Religious Imagery in Folk, Outsider and Popular Art

This typology, as with all typologies, is deeply problematic. It is not always apparent where the boundary is drawn between these different categories of art and these borders can also shift over time. For example, some graffiti, such as the work of Keith Haring and Banksy, has been reframed as urban art.  Originally decried as vandalism or ignored their work is now acclaimed by the art world, collected and exhibited in major art galleries. These distinctions and concomitant judgements of taste are largely determined by the discourses of the art world, and particularly the cultural critic (see my post But Is It Art?).

Religious art in the European context is most frequently identified with Renaissance artists such as Rembrandt, Titian, Michelangelo Caravaggio, European art galleries and museums as well as churches are replete with these images. Art critics, guidebooks, coffee table books and academic texts all valorise this particular canon of works.

The art of other religious traditions is also often identified by European cultural critics. For example, the Hindu bronzes, particularly the image of Śiva Naṭarāj, created in the Chola age² are often critically acclaimed as great works of art. Many museums and art galleries across the world have examples of these beautiful bronzes. Although there is a Hindu theory of aesthetics, these images are not perceived by most Hindus as being art works, but are primarily regarded as integral to religious life. The idea of art as a discrete cultural phenomenon is primarily a recent European concept. Consequently, as Johannes Beltz argues:  

Through processes of cultural appropriation and reinterpretation. Originally a southern Indian processional bronze, the dancing Shiva became transformed into a museum artwork

Beltz 2011: 204

The aesthetic evaluation of the image of Śiva Naṭarāj, is sometimes compared with the proliferation of brightly coloured god posters which are dismissed as being kitsch. Since the late 19^th century larger presses could print up to 10 million posters per year, and as Richard H Davis observes these posters have ‘made a profound impact on the way that Hindus in the modern era see their gods’ (Davis 2012: 3).

Warner Sallman’s Head of Christ (see blog post Is It Religious Art?) is similarly scorned as ‘bad art’, yet it is one of the most reproduced modern images. It is estimated that approximately 500 million copies have been printed. In the mid 20^th century reproductions of Sallman’s painting adorned everything from hospital walls to coffee mugs in the USA. Both Hindu god posters and reproductions of Warner Sallman’s image, whilst not being valued by the art world and not being displayed in museums and art galleries, frequently play a significant role in people’s religious lives. As David Morgan observes ‘millions of believers claim to see in Sallman’s art a compelling visualization of the values, devotional and religious ideals that they hold dearest’ (Morgan 1996: 3).

Shakespeare’s plays, Rembrandt’s paintings and the music of Beethoven are often classified as ‘high culture’. The term itself signifies that there is good and bad culture. This idea really develops in the 19^th century and is particularly apparent in Matthew Arnold important book Culture and Anarchy, first published in 1869. Matthew Arnold defined culture in this book as ‘the best that is thought and known’. Arnold argues that culture has a moral dimension and is necessary to maintain social stability. The implication is that if you provide the right cultural conditions, then both individuals and society will flourish. Failure to do so will entail that society will descend into anarchy.

The German philosopher Johann Gotfried Herder (1744–1803), suggested that each nation had what he called ‘volksgeist’ (spirit of the folk) which were shaped by the landscape and lives of the people and manifested in folk lore, tales, music and customs. Similarly, the American writer and critic Dwight Macdonald suggested that:

Folk art grew from below. It was a spontaneous, authocthonous³ expression of the people, shaped by themselves, pretty much without the benefit of High Culture, to suit their own needs.

Macdonald 1953: 13

For both Herder and Macdonald there is a clear relationship between the land, the lived experience of people and their culture. Furthermore, they suggest, that folk culture is totally independent and bears no relationship to high culture. Both folk culture and high culture are regarded as authentic forms of culture.

Macdonald perceived that both high culture and folk culture were threatened by what he called mass culture, which he suggested was imposed on people, rather than emerging spontaneously from their lived experiences.

Mass Culture is imposed from above. It is fabricated by technicians hired by businessmen; its audiences are passive consumers, their participation limited to the choice of buying or not buying.

Macdonald 1953: 13

However, I will use the term popular culture rather than mass culture. For many people prints of Hindu deities or a reproduction of Sallman’s painting are a significant aspect of their religious life.

The cultural commentator John Fiske, while he acknowledges that many cultural products are commodities, argues that what is important is how people actually incorporate these products into their life and imbue them with meaning. Fiske suggests that popular culture is ‘the art of being in between’. In other words, it is in between the products of capitalist society and the individual uses and meanings that we give to those products.

The idea of folk religion is a corollary of the idea of a distinctive folk culture identified by commentators like Herder. In Don Yoder’s classic definition:

Folk religion is the totality of all those views and practices of religion that exist among the people apart from and alongside the strictly theological and liturgical forms of the official religion.

Yoder 1974: 14

In religious art therefore there is a distinction made between images produced by artists recognised by the cultural critic and images produced outside of the artworld that reflect the beliefs of the ‘people’.

Since the 1960s Madhubani art has undergone a significant transformation. This is primarily down to the increasing availability of cheap paper and acrylic paints. This has shifted Madhubhani art from a group endeavour to individual artists. Whilst traditionally it has been a creative outlet for women, men have also now started to paint in this style. Acrylics enable artists to use a greater range of bright colours, and paper enables Madhubani art to be more transportable. Madhubani art is now recognised by the art world, can now be found in some art galleries and the work of artists, such as Bharti Dayal is now collectible.

What folk art, like Madhubani, clearly signify is the important role that visual images are in religious life as an expression of belief. Bharti Dayal paints numerous images of Kṛṣṇa, particularly with his consort Rādhā. She declares:

He is there in my work as my philosopher and friend, not just a visual element. [Painting the divine couple] gives me a sense of completeness.

Dayal 2015: 18.

Outsider art is often a visual expression of personal beliefs. Leonard Knight’s Salvation Mountain in many ways exemplifies the link between personal belief and artistic expression. Knight constructed an artificial mountain in the California desert out of straw bales, old tyres and scavenged objects which he covered with adobe shellacked and painted in bright colours. Religious motifs, such as ‘God is Love’, abound on Salvation Mountain. Knight stated that this massive project was inspired and guided by God.

God did all the thinking and planning, and God put me in this place. And I believe that God guided my paintbrush an awful lot .

Knight cited in Patterson 2016

Knight called himself a Christian but did not identify with any particular church, and was often very critical of institutional forms of religion. Knight can therefore be thought of as a double outsider, not only as an outsider artist, but also outside conventional forms of religion. Sara M Patterson observes that Salvation Mountain ‘transgresses the boundaries of what good art and good religion are supposed to look like (Patterson 2016: 138).

Most popular art, like outsider art, is dismissed as bad art or not even art at all. As we have seen Walter Sallman’s image The Head of Christ and Hindu god posters are immensely popular. One of the most important aspects of these images is the development of print technology, which make these images both cheap and widely available. Walter Benjamin in his important 1935 essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction suggests that the mechanical reproduction of art represents something new. Benjamin argued that the mechanically reproduced art lost any sense of uniqueness:

That which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art

Benjamin 2005:99

The implication of Benjamin’s argument is that the original painting of Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper has a unique aura that cannot be reproduced. Similarly, the carvings of the Chola dynasty, many of which are installed in temples or displayed in museums cannot be replicated. There is an inherent difference between the image of Śiva Naṭarāja installed in the temple of Chidambaram and a cheap printed poster of this deity. Yet, many Hindu pilgrims to this important temple in South India will buy a colourful print of the dancing Śiva and will incorporate this print into their daily domestic worship. Consequently, I would argue that the aura of a visual image does not reside in the image itself or the way in which it is produced, but way in which the viewer uses and perceives the image

God posters in a popular restaurant in Rishikesh

Women gather around a poster of Śiva and Pārvatī
for devotional singing

One of the most striking aspects of the Hinduism is its rich iconography. Colourful posters or calendars featuring various Hindu deities, gurus and saints are found in shops, cafes, offices and people’s homes. These relatively cheap and brightly coloured posters are incorporated into many Hindus daily religious life. These pictures might be framed and placed in Middle Class puja rooms and used in daily domestic worship. They are also often simply taped to walls in many chai shop, and every morning the proprietor will waft some burning incense before these images.

These ‘god posters’ are integral to many forms of modern Hinduism. The mechanical reproduction, to use Walter Benjamin’s terminology, of Hindu iconography has had a profound impact on many aspects of Hindu devotional practice. In particular print technology has facilitated the dissemination, both spatially and socially of a standardised stock of images. The proliferation of these printed images fixed the visual images of the many Hindu deities in popular Hindu imagination

Perhaps the most famous of the print artists was Ravi Varma (1848 -1906). He used the conventions of Western art to depict some of the most popular Hindu deities. However, perhaps even more importantly, in 1894 Varma founded the Ravi Varma Fine Art Lithographic Press which reproduced his and other artists’ work. According to Christopher Pinney:

[Ravi Varma ] “gave” India its Gods in a real form, so real that they have been endlessly replicated over the past century in the clothes and jewels that Ravi Varma first bestowed’

Pinney 2004: 61

The advent of print technology not only entailed standardisation in the representation of particular deities. This expansion of the market for religious imagery has, according to H. Daniel Smith (1995), had a significant impact on the devotional practices of many Hindus. Smith suggests there is:

A new and pervasive “omnipraxy”’ exemplified by householders and shopkeepers ‘who daily offer flowers and incense to framed pictures of deities

Smith 1995: 37