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Folkloric Art: A Unique Kind of Beauty
By Hayam Al-Sayyed
Beauty is the unity of formal relationships between things perceived by the senses. Folkloric artifacts are the products of man's need to add a beautiful touch to objects used in daily life, and to express certain instinctive beliefs, or various passions and joys associated with different occasions and events.
Folklore as Art and Utility
The arts of primitive peoples indicate that for the majority of individuals the appreciation of beauty is instinctive, regardless of their mental abilities. The idea of producing objects for practical daily use that are also beautiful is as old as life itself. The primitive man used to decorate his hunting spears by carving geometric shapes like parallel or intersecting lines, triangles or animal figures. With the emergence of agriculture and the resulting stability, new kinds of applied folkloric art emerged. There was a need to cope with the expansion of cultural awareness resulting from the growing commerce and the abundance of agricultural products. The rich domain of folkloric arts was interwoven with objects of daily use like furniture, jewelry, food containers and cosmetic articles. Folklore artists confer more value on these objects, which become both beautiful and instrumentally useful. Folkloric art is a mixture of utility and the aesthetic values of creative arts.
Throughout history, folkloric art has run parallel to formal art. Arab traditions are rich in folklore whether in literature, song, music, plastic or decorative arts where the skills and talents of folklore artists are blended with ease and simplicity of execution.
Folkloric art has always been a kind of a healthy current whereby people preserve their artistic conscience and aesthetic appreciation, particularly in the eras of political decline when the influence of official artistic traditions wanes and the semi-official or folkloric arts are on the ascendance.
Folkloric art tends to cherish and glorify heroism. In Arabic folklore, heroes of folk stories and legends have become paragons, like Abu Zeid Al-Hilali and Antara Ibn Shaddad who are always depicted as mounted knights with mighty drawn swords. Such legacies which have continued for thousands of years draw on the figures and subjects of traditions, myths, tales or mysterious memories passed from one generation to another over so many years that their exact origin may have become untraceable.
Different figures in folkloric art may stand for a national myth or legend or for an instinctive belief or emotion. Colors may have specific symbolic meanings in relation to human instincts.
Characteristics of Folkloric
Arts
- Folkloric arts use local materials and units
drawn from the surrounding environment. By tracing the origins of
folkloric arts in a certain region, one may detect the fundamental roots
of art that seem to have been lost because of the wide gap between the
present and the past which are markedly different.
- Folkloric arts reflect a communal rather than
an individual spirit. A folklore artist deals only with subjects drawn
from inherited legacies, which satisfy the needs of his society in a
sense. Folklore painting for instance is an expression of an
intellectual rather than a visual reality. It is a kind of non-verbal
definition of things. A painting of this genre tends to incorporate a
set of scenes as if to tell a story. It combines visible and invisible
elements as long as they are within the range of human knowledge.
Folkloric art, however, does not bother with the rules of perspective.
- Folklore artists depend on two main decorative
elements. The first is the simple geometric units, which are often
dictated by the kind of artifact produced, and the material used by the
artist. In other words, they are the outcome of technique and
craftsmanship. The second element is the simple organic patterns that
depend on few softly curving lines like small branches or simply
structured floral shapes, or the movement of rippling waves.
- Since man seems to have an innate desire to
decorate things, folkloric decorative elements designed by various
peoples in various places tend to be eye-catching by virtue of their
color, shape or sound. Jewelry is a fine representative example. The
shape of the kirdan, the traditional folkloric necklace in the Arab
region, immediately recalls the pectoral, which covers the chest. It is
usually made of rows of colored beads or wrought and inlaid gold plates.
Decorative elements used in jewelry are generally geometric shapes like
lines and triangles strung with fine gold or silver threads.
- Mural painting is another important form of folkloric art. Other
exemplary artifacts in this regard include rugs, mats, chains, pottery,
jugs adorned with geometric shapes, clothes and jewelry decorated
according to the character of the local environment and the materials
available. In a rural environment where different kinds of clay may be
available, folkloric art tends to focus on pottery items, which are very
useful as domestic utensils in a typical peasant house. In this setting,
wool and cotton may also be spun manually. Colors are drawn from the
natural surroundings and are often dark. Simple decorative elements like
broad lines are used profusely. In the desert or in a Bedouin community,
articles made from palm fronds are more typical of the place where palm
trees are one of the main sources of raw materials for folk crafts.
Finely designed boxes, chairs, beds and small tables are made from palm
fronds painted with lively colors. The fronds may be used to decorate
other products as well. In a pastoral setting where animal husbandry is
the main occupation, the predominant folk craft is the making of rugs
and carpets from sheep wool, which is spun and decorated with colored
geometric shapes.
The originality and the spontaneity of folkloric art recommends it to the highly cultured minds, which always find it to be a source of inspiration. It is believed to be deeply rooted in the environment and in the local traditions and legacies. It derives from the need of the ordinary people to live and enjoy peace and love
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