that gave the whole greater textural unity. The objective realism of her early work had been transformed into a subjective expressiveness that was almost visionary. When Moses died in 1961 at the age of 101, she was an international sensation who had been headline material for so long that many had begun to resent it. At the heart of the controversy surrounding her were some crucial questions concerning the nature of folk art per se and, specifically, of folk art in the twentieth century. Whether one considers folk art to have been forever annihilated by the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century depends very much on one's definition of the genre. Folk art has assumed so many guises at so many times in so many places that the only definition of any lasting significance is a negative one. Folk art is art outside the mainstream of western culture, influenced by our academic tradition, but never absorbed by it. Not a style, but a state of mind, it can exist anywhere, even in today's modern world. Great folk artists create their own styles, and the greatest grow and develop in the same way that academic artists do. This, in the final analysis, is what Grandma Moses achieved. Covered Bridge with Carriage, 1946. Oil on 1 2x 21½". The Shelburne Museum, masonite. 27/ Shelburne, VT.
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