“Folk-art signifies the poetical, musical and pictorial activities of those strata of the population which are uneducated and not urbanized or industrialised.”

—  Arnold Hauser

Arnold Hauser, cited in: Bihar Tribal Research Institute (1961). Bulletin of the Bihar Tribal Research Institute. Vol. 3-4, p. 144

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Arnold Hauser photo
Arnold Hauser 34
Hungarian art historian 1892–1978

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“… "folk art" signifies the poetical, musical, and pictorial activities of those strata of the population which are uneducated and not urbanized or industrialized. It is of the essence of this art that those who keep it in being are not only passively receptive, but normally are creative participants in the artistic activities, and yet do not stand out as individuals or claim any personal authorship of the productions. "Popular art" on the other hand is to be understood as artistic or quasi-artistic production for the demand of a half-educated public, generally urban and inclined to mass-behavior. In folk art, producers and consumers are hardly distinguished, and the boundary between them is always fluid; in the case of popular art, we find on the contrary an artistically uncreative, completely passive public, and professional production of artistic goods strictly in response to the demand for them. It is indeed a striking fact that folk art, especially folk-poetry, emerges from the ranks of those who enjoy it, whereas popular songs—the street-ballads and popular "hits"—derive from professionals belonging to and spiritually dependent upon the upper classes.”

Arnold Hauser (1892–1978) Hungarian art historian

Arnold Hauser (1985). The philosophy of art history. p. 279

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“… And this is the origin of pop music: it's a professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music as well.”

Pete Seeger (1919–2014) American folk singer

Pop Chronicles, Show 1 - Play A Simple Melody: Pete Seeger on the origins of pop music http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19745/m1/, interview recorded 2.14.1968 http://web.archive.org/web/20110615153027/http://www.library.unt.edu/music/special-collections/john-gilliland/o-s.

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“… A strange art – music – the most poetic and precise of all the arts, vague as a dream and precise as algebra.”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

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“Folk music is not so much a body of art as it is a process, an attitude, and a way of life; its distinguishing features lie not within the songs themselves, but in the relations of those songs to a folk culture.”

Sam Hinton (1917–2009) folk singer, artist, marine biologist

"The Singer of Folk Songs and His Conscience"

“The Urban Literate Southern California Sub-Group of the Early Atomic Period has not yet produced a distinct body of folk music of its own.”

Sam Hinton (1917–2009) folk singer, artist, marine biologist

"The Singer of Folk Songs and His Conscience" (Possibly an allusion to his recording of "Old Man Atom" ("Atomic Talking Blues") by Vern Partlow.)

“An uneducated population may be degraded; a population educated, but not in righteousness, will be ungovernable. The one may be slaves, the other must be tyrants.”

Henry Melvill (1798–1871) British academic

Quote reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 364.
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“In art, too, there is room enough for exact research... What was accomplished in music before the end of the eighteenth century has hardly been begun in the pictorial field.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

quote of Paul Klee from the text Exact experiments in the realm of art, 1928; as quoted in 'Klee & Kandinsky', 2015 exhibition text, Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munich, 2015-2016 https://www.zpk.org/en/exhibitions/review_0/2015/klee-kandinsky-969.html
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“I love all those great 'f' words - feminism, folk music..”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

from a 2003 interview with MuchMusic

Emma Goldman photo

“Revolution, on the contrary, signifies not mere external change, but internal, basic, fundamental change. That internal change of concepts and ideas, permeating ever-larger social strata,”

Emma Goldman book My Disillusionment in Russia

My Disillusionment in Russia (1923)
Context: Its first ethical precept is the identity of means used and aims sought. The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and wellbeing. Unless this be the essential aim of revolution, violent social changes would have no justification. For external social alterations can be, and have been, accomplished by the normal processes of evolution. Revolution, on the contrary, signifies not mere external change, but internal, basic, fundamental change. That internal change of concepts and ideas, permeating ever-larger social strata, finally culminates in the violent upheaval known as revolution.

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“Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music.”

George Gershwin (1898–1937) American composer and pianist

"The Relation of Jazz to American Music", in Henry Cowell (ed.) American Composers on American Music (1933); reprinted in Gregory R. Suriano (ed.) Gershwin in His Time (New York: Gramercy, 1998) p. 97.

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