an indigenous expression in most regions of the Americas, demonstrated nevertheless the impact of innovations and influences from Europe, Asia, and Africa.
As indentured servants, slaves, or apprentices, native and mestizo craftsmen learned new skills from master European craftsmen. Catholic clergy were also instrumental in instructing natives. They fostered and preserved the arts, although they often destroyed work they believed to be idolatrous. A select few pupils were taught at formal arts-and-crafts schools such as San José de los Naturales, founded in Mexico City by Pedro de Gante about 1526; and the Franciscans' Colegio de San Andrés, founded in Quito in 1552.
During the three centuries of colonial rule, however, native artisans and their output were subjected to strict regulations and controls. Although Europeans appreciated native artistry, they resented the prestige that artisans enjoyed, and feared competition from them. For example, although natives were highly skilled at working metals, in 1550 Philip II of Spain forbade them to possess or work precious metals. Artisans also were not allowed to incorporate native constructs and designs in their work. In the isolated regions of the Americas and in private, however, indigenous people, mestizos, and blacks conserved ancient folk art traditions, passing cultural knowledge and skills from parents to children.
When most parts of Latin America declared their independence from Spain and Portugal in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the folk arts in the new nations experienced an exuberant revival. Liberated from servitude to the Iberians, the people had more freedom to create objects for their own pleasure and use. Pre-Columbian themes, symbols and flags of the new nations, local flora and fauna, and other conceits previously forbidden by the Iberians appeared in religious and ceremonial art, silver, jewelry, equestrian gear, toys, ceramics, household goods, public art, clothing, textile arts, architecture, and popular painting. The trend continued throughout the political chaos of the nineteenth century, until the twentieth century, when the pervasiveness of a cash economy made increasing demands on people's time and energies. "Folk art occupies the brief interlude between court taste and commercial taste," wrote George Kubler. In those regions of the Americas where barter economies, poverty, and cultural conservatism still prevail, the traditional folk art phenomenon endures, primarily in the Andean highlands, rural Northeastern Brazil, and the Indian regions of Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, and the Amazon basin.
In the mid-twentieth century, when air travel, affluence, and consumerism began to bring tens of thousands of visitors from the Northern Hemisphere to all parts of Latin America, the folk arts underwent a new mutation. Artists who had produced works only for their own use and enjoyment, or for that of their traditional clientele, responded to the new market created by outsiders eager to purchase their work. Increasingly, upper- and middle-class Latin Americans, as well as foreigners, became interested in collecting folk art. The casual output of part-time artists and family workshops was rapidly supplanted by cottage industries producing folk art goods on a near industrial scale and to importers' specifications. By the late 1960s the employment of thousands of workers in the production and exportation of folk art from Latin America had become a burgeoning part of the economies of nearly all countries in the region. Since the 1990s, the Fair Trade movement has reshaped Latin American folk art. Under Fair Trade principles, sellers of local crafts promise to pay artists a socially just wage. Organizations such as Manos Artesanas in Peru have shops and websites where the goods are certified under Fair Trade principles. Stores selling Fair Trade folk art from Latin America have become increasingly popular in the United States and Europe.
The work itself was forever changed. Some of the folk artists, who traditionally work in anonymity, became famous personalities, showing their work in galleries and museums around the world and sharing art critics' columns with artists working in academic modes. The lines between folk art and fine art were blurred. Yet in the villages, alleys, markets, and workshops of Latin America, anonymous folk artists still hover over their workbenches, spontaneously fashioning ordinary materials into objects of delight and beauty, in the exercise of ages-old traditions and the enduring human need for artistic expression.
See alsoManila Galleon; Slavery: Spanish America.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
George Kubler and Martin Soria, Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal and Their American Dominions, 1500 to 1800 (1959).
George McClelland Foster, Culture and Conquest: America's Spanish Heritage (1960).
Lilly de Jongh Osborne, Indian Crafts of Guatemala and El Salvador (1965).
Elizabeth Boyd, Popular Arts of Spanish New Mexico (1974).
Nelson H. H. Graburn, ed., Ethnic and Tourist Arts: Cultural Expressions from the Fourth World (1976).
Francisco Statsny, Los artes populares del Perú (1979).
August Panyella, Folk Art of the Americas (1981); and Brazil: Arte do Noreste/Art of the Northeast (1985).
Henry Glassie, The Spirit of Folk Art: The Girard Collection at the Museum of International Folk Art (1989).
Chloë Sayer, Arts and Crafts of Mexico (1990).
Martha J. Egan, Milagros: Votive Offerings from the Americas (1991).
Gloria Fraser Giffords, Mexican Folk Retablos (rev. ed. 1992).
Marion Oettinger, The Folk Art of Latin America: Visiones del Pueblo (1992).
Liliana Villegas and Benjamin Villegas, Artefactos: Colombian Crafts from the Andes to the Amazon (1992).
Additional Bibliography
Bartra, Eli. Crafting Gender: Women and Folk Art in Latin America and the Caribbean. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.
Camayd-Freixas, Erik, and José Eduardo González. Primitivism and Identity in Latin America: Essays on Art, Literature, and Culture. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2000.
Martha J. Egan