Folk Art

Henry Glassie, in "Folk Art," has this to say about the genre:

The artifact, the object of material culture such as the crucifix or plow, simultaneously gives pleasure and serves some practical social or economic end. If a pleasure-giving function predominates, the artifact is called art; if a practical function predominates, it is called craft. These simplifications are less important than the complicated truth that all artifacts have more than one function, whether a single function is clearly dominant or not (Glassie 253).

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