Publication Date

11-1986

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Lynwood Montell, Burt Feintuch, Robert Teske

Degree Program

Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology

Degree Type

Master of Arts

Abstract

In this thesis I focus on an art form alternately described as "naive," "visionary," "environmental," "singular," "individual," or "grassroots." Not easily placed within established academic or popular art categories, such art usually lands by default in the folk art pile and is quickly cast to the peripheries of that genre. In this thesis, I am not concerned with inventing another label for these artists and their work. Instead, I explore the possibility that visionary art may be a separate genre, but one to which folklore analysis may usefully be brought to bear.

Chapter One is a historical and bibliographical analysis of visionary art. Beginning with an overview of the literature on the subject, I review the development of the definitional debate in the United States as well as in Europe and trace the gradual evolution of this art form into a loosely separate category.

Chapter Two consists of an analysis of visionary art. I construct a "behaviorist" model which draws not only upon the usual criteria of building styles or materials used but also examines such subjects as the artist's motivations, personal visions, life history and community role.

In Chapter Three I test this model using the work of Valenty Zaharek, an Arizona woodcarver and ceramicist. Zaharek's previously undocumented work, "Pecos West," is a three-dimensional carved depiction of Western scenes. It is aesthetically magnificent and falls along the borders of a variety of art forms --folk, visionary, popular.

Disciplines

Anthropology | Art and Design | Arts and Humanities | Social and Behavioral Sciences | Social and Cultural Anthropology

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