For the people

What is folk art? It is usually defined as being made by ‘the people’ as opposed to by academically trained artists. Its 19th-century admirers liked to emphasise that it was made for love, not money, and was therefore beyond vulgar commodification. It was heartening to think that in Sweden a young lover would carve a present for his wife-to-be while in return she would make and embroider him a linen shirt. As one Victorian collector explained, the results would be beautiful because ‘the Peasant, perfectly unconscious of any Art principles, does instinctively the right thing’. But England, dominated by getting and spending, posed problems, and it was acknowledged that English folk art was in short supply.

Advanced farming methods meant that we lacked a landed peasantry with the time and the energy to weave and whittle in the long winter evenings. In any case the English ‘folk’ were uncertain guardians of their fragile traditions.