On the Historiography of Folk Art. Part 1. Trends In Content Assessment

Abstract

Folk art is an integral and unique part of national art as a form of social consciousness, expressing in artistic form the images of cumulative historical norms of the collective, mythological, and tribal thinking of a people. Currently the interest in folk art is enormous, so a unified theory of folk art, encompassing different aspects of its formation and various interpretations outlined in literature, is to be devised in order to approach this complex cultural and historical phenomenon. However, not all theoretical aspects of folk art assessment have been fully developed. To date, theoretical foundations of artistic content remain insufficiently elaborated. Thus, certain issues regarding interspecific connections of folk art have long used a somewhat narrow interpretation of artistic content, approaching it, for example, in terms of material, processing techniques, or the level of technique perfection (wood carving and painting), which leaves little space for iconographic analysis. There is a lack of literature that comprehensively explores the correspondence of image, the time of objects' existence, and the ideological plans of artistic expression. This issue, in turn, poses a question of historical periodization, which has not yet been elaborated exhaustively and profoundly enough. Additionally, the field observes the lack of a clear correlation between ethnographic and archaeological materials — despite their obvious connection. The evaluation of historiographical content provided in the present research is supposed to be followed by the second part to explore key aspects of general folk art studies.

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