Folk painting 1700 to 1800: an analysis of social influences affecting the subject matter of American folk painters

It was the purpose of this thesis to discover which social conditions affected the nature and content in the-work of the eighteenth century American folk painter. It is hypothesized that two or more of the following factors may have determined the subject matter of American Folk Painting: (1) artistic tradition, i.e. English painting and Dutch painting, (2) religious influences, especially as seen in the Puritan ethic, and (3) the socio-economic influences of a personal, communal and national nature. The hypothesis is that the nature of these influences was collective and that it was the interaction of these influences which gave folk painting its identity in the Eighteenth Century. The value of this study for the visual arts would appear to be the need for clarifying the cause and effect nature of the relationship between artists and the social milieu in which they live. It is recognized, that the visual statement of the artist may in turn influence society through a continuum of interaction.