Knowing the creative spirit of Man: Popular art

   Hello dear Steemit family, continuing with my articles of the creative spirit of man, in this opportunity, information related to popular art will be presented. Allowing the youngest, to know about the wonderful power of the human being in the creation of what we currently know as art.

     The artists who practice the so-called popular art do not possess an authentic artistic instruction, but follow the tradition of the community to which they belong. In this field, a painter, for example, will decorate everyday objects instead of painting paintings and, even if he painted them, icons for example, or images for the cult, he will make works destined for a specific use and that certainly do not reflect his personality.

A sample of the nasca ingenuity. This "huaco" has the same features of the gigantic geophilist known as "the killer whale", which was also represented by some of the gods they worshiped.

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     Popular songs and rhythms as an artistic expression are often important in the development of everyday life: the weavers of North Africa and the Middle East weave the carpets following "rhythmic instructions" sung; and when the master weavers move from one city to another they keep in memory the decorative motifs in the form of songs.

Part of the border of a skirt (eighteenth century, from "Creta") with embroidery showing the figure of a crowned woman wearing carnations, an example of the stylized schemes followed by popular artists.

     On the other hand, much of popular music is very rhythmic and encourages singing, moving or dancing, but not thinking; and when popular songs are based on the narration of the deed of a traditional hero or on everyday events and emotions, they rarely give rise to personal or individual reflections of an artist.

     However, not all popular art is naive, sometimes it takes particularly mannered forms. Moreover, in any place where popular art is practiced we find that everyone recognizes the sense of potential inherent in the act of artistic creation, and in many cases, such recognition joins the belief that this type of artist must deliberately leave a flaw in his work, since God is the only one capable of doing a perfect work: if he does not do so, he may think he is trying to imitate God. To avoid sacrilege size, the cabinetmaker of a town, for example, will include an error in his work, or leave a part of it unfinished; a decorator will leave part of his motif open, or he will add a discordant note of color so that it breaks the symmetry. For similar reasons the Oriental and Phoenician weavers leave a "coda" or defect in their work: they believe that if they did not, their souls would be woven in the same work and inserted into it.

     Despite lacking authentic artistic instruction, the popular craftsman learns just how accurate the work of his ancestors is: from previous artists he copies very stylized forms and in this way he often increases simplification and stylization to a degree. Thus, the popular painter does not learn to draw a flower, but to mix the colors, to load the brush with the precise colors and in its right measure, to have the brush in the appropriate form and to give the precise brush stroke to draw a petal: in a word he learns an action, and it is the sum of these actions that will determine the shape and appearance of the flower.

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Tin pot in the mid-nineteenth century, from Pennsylvania, decorated with a traditional drawing of fruit, design that was introduced into the new world by the Dutch emigrated artisans.

     Also for much of popular music is important technique used: this type of music almost always requires stringed instruments that can be played, such as guitar, mandolin, zither, etc., since these instruments are ideal for playing melodies strongly syncopated Throughout the world popular music makes use of rhythmic motifs, which are born largely from the way of playing: at the top the fingers tighten the strings in precise places that determine the notes, while at the bottom they press them to play the melody, making finger movements that are often very complex. For example, the distinctive characteristic of Spanish popular music is determined precisely by this type of technique.

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The "spiritual", popular mystical song deeply felt by North American blacks, has gone around the world in different forms. He owes the development of jazz, which is still, unlike the spiritual, an artistic manifestation, typically a citizen; which is much more complicated and mannered than the spiritual, which, on the contrary, developed among the blacks of the cotton plantations of the southern United States. Therefore, more than popular art, jazz is a mass art, a genre of art that we will examine in subsequent articles.

     In the next article, the subject of the "fine arts" will be discussed, in it, the great influence of the personality of the artists will be presented in their works, considering literature, music, paintings, sculptures, among others.

The following link contains previous information published by the author, which is related to the topic dealt with in this article:

The human artist and creator