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Kitsch or Visionary?: Charismatic Eschatological Community in Folk Art of the American South



Author(s)

Steven Félix-Jäger

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DOI:10.17265/2328-2177/2016.06.006

Southeastern University, Lakeland, USA

Where do we draw the line of divinely inspired visionary art, and Christian kitsch? Folk artists such as the Rev. Howard Finster and Sister Gertrude Morgan straddled the fence of kitsch and visionary art because they created work that was blatantly polemical and didactic, yet lived lives that inspired thousands of people across the US. The so-called “Southern Folk Art” movement consists of self-taught artists from the American South who are self-trained and rely heavily on “visions” and “prophetic words” as the genesis of their art. This article contends that the art produced by folk artists is documentation of their visionary insights as opposed to detached works that are admired for aesthetic reasons. While folk art of the American South portrays the charismatic imagination with themes of eschatological community and the second coming, it is the “visionary artist” that is contemplated, rather than his or her bona fide message of redemption and re-creation.

Folk Art, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Howard Finster, Visionary Art, Kitsch, American South