The primary function of sign paintings was outdoor advertising. They communicated critical information, enabling both local residents and travelers to find their way to commercial enterprises and social and civic gatherings.
Sign paintings put art on public display.
In cities and towns signs for competing businesses transformed everyday streetscapes into democratic open-air galleries, with a common set of images accessible to all. Even at the most remote crossroads a single inn or tavern sign might be found to delight both local residents and weary travelers. Surprisingly, this distinctively public art form has long gone unnoticed. Historians of taverns and travel tend to present the signs rather incidentally, as eye-catching asides to the main business of what goes on inside the buildings. Folk art publications, in contrast, do feature signs as subjects of interest in their own right.