Понятия «народное искусство» и «народный мастер», основанные на системе понятий, обобщающих характер творческой деятельности и содержание народного искусства, его художественной природы, во всей ее культурной специфичности, должны направлять и стимулировать научное изучение, помогать практике и делу плодотворного руководства им.
На современном этапе истории народное искусство приобретает особенно важное и широкое значение. Исследование позволяет сделать вывод об актуальности тех его сторон, которые ставят народное искусство в связь с проблемами социальными, экологическими, экономическими, общекультурными, духовно-нравственными, эстетическими, заставляют рассматривать его в системе человек – природа – культура.
Folk Art as Part of Culture
M. Nekrasova's book "Folk Art as Part of Culture" (introduction by academician D. Likhachev) is devoted to the theory and practice of folk art. In the recent years the interest towards folk art has grown in the whole world. Its problems are regarded not only by specialists but also by the wide public. Therefore it is most important to preserve folk art which goes through great difficulties and sometimes even loss of precious traditions in our time of technical progress and urbanism.
In the USSR the folk art is protected by the law: in 1974 the Central Committee of the CPSU published a special Decision "On Folk Arts and Crafts". This made the scholars take a serious approach in theoretical and practical solution of the problems of folk art as a live part of culture. And this is the subject of the present book, where the author, using the extensive material of the present day folk art of all republics of the Soviet Union puts questions about its theory and answers them in close contact with art practice and perspectives of its development. The author regards folk art as an independent artistic integrity which interacts with professional art, as a special kind of artistic creation which is part of modern culture.
Folk art has been the subject for most heated discussions. At different historical periods when sometimes the relations between the old and the new were quite tense, folk art was considered to be out-of-date and an anachronism, too much tied with the past, it was of a "lower class" than the professional art. Attempts were made to modernize it, but here the artistic character was ignored and the mastership disappeared. To this defective tendency in folk art studies the author of the present book contrasts his own concept.
While studying the nature of folk art the author gives a profound explanation of the notion "folk art" itself. The book deals with tradition, novelty, modernity in folk art, its individual and collective traits, its ancestral essence, contacts and interrelation with professional art. It discusses the ways of development and preservation of folk art in various parts of our multinational country. The author defines contemporary folk art as a live tradition and cultural phenomenon and introduces a new aspect in folk art studies in the system "man-nature-culture".