Visual arts

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Van Gogh: The Church at
Auvers (1890)

The visual arts are art forms that create
works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts,
and often modern visual arts (photography, video, and filmmaking) and architecture. These
definitions should not be taken too strictly as many artistic disciplines (performing arts, conceptual art, textile arts) involve
aspects of the visual arts as well as arts of other types. Also included within
the visual arts[1]
are the applied arts[2]
such as industrial
design, graphic
design, fashion
design, interior
design and decorative art.[3]

As indicated above, the current usage of the term "visual arts" includes fine art as well as the applied, decorative arts and crafts, but this was
not always the case. Before the Arts and Crafts
Movement in Britain and elsewhere at
the turn of the 20th century, the term artist was often restricted to a person
working in the fine arts (such as painting, sculpture, or printmaking) and not the handicraft, craft, or applied art media. The
distinction was emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts
Movement who valued vernacular art forms as much as high forms.[4]
Art
schools made a distinction between the fine arts and the crafts maintaining that a
craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner of art.

The increasing tendency to privilege painting, and to a lesser degree
sculpture, above other arts has been a feature of Western
art as well as East Asian art. In
both regions painting has been seen as relying to the highest degree on the
imagination of the artist, and the furthest removed from manual labour - in Chinese painting the
most highly valued styles were those of "scholar-painting", at least in theory
practiced by gentleman amateurs. The Western hierarchy of genres
reflected similar attitudes.

Contents

1 Education and
training

2 Drawing

2.1 Early
history

2.2 Renaissance

3 Painting

3.1 Origins and early
history

3.2 The
Renaissance

3.3 Dutch
masters

3.4 Impressionism

3.5 Post-impressionism

3.6 Symbolism,
expressionism and cubism

4 Printmaking

4.1 Chinese
origins

4.2 European
history

5 Photography

6 Filmmaking

7 Computer
art

8 Sculpture

9 The Plastic
arts

10 Copyright definition of
visual art

11 See also

12 References

13 Further
reading

14 External
links

[edit]
Education and
training

Training in the visual arts has generally been through variations of the apprentice and workshop
system. In Europe the Renaissance movement to
increase the prestige of the artist led to the academy system for training
artists, and today most train in art schools at a tertiary
level. Visual arts have now become an elective subject in most education
systems. (See also art
education.)

[edit]
Drawing

Main article: Drawing

Drawing is a means of
making an image, using any of a
wide variety of tools and techniques. It generally involves making marks on a
surface by applying pressure from a tool, or moving a tool across a surface
using dry media such as graphite pencils, pen and
ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoals, pastels, and markers.
Digital tools which simulate the effects of these are also used. The main
techniques used in drawing are: line drawing, hatching, crosshatching, random
hatching, scribbling, stippling, and blending. An
artist who excels in drawing is referred to as a draftsman or
draughtsman".

[edit]
Early history

Drawing goes back at least 16,000 years to Paleolithic cave
representations of animals such as those at Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain. In
ancient Egypt, ink
drawings on papyrus, often
depicting people, were used as models for painting or sculpture. Drawings on Greek vases,
initially geometric, later developed to the human form with black-figure
pottery during the 7th century BC.[5]

[edit]
Renaissance

With paper becoming common in Europe by the 15th century, drawing was adopted
by masters such as Sandro Botticelli, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci who
sometimes treated drawing as an art in its own right rather than a preparatory
stage for painting or sculpture.[6]

[edit]
Painting

Mosaic of Battle of Issus

Main article: Painting

Nefertari with
Isis

Painting taken literally
is the practice of applying pigment suspended in a carrier
(or medium) and a binding
agent (a glue) to a surface (support) such as paper, canvas or a wall. However, when
used in an artistic sense it means the use of this activity in combination with
drawing, composition
and other aesthetic considerations in order to manifest the expressive and
conceptual intention of the practitioner. Painting is also used to express
spiritual motifs and ideas; sites of this kind of painting range from artwork
depicting mythological figures on pottery to The Sistine Chapel to the
human body itself.

[edit]
Origins and early
history

Main article: History of
painting

Like drawing, painting has its origins in caves and on rock faces. The finest
examples, believed by some to be 32,000 years old, are in the Chauvet and Lascaux caves in southern
France. In shades of red, brown, yellow and black, the paintings on the walls
and ceilings are of bison, cattle, horses and deer.

Raphael: Transfiguration
(1520)

Paintings of human figures can be found in the tombs of ancient Egypt. In the
great temple of Ramses II, Nefertari, his queen, is
depicted being led by Isis.[7]
The Greeks contributed to the development of painting but much of their work has
been lost. One of the best remaining representations is the mosaic of the Battle of Issus found at
Pompeii which was probably
based on a Greek painting. Greek and Roman art contributed to Byzantine art in the 4th
century BC which initiated a tradition in icon painting.

[edit]
The Renaissance

Main article: Italian
Renaissance painting

Apart from the illuminated
manuscripts produced by monks during the Middle Ages, the next
significant contribution to European art was from Italy's
renaissance painters. From Giotto in the 13th century to Leonardo da Vinci and
Raphael at the beginning of
the 16th century, this was the richest period in Italian
art as the chiaroscuro technique was used to create the illusion of
3-D space.[8]

Rembrandt: The Night
Watch

Painters in northern Europe too were influenced by the Italian school. Jan van Eyck from Belgium,
Pieter Bruegel
the Elder from the Netherlands and Hans Holbein the
Younger from Germany are among the most successful painters of the times.
They used the glazing
technique with oils to achieve depth and luminosity.

Claude Monet: Déjeuner sur l'herbe
(1866)

[edit]
Dutch masters

Main article: Dutch Golden Age
painting

The 17th century saw the emergence of the great Dutch masters such as the
versatile Rembrandt who is
especially remembered for his portraits and Bible scenes, and Vermeer who specialized in
interior scenes of Dutch life.

[edit]
Impressionism

Main article: Impressionism

Impressionism began
in France in the 19th century with a loose association of artists including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste
Renoir and Paul
Cézanne who brought a new freely brushed style to painting, often choosing
to paint realistic scenes of modern life outside rather than in the studio. They
achieved intense colour vibration by using pure, unmixed colours and short brush
strokes.[9]

Paul Gauguin: The Vision After
the Sermon (1888)

Edvard Munch: The Scream (1893)

[edit]
Post-impressionism

Main article: Post-Impressionism

Towards the end of the 19th century, several young painters took
impressionism a stage further, using geometric forms and unnatural colour to
depict emotions while striving for deeper symbolism. Of particular note are Paul Gauguin, who was
strongly influenced by Asian, African and Japanese art, Vincent van Gogh, a
Dutchman who moved to France where he drew on the strong sunlight of the south,
and Toulouse-Lautrec,
remembered for his vivid paintings of night life in the Paris district of Montmartre.[10]

[edit]
Symbolism,
expressionism and cubism

Main article: Modern art

Edvard Munch, a
Norwegian artist, developed his symbolistic approach at the end of the 19th
century, inspired by the French impressionist Manet. The Scream (1893), his most
famous work, is widely interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of
modern man. Partly as a result of Munch's influence, the German expressionist movement
originated in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century as artists such as Ernst Kirschner
and Erich Heckel began
to distort reality for an emotional effect. In parallel, the style known as cubism developed in France as
artists focused on the volume and space of sharp structures within a
composition. Pablo
Picasso and Georges
Braque were the leading proponents of the movement. Objects are broken up,
analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form. By the 1920s, the style had
developed into surrealism with Dali and Magritte.[11]

[edit]
Printmaking

The Chinese Diamond Sutra, the world's
oldest printed book (868
CE)

Ancient Chinese engraving of female
instrumentalists

Main article: Printmaking

Printmaking is
creating for artistic purposes an image on a matrix which is then transferred to
a two-dimensional (flat) surface by means of ink (or another form of
pigmentation). Except in the case of a monotype, the same matrix can
be used to produce many examples of the print. Historically, the major
techniques (also called media) involved are woodcut, line engraving, etching, lithography, and
screenprinting (serigraphy, silkscreening) but there are many others, including
modern digital techniques. Normally the surface upon which the print is printed
is paper, but there are
exceptions, from cloth and vellum to modern materials.
Prints in the Western tradition produced before about 1830 are known as old master prints.
There are other major printmaking traditions, especially that of Japan (ukiyo-e).

[edit]
Chinese origins

Albrecht Dürer: Melancholia I
(1541)

Main article: Woodblock
printing

In China, the art of
printmaking developed some 1,100 years ago as illustrations alongside text cut
in woodblocks for printing on paper. Initially images were mainly religious but
in the Song Dynasty,
artists began to cut landscapes. During the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing
(1616–1911) dynasties, the technique was perfected for both religious and
artistic engravings.[12][13]

[edit]
European history

Main article: Old master print

In Europe, from around 1400 AD woodcut, was used for master prints on paper
by using techniques for printing on cloth which had been developed in the
Byzantine and Islamic worlds. Michael Wolgemut
improved German woodcut from about 1475, and Erhard Reuwich, a
Dutchman, was the first to use cross-hatching. At the end of the century Albrecht Dürer
brought the Western woodcut to a level that has never been surpassed, increasing
the status of the single-leaf woodcut.[14]

[edit]
Photography

Main article: Photography

Photography is the
process of making pictures by means of the action of light. Light patterns reflected or
emitted from objects are recorded onto a sensitive medium or storage chip
through a timed exposure. The
process is done through mechanical, chemical or digital devices known as cameras.

The word comes from the Greek words φως phos
("light"), and γραφις graphis ("stylus", "paintbrush") or γραφη
graphê, together meaning "drawing with light" or "representation by means
of lines" or "drawing." Traditionally, the product of photography has been
called a photograph. The
term photo is an abbreviation; many people also call them
pictures. In digital photography, the term image has begun to
replace photograph. (The term image is traditional in geometric optics.)

[edit]
Filmmaking

Main article: Filmmaking

Visual arts exhibition in Centre
Georges-Pompidou

Filmmaking is the process of making a motion-picture, from an initial
conception and research, through scriptwriting, shooting and recording,
animation or other special effects, editing, sound and music work and finally
distribution to an audience; it refers broadly to the creation of all types of
films, embracing documentary, strains of theatre and literature in film, and
poetic or experimental practices, and is often used to refer to video-based
processes as well.

This section requires expansion.

[edit]
Computer art

Main article: Computer art

Picture produced by Drawing Machine
2

Visual artists are no longer limited to traditional art media.
Computers have been used as an ever more common tool in the visual art since the
1960s. Uses for computers in the visual arts include the capturing or creating of images
and forms, the editing of those images and forms (including exploring multiple
compositions)
and then the final rendering and/or printing (including 3D printing).

Computer art is any art
in which computers played a role in
production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound,
animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD, video game, website, algorithm, performance or gallery
installation. Many traditional disciplines are now integrating digital technologies and, as a
result, the lines between traditional works of art and new media works created
using computers have been blurred. For instance, an artist may combine
traditional painting with algorithmic art and
other digital techniques. As a result, defining computer art by its end product
can thus be difficult. Nevertheless, this type of art is beginning to appear in
art museum exhibits, though it has yet to prove its legitimacy as a form unto
itself and this technology is widely seen in contemporary art more as a tool
rather than a form as with painting.

Computer usage has blurred the distinctions between illustrators, photographers, photo
editors, 3-D modelers, and handicraft
artists. Sophisticated rendering and editing software has led to multi-skilled
image developers. Photographers may become digital
artists. Illustrators may become animators. Handicraft may be computer-aided or use computer-generated
imagery as a template. Computer clip art usage has also made
the clear distinction between visual arts and page layout less obvious due
to the easy access and editing of clip art in the process of paginating a document,
especially to the unskilled observer.

[edit]
Sculpture

Main article: Sculpture

The following is a copy of the introductory summary on the Sculpture
page

Sculpture is three-dimensional
artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials - typically stone - or marble, metal, glass, or wood.
Softer ("plastic") materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles,
plastics, polymers and softer metals.

The term has been extended to works including sound, text and light.

Found objects may be
presented as sculptures. Materials may be worked by removal such as carving; or they may be
assembled such as by welding
, hardened such as by firing, or molded or cast. Surface
decoration such as paint may be
applied.[15]
Sculpture has been described as one of the plastic
arts because it can involve the use of materials that can be moulded
or modulated.

Sculpture is an important form of public art. A collection of sculpture in a
garden setting may be referred
to as a sculpture
garden.

[edit]
The Plastic arts

Plastic arts is a term, now largely redundant within English usage,
specifically encompassing art forms which involve physical manipulation of a
plastic medium by moulding or modeling such as sculpture or ceramics. The term
has also been ambiguously applied to all the visual (non-literary,
non-musical) arts.[16][17]

Materials that can be carved or shaped, such as stone or wood, concrete or
steel, have also been included in the narrower definition, since, with
appropriate tools, such materials are also capable of modulation.[citation
needed] This use of the term "plastic" in the arts should not be
confused with Piet
Mondrian's use, nor with the movement he termed, in French and English, "Neoplasticism."

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Plastic
arts

Thus even the narrower definition could include Architecture, Ceramics, Collage, Conceptual art, Drawing, Glass art, Land art, Metalworking, Mosaic, Painting, Paper art, the use of
plastics within the arts or as an artform itself,
Printmaking, Sculpture, Textile art, Welding, Woodworking, Film, Film Photography, New media art.

[edit]
Copyright
definition of visual art

In the United States, the law protecting the copyright over a piece of visual
art gives a more restrictive definition of "visual art". The following quote is
from the Copyright Law of the United States of America- Chapter 1:[18]

A “work of visual art” is —
(1) a painting, drawing, print or sculpture,
existing in a single copy, in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that
are signed and consecutively numbered by the author, or, in the case of a
sculpture, in multiple cast, carved, or fabricated sculptures of 200 or fewer
that are consecutively numbered by the author and bear the signature or other
identifying mark of the author; or
(2) a still photographic image produced
for exhibition purposes only, existing in a single copy that is signed by the
author, or in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that are signed and
consecutively numbered by the author.

A work of visual art does not
include —
(A)(i) any poster, map, globe, chart, technical drawing, diagram,
model, applied art, motion picture or other audiovisual work, book, magazine,
newspaper, periodical, data base, electronic information service, electronic
publication, or similar publication;
(ii) any merchandising
item or advertising, promotional, descriptive, covering, or packaging material
or container;
(iii) any portion or part of any item described
in clause (i) or (ii);
(B) any work made for hire; or
(C) any work not
subject to copyright protection under this title.

[edit]
See also

Visual arts
portal

Main article: Outline of visual
arts

Art materials

Asemic
writing

Avant-garde

Collage

Comics

Composition

Conceptual
art

Contemporary
art

Craft

Décollage

Decorative
arts

Design

Eastern art
history

Fine art

Found art

Graffiti

Graphic
design

Handicraft

History of
art

History of
graphic design

History of
film

History
of painting

History
of sculpture

Illustration

Installation
art

Landscape
art

Mail art

Mathematics and
art

Media (arts)

Mixed
media

Portraiture

Old master
print

Recording
medium

Sketch
(drawing)

Sketchbook

Sound art

Textile
arts

Video
art

[edit]
References

^ An
About.com article by art expert, Shelley Esaak: What Is Visual Art?

^ Different Forms of Art- Applied Art. Buzzle.com.
Retrieved 11 Dec 2010.

^ http://www.georgebrown.ca/centres/AD/index.aspx Centre for
Arts and Design in Toronto, Canada

^ Art History: Arts and Crafts Movement: (1861-1900). From World
Wide Arts Resources. Retrieved 24 October 2009.

^ History of Drawing. From Dibujos para Pintar. Retrieved 23
October 2009.

^ Drawing. From History.com. Retrieved 23 October 2009.

^ History of Painting. From History World. Retrieved 23 October
2009.

^ History of Renaissance Painting. From ART 340 Painting.
Retrieved 24 October 2009.

^ Impressionism. Webmuseum, Paris. Retrieved 24 October
2009

^ Post-Impressionism. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 25
October 2009.

^ Modern Art Movements. Irish Art Encyclopedia. Retrieved 25
October 2009.

^ Engraving in Chinese Art. From Engraving Review. Retrieved 23
October 2009.

^ The History of Engraving in China. From ChinaVista. Retrieved
25 October 2009.

^ The Printed Image in the West: History and Techniques. The
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 25 October 2009.

^
Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity September
22, 2007 Through January 20, 2008, The Arthur M. Sackler Museum

^ ART TERMINOLOGY at KSU

^ Merriam-Webster Online (entry for "plastic arts")

^ Copyright Law of the United States of America- Chapter 1 (101.
Definitions)

[edit]
Further reading

Barnes, A. C., The Art in Painting, 3rd ed., 1937, Harcourt, Brace &
World, Inc., NY.

Bukumirovic, D. (1998). Maga Magazinovic. Biblioteka Fatalne
srpkinje knj. br. 4. Beograd: Narodna knj.

Fazenda, M. J. (1997). Between the pictorial and the expression of
ideas: the plastic arts and literature in the dance of Paula Massano.
N.p.

Gerón, C. (2000). Enciclopedia de las artes plásticas dominicanas:
1844-2000. 4th ed. Dominican Republic s.n.

Laban, R. V. (1976). The language of movement: a guidebook to
choreutics. Boston: Plays.

La Farge, O. (1930). Plastic prayers: dances of the Southwestern
Indians. N.p.

Restany, P. (1974). Plastics in arts. Paris, New York: N.p.

University of Pennsylvania. (1969). Plastics and new art.
Philadelphia: The Falcon Pr.

[edit]
External links

ArtLex - online dictionary of visual art terms.

Art History Timeline by the Metropolitan
Museum of Art.

v ·
d ·
eVisual
arts

Computer
art · Decorative
arts · Drawing · Filmmaking · New
media · Painting · Photography · Printmaking · Sculpture

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_arts"

Categories: Visual arts
| Communication
design | Art media |
Plastic
arts

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