Vlach, John Michael - Plain Painters: Making Sense of American Folk Art

Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988. Softcover. Blue ill. wraps. 206 pp. 8 color plates, 102 bw ills. This book offers a new approach to American folk art, suggests that folk artists were influenced by fine art, and attempts to describe the context and meaning of the paintings. Contents as follows: Introduction -- The plain mode and the evolution of talent -- Art by the book -- "In a very tasty style": plain painting in nineteenth-century America -- The seventeenth century: The Freake Limner -- The eighteenth century: The case of Peter Vanderlyn -- The nineteenth century: Edward Hicks, Quaker painter -- The twentieth century: Grandma Moses, modern "primitive" -- Contemporary plain painting: new forms, new criteria -- Conclusion. VG .

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