I would submit Gaudi's buildings in Barcelona fall into that wonderful
"idiosyncratic" category.
Jim Sinclair
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Rotenstein" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2001 11:47 AM
Subject: Re: Above Ground Question


> Schuyler's question is interesting, however, he misuses the concept of
> "folk," putting it on a par with non-cultural phenomena at the opposite
end
> of a spectrum from what he described as "cultural-social."
>
> He is correct in dubbing some of the "attractions" in his notes
> "idiosyncratic," however that very term implies that the object/site is
not
> folk (or vernacular). In the world of professional folklore, folks
studying
> material culture often struggle with popular misconceptions that outsider
> art or self-taught art is folk art. It is not; it is idiosyncratic. The
> stone castles or pleasure gardens, including such places as artist Howard
> Finster's "Paradise Garden"
<http://www.finster.com/paradise%20gardens.htm>,
> carry a folk label but are actually not tied to any community or cultural
> tradition that the word folk implies.
>
> DSR.
>