What is the difference between art and pop?

What is the difference between folk art and pop art?

• Answer:

  Folk art is a loosely used term that refers usually to any kind of "outsider" or untrained artists work, generally means objects or paintings or the 17 and 1800's in the USA , but it is still made today. Famous Folk artists were itinerant painter Rufus Porter an early American portraitist and mural painter who travelling around New England painting pictures of people and decorating mostly New England area homes. Folk art can also include crafts like braided rugs, weathervanes, carved wooden figures , and objects, like "Whirlygigs" (those things you see spinning in people's gardens. ) Pottery, clay or ceramics(jugs, pots, figures, masks), and also early American wood objects such as carved blanket chests, signs , and many other things.Another famous Folk artist is Grant Wood, who painted the elderly couple holding a pitchfork that is often reproduced in advertising, today. On the other hand Pop Art began in the early 1960's and was completely about the commerciallization of of the Artworld and the world in genertal. It was a cynical criticism that phased out Color Field Painting ,The New York School, and some of the greatest artists of our time. Sadly the Public found it cute, funny and amusing.But it is a sad commentary on how the artworld was commercialized particularly by Andy Warhol, who made painting of Campbell's Soup Cans , Brillo pad boxes and Famous people of the moment. In some ways the two styles though completely different are in many ways the same. The purpose was for the artists to make money. Unlike the artists of the Impressionists,Abstract Expressionist movement, Color Field,New York School and now the New New Painters, whose interest is about making Fine Art , these other two movements are about utilitarian art, design and money. Folk art is quaint, cute, and plain, as is Pop art.It is meant by and large for the masses(meaning the average person who doesn't understand art can easily understand Folk and Pop. What you see is what you get. It is no deeper than that. Folk has become collectible over the years and prices will continue to rise as it is part of our nation's primitive beginnings, and that is most likely true of Pop art. It will have a place in history. But long term the greatest art will always be the more refined art(Like Jonathan Singleton Copley was amongst our great American painters of the same time folk art was being made , so is Jackson Pollock and Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, and others ,amongst the best artists in the USA ,while Warhol and the other Pop artists(Rauschenberg, Johns, Lichtenstein)were getting most of the attention by the 70's and 80's. Today's Pop artists (pop means Popular) are still about money and commerciality the most famous is Damien Hirst who covered a skull with Diamonds and was backed by people who own his artwork and want to make millions off him, he lets them do this(like the early Pop artists, simply to make more money. It has now gone to the extreme where people are mad because the Diamond miners in South Africa get paid only dollars for a days work,while Hirst will make(and has made) millions. The meaning of true fine art has been lost on Pop art Artists , collectors and museums who are all using each other to promote themselves and make more money. It is a very cynical business!! No longer about invention, technical genius or finding new great art, it is only for monetary gain, now.