Art

Definition of Art

Art is a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities; this article focuses primarily on the visual arts,
which includes the creation of images or objects in fields including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other
visual media. Architecture is often included as one of the visual arts; however, like the decorative arts, it involves the creation
of objects where the practical considerations of use are essentialin a way that they usually are not in a painting, for example.
Music, theatre, film, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature and other media such as interactive media, are
included in a broader definition of art or the arts. Until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not
differentiated from crafts or sciences. In modern usage after the 17th century, where aesthetic considerations are paramount,
the fine arts are separated and distinguished from acquired skills in general, such as the decorative or applied arts.

Art may be characterized in terms of mimesis (its representation of reality), expression, communication of emotion, or other
qualities. During the Romantic period, art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion
and science". Though the definition of what constitutes art is disputed and has changed over time, general descriptions
mention an idea of imaginative or technical skill stemming from human agency and creation.

The nature of art, and related concepts such as creativity and interpretation, are explored in a branch of philosophy known as
aesthetics.

Nature of Art

The nature of art is an expression of nature or emotions art can take endless forms. It is a vast wealth of inspiration.

Natural art are scenes taken of nature as you might have guessed. While simple in definition, the execution of natural art
photography is quite complex with many variables factoring into the final image. Light conditions, weather, timing, and luck
are all components necessary for a great nature photo.

Importance of Art

1. They are languages that all people speak that cut across racial, cultural, social, educational, and economic barriers and
enhance cultural appreciation and awareness.
2. They provide opportunities for self-expression, bringing the inner world into the outer world of concrete reality.
3. They develop both independence and collaboration.
4. They make it possible to use personal strengths in meaningful ways and to bridge into understanding sometimes
difficult abstractions through these strengths.
5. They improve academic achievement -- enhancing test scores, attitudes, social skills, critical and creative thinking.
6. They exercise and develop higher order thinking skills including analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and "problem-finding."
7. They provide the means for every student to learn.

Functions of Art

Social functions are some of the most common functions of art. These types of artwork are intended to convey some
sort of message, often of a religious or political nature. Satire is another common form of socially functional art.

Personal functions are difficult to characterize. Because art can mean different things to different people based on
their personal life history and experiences, these personal functions vary greatly. Two different people may receive vastly
different personal functions from the same piece of artwork.

Theories of Art

Harold Osborne (Aesthetics and Art Theory) identified three basic ways in which we can think about works of art. In the
simplest sense, a work of art has certain physical properties. It is made of a material (e.g., wood, marble, clay, paint on
canvas, ink on paper) which possesses texture, contains shapes, occupies a portion of space, reflects certain colors, and is
apprehended over time. In addition, these colors, textures, and shapes are organized together in a certain way. These
material and organizational qualities of a work of art are called its formal properties, and discussion about the value of art from
this perspective is to consider a formal theory of art.
Secondly, art uses its formal properties to present itself in certain basic ways. For example, art which serves as a
copy of reality is described as realistic or naturalistic. Art which presents an improved version of an existing reality is
called idealistic. Though in the recent past in the West weve shown a bias for naturalistic art, some art doesnt mimic
reality, and this kind of art we call abstract. Discussion of a work of art within the context of realism and abstraction is to
participate in a presentational theory of art.
Throughout history works of art have typically served a purpose, theyve served as instruments to accomplish these
purposes. For example, art has served to indoctrinate people about the importance of particular political and religious
personages and beliefs. When we talk about art in terms of acting on behalf of a purpose, Osborne says were working within
an instrumental theory of art.
All works of art offer formal, presentational and instrumental qualities. These categories become the framework for
the analysis of works of art. To assist in their application to a work of art, listed below are words, expressions and responses
typical to each category.

Formal Theory:

Terms: Form: shape, size, location, scale, texture, visual clarity

Color: harmony/dissonance, properties of light/illumination
Design: balance, symmetry/asymmetry, order, unity, proportion,
geometric/organic

Emotional responses to attributes listed above: a beautiful color, a beautiful combination

of shapes and colors; a feeling of awe in response to the scale, mass, symmetry of
a building. Response is primarily emotional.

Cognitive responses: Comparison of art and nature (e.g., pattern in art and nature); comparison of different works of art
in formal terms.

Presentational Theory:

Terms: Realism, naturalism, idealism, illusion, representation, architectonic, abstraction,

style, stylized, decorative, connoisseurship/taste

Emotional responses to the attributes listed above: the perfectly beautiful body of the
Greek goddess; delight in the quality of illusion.

Cognitive responses to the above attributes: assessment of the accuracy of

representation; comparison to other art of this type.

Instrumental Theory:

Terms: Craft, communication of personal ideas and emotions, communication of social

(moral, political, religious) values, narrative, iconography, education, magic and
ritual, vicarious experience, art-for-arts sake

Emotional responses to attributes listed above: beautifully crafted piece; empathic

reaction to artists expression; enjoyment of the vicarious experience of a realistic
presentation.

Cognitive responses to the above attributes: insight into reality; understanding social
values, historical events and characters. There is a prominence of cognition in
this category because of the communication of ideas.

Subjects and Mediums of Arts

Subjects of Arts

* Arts - the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or
sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

* Music - is an art form whose medium is sound. Its common elements are pitch (which governs melody and harmony),
rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture

* Drama - is a unique tool to explore and express human feeling.

- is an essential form of behaviour in all cultures, it is a fundamental human activity.
- the specific mode of fiction represented in performance

Medium of Arts

A medium refers to the materials that are used to create a work of art. The plural of medium is media. Some of the most
common media are oil paints (paints that use oil to hold pigments together), tempera (pigments held together with egg yolk),
marble (soft, white stone), and bronze (a metal used to cast sculptures).
In art, a medium is the material that artists use to create their art. It's that simple. Whatever a piece of art is made out of is
its medium. The plural of medium is media. So one piece of art can be made of one medium, or several media. If you've ever
been to an art museum or gallery, you've probably seen those little signs next to each piece that look something like this:

* Oil on Canvas

* Tempera on Wood

* Ink on Silk

All of these items are media. They describe each item the artist used to make the art. Therefore oil and canvas are both media
used to describe that particular work. Sometimes, this can be a very important part of how the piece of art is interpreted.
Different materials carry different significance. For example, if a certain wood is considered sacred, then using it indicates that
this piece of art is very special. Or, if an artist uses an uncommon medium, say garbage, it helps that artist make a statement.

Common Media

Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are held together with a type of oil that dries when exposed to air,
called drying oil. When the oil is mixed with a powdered pigment, it creates a color of paint. Different pigments create
different colors. Since prehistoric times, natural pigments such as minerals and shells were used. After the industrial
revolution, people were able to create new colors using machines that could create synthetic pigments.
The first artists to use oil as a base for their paints were Indian and Chinese Buddhists, working in Afghanistan as early as the
fifth century. By the 15th century, painters in the Netherlands began using oils for their paints, and this soon took off as the
most popular medium in Europe during the Italian Renaissance. Since then, oil paints have been the most common media in
Western Art. Oil paints are almost always used to paint canvas, a woven fabric.

Tempera is another common medium. Before oil painting became popular, most painting was done with tempera paints.
Rather than oil, the pigments are held together with a sticky material, most commonly egg yolk. Egg yolk holds the pigments
together, but it dries very fast and can sometimes give the paint a slightly yellow color. Nevertheless, it was a very common
way to make paint before oils came around, and is still used by many artists who enjoy working with fast-drying paints to
create certain effects. Tempera is often used to paint wood, another common medium before the Italian Renaissance.

In sculpture, marble is one of the most common media. Marble is a soft stone that is easy for sculptors to carve, chip, and
polish into smooth and beautiful works of art. Small impurities in the white marble can give the sculpture unique color and
shine. The Italian artist Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), one of the most famous sculptors of all time, was famous for
saying that he could see an image in a block of marble, and that it was his job to remove the excess. Painting

The discipline of painting usually utilizes two factors: the ground and the paint. The ground is the surface that
supports the paint, and may be made of masonite, wood, paper or cardboard, but is most frequently made of canvas.
Paints include oil, watercolor, guache (an egg-based pigment) and encaustic (wax mixed with color). In some
paintings, these techniques are used together. For example, oil and encaustic can frequently be found mixed in the
same work. Different types of paint tend to be preferred with different grounds. Watercolor is more frequently done on
paper, due to its absorbent qualities, while oil painting is more frequently done on canvas, due to its strength and
ability to support larger works without sagging or tearing.

Sculpture
Sculpture is any artwork that exists in three dimensions, and can be constructed of virtually any material. Common
materials used in traditional sculpture include marble, plaster, clay, steel, bronze, soapstone and wood. Some
sculptures are created by carving away to reveal a work, as is done with stone and wood. Others are poured into a
mold and allowed to harden, as is the case with bronze. Still others are built up from independent parts, as with
welded steel sculpture. Three-dimensional work often incorporates objects from outside of the discipline of art, and the
line between art and the real world can be blurred in some works, as is the case with art furniture, which exists
both as artistic expression and as practical furnishing.

Mixed Media
Mixed media work really has few rules. While it can incorporate traditional materials such as oil paint, wood or marble,
mixed media art can also be made of electrical components, grass, piles of old books, broken bricks or garbage. In
 addition, mixed media work can blur the line between painting and sculpture, either by building out a painting until it
it unclear whether it is a painting or a sculpture, or by incorporating painting into a work that began as a three-
dimensional work.

Elements of Arts
Color

Color is the element of art that is produced when light, striking an object, is reflected back to the eye. There are three
properties to color. The first is hue, which simply means the name we give to a color (red, yellow, blue, green, etc.). The
second property is intensity, which refers to the vividness of the color. For example, we may describe an intense blue color as
"bright, rich, and vibrant".[6] We may conversely describe a low-intensity blue color as "dull, subtle and grayed". A color's
intensity is sometimes referred to as its "colorfulness", its "saturation", its "purity" or its "strength". A color's perceived
intensity is related to its perceived brightness (brighter colors are more intense). The third and final property of color is its
value, meaning how light or dark it is. The terms shade and tint are in reference to value changes in colors. In painting,
shades are created by adding black to a color, while tints are created by adding white to a color.

Line

Lines and curves are marks that span a distance between two points (or the path of a moving point). As an art
element, line pertains to the use of various marks, outlines and implied lines in artwork and design. A line has a width,
direction, and length. A line's width is sometimes called its "thickness". Lines are sometimes called "strokes", especially when
referring to lines in digital artwork.

Shape

A shape is the form of an object or its external boundary, outline, or external surface, as opposed to other properties
such as color, texture, material composition.

Shape pertains to the use of areas in two-dimensional space that can be defined by edges.[1] Shapes can be
geometric (e.g., square, circle, hexagon, etc.) or organic (such as the shape of a puddle, blob, leaf, boomerang, etc.). Shapes
are defined by other elements of art: Line, Form, Space, Value, Color, Texture.

Form

The Form pertains to the volume or perceived volume. Three-dimensional artwork has depth as well as width and
height.[2] Three-dimensional form is the basis of sculpture. However, two-dimensional artwork can achieve the illusion of form
with the use of perspective and/or shading techniques.

Value

Value refers to the use of lightness and darkness in a piece of artwork

Space

Space is an area that an artist provides for a particular purpose. Space includes the background, foreground and
middle ground, and refers to the distances or area(s) around, between and within things. There are two kinds of space:
negative space and positive space.

Texture

Texture, another element of art, is used to describe either the way a three-dimensional work actually feels when
touched, or the visual "feel" of a two-dimensional work.
 Principles of Art or Visual Art

The Principles of Art or Visual art are the rules, tools and/or guidelines that artists use to organize the elements of art in an
artwork. When successfully combined with the elements of art they aid in creating an aesthetically pleasing or interesting work
of art. Some principles of art that have been identified are movement, unity, harmony, variety, balance, rhythm, emphasis,
contrast, proportion, and pattern. This list may vary, according to the art educator, but encompasses the generally accepted
principles. Rhythm and pattern are often combined in art education.

Movement
Movement shows actions, or alternatively, the path the viewer's eye follows throughout an artwork. Movement is
caused by using elements under the rules of the principles in picture to give the feeling of motion and to guide the viewer's
eyes throughout the artwork. In movement an art should flow, because the artist has the ability to control the viewer's eye.
The artists control what the viewers see and how they see it, like a path leading across the page to the item the artist wants
the viewer's attention focused on.

Techniques such as scale and proportion can be used to create an effect of movement in a visual artwork. For instance, an
element that is further into the background is smaller in scale and lighter in value. The same element repeated in different
places within the same image can also demonstrate the passing of time or movement.

Harmony
Harmony is achieved in a body of work by using similar elements throughout the work, and gives an uncomplicated
look to a piece of artwork or sculpture.

Colour harmony or colour theory is also considered a principle through the application of the design element of colour.

Variety
Variety is the quality or state of having different forms or types, notable use of contrast, emphasis, difference in size
and color.

Balance
Balance is arranging elements so that no one part of a work overpowers, or seems heavier than any other part. The
three different kinds of balance are symmetrical, asymmetrical, and radial. Symmetrical (or formal) balance is the most stable,
in a visual sense. When both sides of an artwork on either side of the horizontal or vertical axis of the picture plane are exactly
(or nearly exactly) the same the work is said to exhibit this type of balance. It is also a principle that deals with the visual
weight of an artwork.

Proportion
Proportion is a measurement of the size and quantity of elements within a composition. In ancient arts, proportions
of forms were enlarged to show importance. This is why Egyptian gods and political figures appear so much larger than
common people. The ancient Greeks found fame with their accurately-proportioned sculptures of the human form. Beginning
with the Renaissance, artists recognized the connection between proportion and the illusion of 3-dimensional space.

Pattern
Pattern is showing consistency with colors or lines. Putting a red spiral at the bottom left and top right, for example,
will cause the eye to move from one spiral, to the other, and everything in between. It is indicating movement by the
repetition of elements. Rhythm can make an artwork seem active.