What is the definition of folk art?

"Folk art" is a classification in the field of art, literally a form of expression of "such-and-such art," and the word "folk" is obviously meant to distinguish it from the so-called "court art" and "aristocratic art. However, regardless of how broad the scope of "folk art" is, the basic structure of "so-and-so art" focuses on "art," so it is necessary for us to first understand the meaning of art. The Dictionary of Art (China Book of Books) has the following definition: "Art" (Art)一、Broad sense: All activities and productions that contain skill and thought, such as machinery, craftsmanship, architecture, and housing, are called art; its meaning is comparable to that of technology. Second, the narrow sense: refers to the activities of the value of beauty, or the product of its activities; meaning and fine art (fine art) with. It can be seen that art refers to learning and technology, and can also be called "skillful art" or "craft". This can be seen from the six arts of the Zhou Dynasty (six arts: ritual, music, archery, the imperial court, calligraphy, and mathematics), as well as from the Zhou Rites, Zheng's commentary on the basic book of Chinese literature about the "Hundred Crafts", we know that the original meaning of art is "craftsmanship", which can be summarized in the ancient books as follows:

Craftsmanship refers to the knowledge that is necessary for life.

Craft is the making of tools for human life.

Craft is the making of artifacts by human hands, taking into account materials and processing techniques.

Craft is the skillful and refined technique.

From the above definitions of art, and by adding the word "folk" to "folk art", it is easy to understand that "folk art" is in fact "folk crafts", and is different from "aristocratic crafts", "mechanical crafts", "industrial crafts", "fine arts crafts", "modern crafts" and other fields of art. All kinds of popular traditional arts and techniques and skills with folk colors, such as traditional crafts, opera, dance, music, sculpture, weaving, Chinese knotting, cutting and carving, puppetry, magic, acrobatics, and aboriginal culture ......, etc., formed, developed, and widely spread in the folk world, belong to folk art.