Contemporary folk arts as a convention : supplement after years of

This article is an attempt to answer the question of how folk art existence in contemporary society. The first part presents the broad context European tradition of the study of art. Conceptual frame of thinking about art has been developed primarily by philosophers and art historians. In the nineteenth century art begins to function in a new context, as a result of the transformation of civilization, social and economic. For this change is highly influenced by surrealist ideological program. It is his case was undermined dichotomy: high art and low art. In the second part the author presents the mutual influences of surrealism and ethnology, which resulted in interest in primitive art, and her new research perspective. The third part of the article is the diagnosis: difficult to define term „folk art” has become a convention. It is a symptome of changing meaning and decay of traditional folk culture.