When the cylinder spins, a mirror fixed in its center reflects the images and makes them appear animated. Montroig, late summer—fall A term initially used to refer to the arts of all of Africa, Asia, and Pre-Columbian America, later used mostly to refer to art from Africa and the Pacific Islands. By the late 20th century the term, with its derogatory connotations, fell out of favor. A work of art on paper that usually exists in multiple copies. It is created not by drawing directly on paper, but through a transfer process. The artist begins by creating a composition on another surface, such as metal or wood, and the transfer occurs when that surface is inked and a sheet of paper, placed in contact with it, is run through a printing press.
Four common printmaking techniques are woodcut, etching, lithography, and screenprint. Bohemians from the series Menschen des 20 Jahrhunderts Citizens of the 20th century. Any systematic, widespread dissemination or promotion of particular ideas, doctrines, practices, etc. Propaganda may take many different forms, including public or recorded speeches, texts, films, and visual or artistic matter such as posters, paintings, sculptures, or public monuments.
Polyvinyl chloride, abbreviated PVC, is a common type of plastic often used in clothing, upholstery, electrical cable insulation, and inflatable products. A term invented by Man Ray to describe what is conventionally known as a photogram, or photographic print made by placing objects and other elements on photosensitive paper and exposing it to light. A term coined by Marcel Duchamp in to describe prefabricated, often mass-produced objects isolated from their intended use and elevated to the status of art by the artist choosing and designating them as such.
New York, third version, after lost original of Marcel Duchamp. In Advance of the Broken Arm. Body parts or personal belongings of saints and other important figures that are preserved for purposes of commemoration or veneration. What Will Become of Me. A term meaning rebirth or revival; applied to a period characterized by the humanistic revival of classical art, architecture, literature, and learning, originating in Italy in the fourteenth century and later spreading throughout Europe and lasting through the sixteenth century. A style of art, particularly in architecture and decorative art, that originated in France in the early s and is marked by elaborate ornamentation, including, for example, a profusion of scrolls, foliage, and animal forms.
A genre of visual art that uses humor, irony, ridicule, or caricature to expose or criticize someone or something. The ratio between the size of an object and its model or representation, as in the scale of a map to the actual geography it represents. The Palace at 4 a. Self Portrait with Cropped Hair. Killing of the Banquet Roast. Rise of the Modern City Thomas Demand. A loosely defined affiliation of international artists living and working in Paris from until about , who applied a diversity of new styles and techniques to such traditional subjects as portraiture, figure studies, landscapes, cityscapes, and still lifes.
A stencil-based printmaking technique in which the first step is to stretch and attach a woven fabric originally made of silk, but now more commonly of synthetic material tightly over a wooden frame to create a screen. Areas of the screen that are not part of the image are blocked out with a variety of stencil-based methods. A squeegee is then used to press ink through the unblocked areas of the screen, directly onto paper.
Screenprints typically feature bold, hard-edged areas of flat, unmodulated color. Also known as silkscreen and serigraphy. One who produces a three-dimensional work of art using any of a variety of means, including carving wood, chiseling stone, casting or welding metal, molding clay or wax, or assembling materials. A three-dimensional work of art made by a variety of means, including carving wood, chiseling stone, casting or welding metal, molding clay or wax, or assembling materials. Paris, Mike Kelley. The person responsible for arranging the furnishings, drapery, lighting fixtures, artwork, and many other objects that together constitute the setting for scenes in television and film.
Montroig, late summer—fall Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Today, any film running for 40 minutes or less and therefore not considered long enough to be a feature-length film. A mechanical device for controlling the aperture, or opening, in a camera through which light passes to the film or plate. By opening and closing for different amounts of time, the shutter determines the length of the photographic exposure. A rendering of the basic elements of a composition, often made in a loosely detailed or quick manner.
Sketches can be both finished works of art or studies for another composition. A substance capable of dissolving another material. In painting, the solvent is a liquid that thins the paint. Sounds that are most often added during editing, rather than recorded at the time of filming. Sound effects take a number of different forms. Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks. A sound technology, first developed in the early 20th century, that became commercially viable in the late s. In this system, music and dialogue were recorded on waxed records that were played in sync with the film via a turntable connected to a film projector through an interlocking mechanism.
A sound technology, initially developed in the early 20th century, that became commercially viable in the late s and eventually supplanted the sound-on-disc system. In sound-on-film, sound waves were converted into light waves that were then photographically inscribed onto the film itself.
This allowed for a single strip of film to carry both pictures and the soundtrack, which was imprinted alongside the pictures and read by special projectors. In artistic contexts, paint thinned by a considerable amount of solvent. Stains are absorbed into the canvas, rather than remaining on its surface. An impervious material perforated with letters, shapes, or patterns through which a substance passes to a surface below. To represent in or make conform to a particular style, especially when highly conventionalized or artistic rather than naturalistic.
In popular writing about psychology, the division of the mind containing the sum of all thoughts, memories, impulses, desires, feelings, etc. Montroig, late summer—fall Louise Bourgeois. Bohemians from the series Menschen des 20 Jahrhunderts Citizens of the 20th century Cindy Sherman. Le Perreux-sur-Marne, Richard Avedon. Awe-inspiring or worthy of reverence. In philosophy, literature, and the arts, the sublime refers to a quality of greatness that is beyond all calculation. A term coined by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich in to describe a new mode of abstract painting that abandoned all reference to the outside world.
His new style claimed "the supremacy of pure feeling or perception in the pictorial arts" and rejected the deliberate illusions of representational painting. Montroig, July —winter Joseph Cornell. Paris, June—July Philippe Halsman. Automatism and Dreams Wifredo Lam. A form, sign, or emblem that represents something else, often something immaterial, such as an idea or emotion. April Hito Steyerl. Modern Portraits Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Senga Nengudi.
Art - Wikipedia
The method with which an artist, writer, performer, athlete, or other producer employs technical skills or materials to achieve a finished product or endeavor. A painting medium in which colored pigment is mixed with a water-soluble binder, such as egg yolk; a painting done in this medium. The state of being stretched or strained; in construction, the level of tautness when a load is applied to a structure.
An international, middle-class artistic movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that emphasized the unity of the arts and sought to reflect the intensive psychic and sensory stimuli of the modern city. The version commonly referred to as Art Nouveau flourished in France and Belgium and was characterized by sinuous, asymmetrical lines based on organic forms. Its more rectilinear counterpart, called Jugendstil or Secession style, flourished concurrently in Germany and Central Europe.
A figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression; a significant or recurrent theme; a motif. A turpentine burn is made by soaking a rag in solvent and scrubbing the canvas directly. This technique removes paint and leaves a stain on the canvas.
A particular design of type. Characters in typefaces include letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and symbols. The term is often confused with font, which is a specific style and size of a typeface. A position or place that affords an advantageous perspective; in photography, the position from which a photographer has taken a photograph. A type of theatrical variety show, developed in the early s in America, that remained the most popular form of entertainment until radio and film supplanted it in the late s.
It incorporated an array of short performances like singing, ventriloquism, plate-spinning, contortionists, dancing, performing animals, and, at its heart, comedy. Reflecting both the cultural diversity of earlyth-century America and its prejudices, vaudeville fused such traditions as the English Music Hall, minstrel shows of antebellum America, and Yiddish theater. Images by amateur photographers of everyday life and subjects, commonly in the form of snapshots.
The term is often used to distinguish everyday photography from fine art photography. A term describing moving-image artworks recorded onto magnetic tape or digital formats, or generated using other mechanisms such as image-processing tools, and available for immediate playback.
A camera that captures moving images and converts them into electronic signals so that they can be saved on a storage device, such as videotape or a hard drive, or viewed on a monitor. The thickness of a liquid. In painting, the viscosity of oil paints is altered by adding a binder such as linseed oil or a solvent such as turpentine. Paints composed of pigments ground to an extremely fine texture in an aqueous solution of gum Arabic or gum tragacanth. The absence of white fillers, such as those in gouache, creates a medium with luminous transparency.
Automatism and Dreams Vincent van Gogh. A process of joining two pieces of metal together by heating the surfaces to the point of melting and then pressing them together. A photographic process invented in by F. Scott Archer, in which a glass plate, coated with light-sensitive collodion emulsion, is placed in a camera, exposed, developed, and varnished for protection before being used to create prints.
In photography and filmmaking, a shot that reveals much of the context or setting, or a large group of people. An association of Vienna-based visual artists, craftspeople, and designers established in around the idea that fashionable art, design, furniture, and household goods should be accessible to everyone.
A printmaking technique that involves printing an image from a carved plank of wood. The image is cut into the wood using tools such as chisels, gouges, and knives. Raised areas of the image are inked and printed, while cut away or recessed areas do not receive ink and appear blank on the printed paper. Woodcuts can be printed on a press or by hand, using a spoon or similar tool to rub the back of the paper. Winter Moonlit Night Wintermondnacht. Among the most famous of President Franklin D.
The WPA ran from to and employed millions of people, including artists, to carry out public works projects across the United States. A pre-cinematic device consisting of a cylindrical drum with evenly spaced vertical slits cut into its sides. Its interior held a paper strip printed with sequential drawn or photographic images, which would appear animated when the drum was spun. Abstract A term generally used to describe art that is not representational or based on external reality or nature.
Abstract Expressionism The dominant artistic movement in the s and s, Abstract Expressionism was the first to place New York City at the forefront of international modern art. Abstraction Non-representational works of art that do not depict scenes or objects in the world or have discernable subject matter. Academic Of or relating to the conservative style of art promoted by an official academy. Actuality A nonfiction film, usually lasting no more than one to two minutes, showing unedited, unstructured footage of real events, places, people, or things.
Aesthetic Relating to or characterized by a concern with beauty or good taste adjective ; a particular taste or approach to the visual qualities of an object noun. Allover painting A canvas covered in paint from edge to edge and from corner to corner, in which each area of the composition is given equal attention and significance.
Aluminum Aluminum is a relatively soft, durable, lightweight, ductile, and malleable metal with appearance ranging from silvery to dull gray. Angular An object, outline, or shape having sharp corners, or angles. Appropriation As an artistic strategy, the intentional borrowing, copying, and alteration of preexisting images, objects, and ideas.
Architecture The science, art, or profession of designing and constructing buildings, bridges, and other large structures. Artifice Deception or trickery. Arts and Crafts movement Informal movement in design and architecture that championed the unity of the arts, the experience of the individual craftsperson, and the qualities of materials and construction in the work itself.
Assemblage A three-dimensional work of art made from combinations of materials including found objects or non-traditional art materials. Automatism Strategies of writing or creating art that aimed to access the unconscious mind. B movie A low-budget movie, especially one made for use as a companion to the main attraction in a double feature. Background The area of an artwork that appears farthest away from the viewer; also, the area against which a figure or scene is placed.
Ball Bearing A type of bearing designed to reduce friction, a force that resists motion between moving parts. Baroque A term meaning extravagant, complex; applied to a style in art and architecture developed in Europe from the early seventeenth to mid-eighteenth century, emphasizing dramatic, often strained effect and typified by bold, curving forms, elaborate ornamentation, and overall balance of disparate parts. Batik A wax-resist dyeing technique that is often used to make highly patterned cloth. Bauhaus The school of art and design founded in Germany by Walter Gropius in , and shut down by the Nazis in Beat A member of the Beat Generation, a group of American writers and artists popular in the s and early s, influenced by Eastern philosophy and religion and known especially for their use of nontraditional forms and their rejection of conventional social values.
Ben-Day dots Colored dots generally in four colors: Binder A component of paint that creates uniform consistency or cohesion. Biomorphic Derived from the Greek words bios life and morphe form , a term referring to abstract forms or images that evoke associations with living forms such as plants and the human body. Brocade A heavy fabric interwoven with a rich, raised design. Brushwork The manner in which a painter applies paint with a brush. Built Environment Human-made surroundings that provide the setting for human activity.
Byzantine Empire An empire of the eastern Mediterranean region, dating from AD , when the Roman Empire was partitioned into eastern and western portions. Calligraphy Decorative handwriting or lettering. Canon A group of artistic, literary, or musical works that are generally accepted as representing a field. Canvas A closely woven, sturdy cloth of hemp, cotton, linen, or a similar fiber, frequently stretched over a frame and used as a surface for painting.
Caricature A rendering, usually a drawing, of a person or thing with exaggerated or distorted features, meant to satirize the subject. Cartes-de-visite Small handheld photographic cards, first popularized in the s. Celluloid The first synthetic plastic material, developed in the s and s from a combination of camphor and nitrocellulose. Censorship The act, process, or practice of examining books, films, or other material to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable.
Ceramics Objects, such as pots and vases, made of clay hardened by heat. Choreography The art of creating and arranging dances or ballets; a work created by this art. Chromogenic color print Photographs made from a positive color transparency or a negative. Cinematographer The person who sets up both camera and lighting for each shot in a film, the cinematographer has a major influence over the look and feel of a shot or scene, and is often as highly esteemed as the director. City planner An individual who helps guide and shape the future development of a community. Cityscape An image with urban scenery as its primary focus; an urban environment.
Cladding A metal covering that sheathes a metal structure. Classicism The principles embodied in the styles, theories, or philosophies of the art of ancient Greece and Rome. Color The perceived hue of an object, produced by the manner in which it reflects or emits light into the eye. Color Field paintings Paintings of large areas of color, typically with no strong contrasts of tone or obvious focus of attention. Column A decorative or structural feature, most often composed of stone, typically having a cylindrical or polygonal shaft.
Combine The technique of affixing cast-off items to a traditional support, like a canvas. Commission To request, or the request for, the production of a work of art. Complementary colors Colors located opposite one another on the color wheel. Composition The arrangement of the individual elements within a work of art so as to form a unified whole; also used to refer to a work of art, music, or literature, or its structure or organization. Concentric Two or more things having a common center. Conceptual art Art that emerged in the late s, emphasizing ideas and theoretical practices rather than the creation of visual forms.
Construct Something formed or constructed from parts. Constructivism Developed by the Russian avant-garde at the time of the October Revolution of Content The subject matter or significance of a work of art, especially as contrasted with its form. Contour The outline of something. Contrast photography In photography, the range of light to dark areas in the composition. Convention General agreement on or acceptance of certain practices or attitudes; a widely used and accepted device or technique, as in drama, literature, or visual art.
Cor-Ten steel A steel alloy that develops a rust-like appearance when exposed to weather for several years, eliminating the need for repainting.
Costume What a figure is wearing. Cropping In photography, editing, typically by removing the outer edges of the image. Cubism Originally a term of derision used by a critic in , Cubism describes the work of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and those influenced by them. Cultural icon A person, symbol, object, or place that is widely recognized or culturally significant to a large group of people.
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Culture The customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group. Curator A person whose job it is to research and manage a collection and organize exhibitions. Dada An artistic and literary movement formed in response to the disasters of World War I —18 and to an emerging modern media and machine culture. Decorative Arts A term used to describe the design and aesthetics of functional objects with an emphasis on unique and hand-crafted forms often available in limited quantity.
Design brief A written record describing the elements and scope of a design project. Designer A person who conceives and gives form to objects used in everyday life. Diptych A work of art consisting of two sections or panels, usually hinged together. Direct Cinema A method of documentary filmmaking developed in the late s and early s in the US and Canada, in which filmmakers sought to capture their subjects as directly as possible.
Direct positive A photographic term referring to a positive image made directly by exposure to light and by development without the use of a negative. Documentary film A genre encompassing nonfiction films intended to capture some aspect of reality, often for the purposes of instruction, education, or the development of a historical record. Documentary photography A genre of photography that aims to objectively chronicle a subject or event. Double exposure In photography and filmmaking, a technique in which film is exposed twice to capture and merge two different images in a single frame.
Draftsman A person who draws plans or designs, often of structures to be built; a person who draws skillfully, especially an artist. Drypoint An intaglio printmaking technique that creates sharp lines with fuzzy, velvety edges. Earthwork Artistic manipulation of the natural landscape, typically though not exclusively enacted on a large scale. Elevation A scale drawing of the side, front, or back of a structure.
Embroidery The craft of decorating fabric or other materials with thread or yarn using a needle. Emulsion A combination of two or more liquids that do not blend easily on their own, such as oil and water. Enamel A type of paint made from very fine pigments and resin that form a glossy surface. Enlargement A photographic print that is bigger than the original negative. Ephemera Transitory written and printed matter receipts, notes, tickets, clippings, etc.
Etching An intaglio printmaking technique that creates thin, fluid lines whose effects can vary from graceful and serpentine to tight and scratchy. Exposure The action of exposing a photographic film to light or other radiation. Expression A facial aspect indicating an emotion; also, the means by which an artist communicates ideas and emotions. Expressionism Encompasses varying stylistic approaches that emphasize intense personal expression.
Exquisite Corpse A game in which each participant takes turns writing or drawing on a sheet of paper, folds it to conceal his or her contribution, then passes it to the next player for a further contribution. Facade Any public-facing side of a building, often featuring decorative finishes.
Fauvism A style of painting in the first decade of the 20th century that emphasized strong, vibrant color and bold brushstrokes over realistic or representational qualities. Feminist art Art seeking to challenge the dominance of men in both art and society, to gain recognition and equality for women artists, and to question assumptions about womanhood. Figurative Representing a form or figure in art that retains clear ties to the real world. Figure A representation of a human or animal form in a work of art.
Film still A photograph taken during the production of a film that shows a particular moment or scene. Filmmaker A person who directs or produces movies. Font A specific size and style of a typeface design for example, Arial 12pt bold, or Times New Roman 10pt italics. Foreground The area of an image—usually a photograph, drawing, or painting—that appears closest to the viewer. Form The shape or structure of an object. Formal Relating to the shape or structure of an object.
Found objects An object—often utilitarian, manufactured, or naturally occurring—that was not originally designed for an artistic purpose, but has been repurposed in an artistic context. Framing The method by which information is included or excluded from a photograph, film, or video. Frottage A technique that involves rubbing pencil, graphite, chalk, crayon, or another medium onto a sheet of paper that has been placed on top of a textured object or surface. Futurism An Italian movement in art and literature catalyzed by a manifesto published in a newspaper by Italian poet F. Gelatin silver print A black-and-white photographic print made by exposing paper, which has been made light-sensitive by a coating of gelatin silver halide emulsion, to artificial or natural light; a photographic process invented by Dr.
Genre A category of artistic practice having a particular form, content, or technique. Geometric Resembling or using the simple rectilinear or curvilinear lines used in geometry. Gesture A category of artistic practice having a particular form, content, or technique. Gouache A water-based matte paint, sometimes called opaque watercolor, composed of ground pigments and plant-based binders, such as gum Arabic or gum tragacanth. Graphic A visual representation or design on a surface. Grotesque Characterized by ludicrous, repulsive, or incongruous distortion, as of appearance or manner; ugly, outlandish, or bizarre, as in character or appearance.
Happening A performance, event, or situation considered as art, especially those initiated by the artists group Fluxus in the early s. Hardboard Stiff board made of compressed and treated wood pulp. Harlem Renaissance An African American literary, artistic, and intellectual flowering, centered in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem and spanning the s to the mids. Hieroglyphics A pictographic communication system, closely associated with the ancient Egyptians, in which many of the symbols are stylized, recognizable pictures of the things and ideas represented.
Horizon line A line in works of art that usually shows where land or water converges with the sky. Hue A particular gradation of color; a shade or tint. Iconic Having the character of an icon, i. Iconography Subject matter in visual art, often adhering to particular conventions of artistic representation, and imbued with symbolic meanings.
Idol An image used as an object of worship; one that is adored, often blindly or excessively. Illusion An unreal, deceptive, or misleading appearance or image. Image A representation of a person or thing in a work of art. Improvisation The act of improvising, that is, to make, compose, or perform on the spur of the moment and with little or no preparation. In situ In its original position or place. Inclined plane A flat slanting surface, connecting a lower level to a higher level. Industrial design A field of design concerned with the aesthetics, form, functionality, and production of manufactured consumer objects.
Information Age The period beginning around characterized by a shift away from traditional industry and noted for the abundant publication, consumption, and manipulation of information, especially by computers and computer networks. Installation A form of art, developed in the late s, which involves the creation of an enveloping aesthetic or sensory experience in a particular environment, often inviting active engagement or immersion by the spectator. Institutional critique An art term describing the systematic inquiry into the practices and ethos surrounding art institutions such as art academies, galleries, and museums, often challenging assumed and historical norms of artistic theory and practice.
Intaglio A general term for metal-plate printmaking techniques, including etching, drypoint, engraving, aquatint, and mezzotint. Interaction Design The practice of designing digital environments, products, systems, and services for human interaction. Interior Design A discipline of design that focuses on the functional and aesthetic aspects of indoor spaces.
Art Quotes
International Style A style of architecture that appeared from to and favored boxy structures, lack of decoration, and the use of materials such as steel, concrete, and glass. Intertitle Dialogue or narration conveyed in text that is shown between scenes of a silent film. Jazz Age The period in American history between World Wars I and II, particularly the s, characterized especially by the rising popularity of jazz and by the open pursuit of social pleasures.
Juxtaposition An act of placing things close together or side by side for comparison or contrast. Kinetic sculpture Sculpture that depends on motion. Lacquer Any of various clear or colored synthetic organic coatings that typically dry to form a film. Landscape The natural landforms of a region; also, an image that has natural scenery as its primary focus. Line A long mark or stroke. Lithography A printmaking technique that involves drawing with greasy crayons or a liquid called tusche, on a polished slab of limestone; aluminum plates, which are less cumbersome to handle, may also be used.
Magic lantern Apparatus used to project an image, usually onto a screen. Mandala A sacred Hindu and Buddhist art form, generally circular, that symbolizes the universe. Mannered Having or showing a certain manner; artificial, stylized, or affected. Mass Production The production of large amounts of standardized products through the use of machine-assembly production methods and equipment. Material An element or substance out of which something can be made or composed. Medium The materials used to create a work of art, and the categorization of art based on the materials used for example, painting [or more specifically, watercolor], drawing, sculpture.
Merz A term invented by the artist Kurt Schwitters to describe his works made from scavenged fragments and objects. Metaphysical Transcending physical matter or the laws of nature. Middle ground The part of the picture that is between the foreground and background. Minimalism A primarily American artistic movement of the s, characterized by simple geometric forms devoid of representational content.
Modern Modern can mean related to current times, but it can also indicate a relationship to a particular set of ideas that, at the time of their development, were new or even experimental. Monochrome A work of art rendered in only one color. Montage An assembly of images that relate to one another in some way to create a single work or part of a work of art. Mood A state of mind or emotion, a pervading impression.
Motif A distinctive and often recurring feature in a composition. Multiple A term referring to small-scale, three-dimensional works of art conceived and produced in relatively large editions, and often issued by the same individuals or organizations that publish prints. Mural A large painting applied to a wall or ceiling, especially in a public space.
Narrative A spoken, written, or visual account of an event or a series of connected events. Nastaliq A traditional form of calligraphy used mostly for Persian, Urdu, and Malay manuscripts. Naturalism Faithful adherence to nature; factual or realistic representation. Negative photographic A previously exposed and developed photographic film or plate showing an image that, in black-and-white photography, has a reversal of tones for example, white eyes appear black. Obelisk A tall, four-sided monument that tapers into a pyramid-like form.
Oceania A term referring to the islands of the southern, western, and central Pacific Ocean, including Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Oil Paint A paint in which pigment is suspended in oil, which dries on exposure to air. Old Master A distinguished European artist of the period from about to the early s, especially one of the great painters of this period, e.
Opaque Impenetrable to the passage of light. Open source In computer software, open source refers to source code that is freely available and may be modified. Organic Having characteristics of a biological entity, or organism, or developing in the manner of a living thing.
What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?
Ornamentation Accessories, decoration, adornment, or details that have been applied to an object or structure to beautify its appearance. Painter One who applies paint to canvas, wood, paper, or another support to produce a picture. Painting A work of art made from paint applied to canvas, wood, paper, or another support noun. Palette knife A flexible, thin blade with a handle, typically used for mixing paint colors or applying them to a canvas.
Panel A flat board, sometimes made of wood. Panning To pivot a movie camera along a horizontal plane in order to follow an object or create a panoramic effect. Panorama An unbroken view on an entire surrounding area. Pastel A soft and delicate shade of a color adjective ; a soft drawing stick composed of finely ground pigment mixed with a gum tragacanth binder noun.
Pattern A series of events, objects, or compositional elements that repeat in a predictable manner. Performance art A term that emerged in the s to describe a diverse range of live presentations by artists, including actions, movements, gestures, and choreography. Perspective Technique used to depict volumes and spatial relationships on a flat surface, as in a painted scene that appears to extend into the distance.
Photogram A photographic print made by placing objects and other elements on photosensitive paper and exposing it to light. Photograph An image, especially a positive print, recorded by exposing a photosensitive surface to light, especially in a camera. Photographer One who uses a camera or other means to produce photographs. Photogravure A printmaking process in which a photographic negative is transferred onto a copper plate. Photojournalism A type of journalism that uses photographs to tell a news story.
Photomontage A collage work that includes cut or torn and pasted photographs or photographic reproductions. Photostat A machine that makes quick duplicate positive or negative copies directly on the surface of prepared paper. Pictograph An image or symbol representing a word or a phrase. Pictorialism An international style of photography in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, characterized by the creation of artistic tableaus and photographs composed of multiple prints or manipulated negatives, in an effort to advocate for photography as an artistic medium on par with painting.
Picture Plane The virtual, illusionary plane created by the artist, parallel to the physical surface of a two-dimensional work of art; the physical surface of a two-dimensional work of art, e. Pigment A substance, usually finely powdered, that produces the color of any medium. Plan A scale drawing or diagram showing the structure or organization of an object or group of objects. Plane A flat or level surface. Plastic A term applied to many natural and synthetic materials with different forms, properties, and appearances that are malleable and can be molded into different shapes or objects.
Plastic Art A term broadly applied to all the visual arts to distinguish them from such non-visual arts as literature, poetry, or music. Plasticizer Any of a group of substances that are used in the manufacture of plastics or other materials to impart flexibility, softness, hardness, or other desired physical properties to the finished product. Plate In printmaking, the flat surface onto which the design is etched, engraved, or otherwise applied.
Pliable Capable of being shaped, bent, or stretched out. Plywood A material made of thin layers of wood that have been heated, glued, and pressed together by a machine. Pointillism A painting technique developed by French artists Georges-Pierre Seurat and Paul Signac in which small, distinct points of unmixed color are applied in patterns to form an image.
Polyethylene One of the most common forms of plastic known for being tough, light, and flexible. Pop art A movement comprising initially British, then American artists in the s and s. Popular culture Cultural activities, ideas, or products that reflect or target the tastes of the general population of any society. Portrait A representation of a particular individual, usually intended to capture their likeness or personality. Pose The way a figure is positioned. Positive In photography, images capable of being produced in multiples that result from the transfer of a negative image to another surface, such as a photographic print on paper.
Postmodernism In art, postmodernism refers to a reaction against modernism. Primary color One of three base colors blue, red, or yellow that can be combined to make a range of colors. Prime To prepare a surface for painting by covering it with primer, or an undercoat. Print A work of art on paper that usually exists in multiple copies. Profile A side view, usually referring to that of a human head.
Prop An object used to aid or enhance a story or performance. Propaganda Any systematic, widespread dissemination or promotion of particular ideas, doctrines, practices, etc. Proportion Refers to the harmonious relation of parts to each other or to the whole. Prototype An early sample built to test a concept or process. PVC Polyvinyl chloride, abbreviated PVC, is a common type of plastic often used in clothing, upholstery, electrical cable insulation, and inflatable products. Rayograph A term invented by Man Ray to describe what is conventionally known as a photogram, or photographic print made by placing objects and other elements on photosensitive paper and exposing it to light.
Readymade A term coined by Marcel Duchamp in to describe prefabricated, often mass-produced objects isolated from their intended use and elevated to the status of art by the artist choosing and designating them as such. Relics Body parts or personal belongings of saints and other important figures that are preserved for purposes of commemoration or veneration. Renaissance A term meaning rebirth or revival; applied to a period characterized by the humanistic revival of classical art, architecture, literature, and learning, originating in Italy in the fourteenth century and later spreading throughout Europe and lasting through the sixteenth century.
Rendering A representation, executed in perspective, of a proposed structure. Replica A copy or reproduction. Representation The visual portrayal of someone or something. Rococo A style of art, particularly in architecture and decorative art, that originated in France in the early s and is marked by elaborate ornamentation, including, for example, a profusion of scrolls, foliage, and animal forms.
Satire A genre of visual art that uses humor, irony, ridicule, or caricature to expose or criticize someone or something. Scale The ratio between the size of an object and its model or representation, as in the scale of a map to the actual geography it represents. Scene A setting for or a part of a story or narrative. School of Paris A loosely defined affiliation of international artists living and working in Paris from until about , who applied a diversity of new styles and techniques to such traditional subjects as portraiture, figure studies, landscapes, cityscapes, and still lifes.
Screenprint A stencil-based printmaking technique in which the first step is to stretch and attach a woven fabric originally made of silk, but now more commonly of synthetic material tightly over a wooden frame to create a screen. Sculptor One who produces a three-dimensional work of art using any of a variety of means, including carving wood, chiseling stone, casting or welding metal, molding clay or wax, or assembling materials.
Sculpture A three-dimensional work of art made by a variety of means, including carving wood, chiseling stone, casting or welding metal, molding clay or wax, or assembling materials. Self-portrait A representation of oneself made by oneself. Set-dresser The person responsible for arranging the furnishings, drapery, lighting fixtures, artwork, and many other objects that together constitute the setting for scenes in television and film.
Setting The context or environment in which a situation occurs. Shade In painting, a color plus black. Shape The form or condition in which an object exists or appears. Short A short film. Shutter A mechanical device for controlling the aperture, or opening, in a camera through which light passes to the film or plate. Site-specific Describes a work of art designed for a particular location. Sketch A rendering of the basic elements of a composition, often made in a loosely detailed or quick manner.
Solvent A substance capable of dissolving another material. Sound effects Sounds that are most often added during editing, rather than recorded at the time of filming. Sound-on-disc A sound technology, first developed in the early 20th century, that became commercially viable in the late s. Sound-on-film A sound technology, initially developed in the early 20th century, that became commercially viable in the late s and eventually supplanted the sound-on-disc system. Special effect An illusion created for movies and television using props, camerawork, computer graphics, etc.
Stain In artistic contexts, paint thinned by a considerable amount of solvent. Stencil An impervious material perforated with letters, shapes, or patterns through which a substance passes to a surface below. Stereotype Standardized and oversimplified assumptions about specific social groups. Still life A representation of inanimate objects, as a painting of a bowl of fruit.
Street photography A type of photography that captures subjects in candid moments in public places. Strobe Fast bursts of intermittent light used to illuminate moving subjects. Style A distinctive or characteristic manner of expression. Stylized To represent in or make conform to a particular style, especially when highly conventionalized or artistic rather than naturalistic.
Subconscious in technical use, Unconscious In popular writing about psychology, the division of the mind containing the sum of all thoughts, memories, impulses, desires, feelings, etc. Subject matter The visual or narrative focus of a work of art. Sublime Awe-inspiring or worthy of reverence. Suprematism A term coined by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich in to describe a new mode of abstract painting that abandoned all reference to the outside world.
Symbol A form, sign, or emblem that represents something else, often something immaterial, such as an idea or emotion. Synthetic Produced by chemical synthesis, rather than of natural origin; prepared or made artificially. Tactile Touchable, or sensed by the touch. Technique The method with which an artist, writer, performer, athlete, or other producer employs technical skills or materials to achieve a finished product or endeavor.
Tempera A painting medium in which colored pigment is mixed with a water-soluble binder, such as egg yolk; a painting done in this medium. Tension The state of being stretched or strained; in construction, the level of tautness when a load is applied to a structure. The New Art An international, middle-class artistic movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that emphasized the unity of the arts and sought to reflect the intensive psychic and sensory stimuli of the modern city.
Tone The lightness or darkness of a color. In painting, a color plus gray. Translucent Permitting the passage of light. Triptych A work of art consisting of three sections or panels, usually hinged together. Trope A figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression; a significant or recurrent theme; a motif. Turpentine burn A turpentine burn is made by soaking a rag in solvent and scrubbing the canvas directly. Typeface A particular design of type. Vantage point A position or place that affords an advantageous perspective; in photography, the position from which a photographer has taken a photograph.
Vaudeville A type of theatrical variety show, developed in the early s in America, that remained the most popular form of entertainment until radio and film supplanted it in the late s. Venus The goddess of love and beauty in Roman mythology; a very beautiful woman. India and Tibet saw emphasis on painted sculptures and dance, while religious painting borrowed many conventions from sculpture and tended to bright contrasting colors with emphasis on outlines.
China saw the flourishing of many art forms: Chinese styles vary greatly from era to era and each one is traditionally named after the ruling dynasty. So, for example, Tang dynasty paintings are monochromatic and sparse, emphasizing idealized landscapes, but Ming dynasty paintings are busy and colorful, and focus on telling stories via setting and composition. Woodblock printing became important in Japan after the 17th century.
The western Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century saw artistic depictions of physical and rational certainties of the clockwork universe, as well as politically revolutionary visions of a post-monarchist world, such as Blake 's portrayal of Newton as a divine geometer, [41] or David 's propagandistic paintings.
This led to Romantic rejections of this in favor of pictures of the emotional side and individuality of humans, exemplified in the novels of Goethe. The late 19th century then saw a host of artistic movements, such as academic art , Symbolism , impressionism and fauvism among others. The history of twentieth-century art is a narrative of endless possibilities and the search for new standards, each being torn down in succession by the next. Thus the parameters of impressionism , Expressionism , Fauvism , Cubism , Dadaism , Surrealism , etc.
Increasing global interaction during this time saw an equivalent influence of other cultures into Western art. Thus, Japanese woodblock prints themselves influenced by Western Renaissance draftsmanship had an immense influence on impressionism and subsequent development. Later, African sculptures were taken up by Picasso and to some extent by Matisse.
Similarly, in the 19th and 20th centuries the West has had huge impacts on Eastern art with originally western ideas like Communism and Post-Modernism exerting a powerful influence. Modernism , the idealistic search for truth, gave way in the latter half of the 20th century to a realization of its unattainability.
Adorno said in , "It is now taken for granted that nothing which concerns art can be taken for granted any more: Furthermore, the separation of cultures is increasingly blurred and some argue it is now more appropriate to think in terms of a global culture, rather than of regional ones. In The Origin of the Work of Art , Martin Heidegger , a German philosopher and a seminal thinker, describes the essence of art in terms of the concepts of being and truth.
He argues that art is not only a way of expressing the element of truth in a culture, but the means of creating it and providing a springboard from which "that which is" can be revealed. Works of art are not merely representations of the way things are, but actually produce a community's shared understanding. Each time a new artwork is added to any culture, the meaning of what it is to exist is inherently changed.
The creative arts are often divided into more specific categories, typically along perceptually distinguishable categories such as media , genre, styles , and form. It covers the methods adopted by the artist and the physical composition of the artwork, primarily non-semantic aspects of the work i. Form may also include visual design principles , such as arrangement, balance , contrast , emphasis , harmony , proportion , proximity , and rhythm.
In general there are three schools of philosophy regarding art, focusing respectively on form, content, and context. Philosophers almost universally reject this view and hold that the properties and aesthetics of art extend beyond materials, techniques, and form. Some authors refer to subject matter and content — i. Extreme Intentionalism holds that authorial intent plays a decisive role in the meaning of a work of art, conveying the content or essential main idea, while all other interpretations can be discarded.
As evidenced by the title, the subject is Napoleon , and the content is Ingres 's representation of Napoleon as "Emperor-God beyond time and space". Its restrictive interpretation is "socially unhealthy, philosophically unreal, and politically unwise". Finally, the developing theory of post-structuralism studies art's significance in a cultural context, such as the ideas, emotions, and reactions prompted by a work. However, in other cases historical and material conditions may predominate, such as religious and philosophical convictions, sociopolitical and economic structures, or even climate and geography.
Art criticism continues to grow and develop alongside art. Art can connote a sense of trained ability or mastery of a medium. Art can also simply refer to the developed and efficient use of a language to convey meaning with immediacy and or depth. Art can be defined as an act of expressing feelings, thoughts, and observations.
There is an understanding that is reached with the material as a result of handling it, which facilitates one's thought processes. A common view is that the epithet "art", particular in its elevated sense, requires a certain level of creative expertise by the artist, whether this be a demonstration of technical ability, an originality in stylistic approach, or a combination of these two. Traditionally skill of execution was viewed as a quality inseparable from art and thus necessary for its success; for Leonardo da Vinci , art, neither more nor less than his other endeavors, was a manifestation of skill.
A common contemporary criticism of some modern art occurs along the lines of objecting to the apparent lack of skill or ability required in the production of the artistic object. In conceptual art, Marcel Duchamp 's " Fountain " is among the first examples of pieces wherein the artist used found objects "ready-made" and exercised no traditionally recognised set of skills. Emin slept and engaged in other activities in her bed before placing the result in a gallery as work of art. Hirst came up with the conceptual design for the artwork but has left most of the eventual creation of many works to employed artisans.
Hirst's celebrity is founded entirely on his ability to produce shocking concepts. However, there are many modernist and contemporary artists who continue to excel in the skills of drawing and painting and in creating hands-on works of art. Art has had a great number of different functions throughout its history, making its purpose difficult to abstract or quantify to any single concept.
This does not imply that the purpose of Art is "vague", but that it has had many unique, different reasons for being created. Some of these functions of Art are provided in the following outline. The non-motivated purposes of art are those that are integral to being human, transcend the individual, or do not fulfill a specific external purpose. In this sense, Art, as creativity, is something humans must do by their very nature i.
Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm, meters being manifestly sections of rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting with this natural gift developed by degrees their special aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave birth to Poetry. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. Jupiter's eagle [as an example of art] is not, like logical aesthetic attributes of an object, the concept of the sublimity and majesty of creation, but rather something else—something that gives the imagination an incentive to spread its flight over a whole host of kindred representations that provoke more thought than admits of expression in a concept determined by words.
They furnish an aesthetic idea, which serves the above rational idea as a substitute for logical presentation, but with the proper function, however, of animating the mind by opening out for it a prospect into a field of kindred representations stretching beyond its ken. Most scholars who deal with rock paintings or objects recovered from prehistoric contexts that cannot be explained in utilitarian terms and are thus categorized as decorative, ritual or symbolic, are aware of the trap posed by the term 'art'.
Motivated purposes of art refer to intentional, conscious actions on the part of the artists or creator. These may be to bring about political change, to comment on an aspect of society, to convey a specific emotion or mood, to address personal psychology, to illustrate another discipline, to with commercial arts sell a product, or simply as a form of communication.
By contrast, the realistic attitude, inspired by positivism, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Anatole France, clearly seems to me to be hostile to any intellectual or moral advancement. I loathe it, for it is made up of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit. It is this attitude which today gives birth to these ridiculous books, these insulting plays. It constantly feeds on and derives strength from the newspapers and stultifies both science and art by assiduously flattering the lowest of tastes; clarity bordering on stupidity, a dog's life.
The functions of art described above are not mutually exclusive, as many of them may overlap. For example, art for the purpose of entertainment may also seek to sell a product, i. Since ancient times, much of the finest art has represented a deliberate display of wealth or power, often achieved by using massive scale and expensive materials. Much art has been commissioned by political rulers or religious establishments, with more modest versions only available to the most wealthy in society. Nevertheless, there have been many periods where art of very high quality was available, in terms of ownership, across large parts of society, above all in cheap media such as pottery, which persists in the ground, and perishable media such as textiles and wood.
In many different cultures, the ceramics of indigenous peoples of the Americas are found in such a wide range of graves that they were clearly not restricted to a social elite , [91] though other forms of art may have been. Reproductive methods such as moulds made mass-production easier, and were used to bring high-quality Ancient Roman pottery and Greek Tanagra figurines to a very wide market. Cylinder seals were both artistic and practical, and very widely used by what can be loosely called the middle class in the Ancient Near East.
Another important innovation came in the 15th century in Europe, when printmaking began with small woodcuts , mostly religious, that were often very small and hand-colored, and affordable even by peasants who glued them to the walls of their homes. Printed books were initially very expensive, but fell steadily in price until by the 19th century even the poorest could afford some with printed illustrations.
Public buildings and monuments , secular and religious, by their nature normally address the whole of society, and visitors as viewers, and display to the general public has long been an important factor in their design. Egyptian temples are typical in that the most largest and most lavish decoration was placed on the parts that could be seen by the general public, rather than the areas seen only by the priests. Special arrangements were made to allow the public to see many royal or private collections placed in galleries, as with the Orleans Collection mostly housed in a wing of the Palais Royal in Paris, which could be visited for most of the 18th century.
The British Royal Collection remains distinct, but large donations such as the Old Royal Library were made from it to the British Museum , established in The Uffizi in Florence opened entirely as a gallery in , though this function had been gradually taking the building over from the original civil servants' offices for a long time before. Most modern public museums and art education programs for children in schools can be traced back to this impulse to have art available to everyone. Museums in the United States tend to be gifts from the very rich to the masses.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, for example, was created by John Taylor Johnston , a railroad executive whose personal art collection seeded the museum. But despite all this, at least one of the important functions of art in the 21st century remains as a marker of wealth and social status. There have been attempts by artists to create art that can not be bought by the wealthy as a status object. One of the prime original motivators of much of the art of the late s and s was to create art that could not be bought and sold.
It is "necessary to present something more than mere objects" [] said the major post war German artist Joseph Beuys. This time period saw the rise of such things as performance art , video art , and conceptual art. The idea was that if the artwork was a performance that would leave nothing behind, or was simply an idea, it could not be bought and sold. Artists broadly identified under the heading of Conceptual art In the decades since, these ideas have been somewhat lost as the art market has learned to sell limited edition DVDs of video works, [] invitations to exclusive performance art pieces, and the objects left over from conceptual pieces.
Many of these performances create works that are only understood by the elite who have been educated as to why an idea or video or piece of apparent garbage may be considered art. The marker of status becomes understanding the work instead of necessarily owning it, and the artwork remains an upper-class activity. Art has long been controversial, that is to say disliked by some viewers, for a wide variety of reasons, though most pre-modern controversies are dimly recorded, or completely lost to a modern view.
Iconoclasm is the destruction of art that is disliked for a variety of reasons, including religious ones. Aniconism is a general dislike of either all figurative images, or often just religious ones, and has been a thread in many major religions. It has been a crucial factor in the history of Islamic art , where depictions of Muhammad remain especially controversial.
Much art has been disliked purely because it depicted or otherwise stood for unpopular rulers, parties or other groups. Artistic conventions have often been conservative and taken very seriously by art critics , though often much less so by a wider public. The iconographic content of art could cause controversy, as with late medieval depictions of the new motif of the Swoon of the Virgin in scenes of the Crucifixion of Jesus.
The Last Judgment by Michelangelo was controversial for various reasons, including breaches of decorum through nudity and the Apollo -like pose of Christ. The content of much formal art through history was dictated by the patron or commissioner rather than just the artist, but with the advent of Romanticism , and economic changes in the production of art, the artists' vision became the usual determinant of the content of his art, increasing the incidence of controversies, though often reducing their significance. Strong incentives for perceived originality and publicity also encouraged artists to court controversy.
In the twentieth century, Pablo Picasso 's Guernica used arresting cubist techniques and stark monochromatic oils , to depict the harrowing consequences of a contemporary bombing of a small, ancient Basque town. Leon Golub 's Interrogation III , depicts a female nude, hooded detainee strapped to a chair, her legs open to reveal her sexual organs, surrounded by two tormentors dressed in everyday clothing.
Andres Serrano 's Piss Christ is a photograph of a crucifix, sacred to the Christian religion and representing Christ 's sacrifice and final suffering, submerged in a glass of the artist's own urine. The resulting uproar led to comments in the United States Senate about public funding of the arts. Before Modernism, aesthetics in Western art was greatly concerned with achieving the appropriate balance between different aspects of realism or truth to nature and the ideal ; ideas as to what the appropriate balance is have shifted to and fro over the centuries.
This concern is largely absent in other traditions of art. The aesthetic theorist John Ruskin , who championed what he saw as the naturalism of J. Turner , saw art's role as the communication by artifice of an essential truth that could only be found in nature. The definition and evaluation of art has become especially problematic since the 20th century. Richard Wollheim distinguishes three approaches to assessing the aesthetic value of art: The arrival of Modernism in the late nineteenth century lead to a radical break in the conception of the function of art, [] and then again in the late twentieth century with the advent of postmodernism.
Clement Greenberg 's article "Modernist Painting" defines modern art as "the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself". Realistic, naturalistic art had dissembled the medium, using art to conceal art; modernism used art to call attention to art. The limitations that constitute the medium of painting—the flat surface, the shape of the support, the properties of the pigment—were treated by the Old Masters as negative factors that could be acknowledged only implicitly or indirectly.
Under Modernism these same limitations came to be regarded as positive factors, and were acknowledged openly. After Greenberg, several important art theorists emerged, such as Michael Fried , T. Though only originally intended as a way of understanding a specific set of artists, Greenberg's definition of modern art is important to many of the ideas of art within the various art movements of the 20th century and early 21st century.
Pop artists like Andy Warhol became both noteworthy and influential through work including and possibly critiquing popular culture, as well as the art world. Artists of the s, s, and s expanded this technique of self-criticism beyond high art to all cultural image-making, including fashion images, comics, billboards and pornography. Duchamp once proposed that art is any activity of any kind- everything.
However, the way that only certain activities are classified today as art is a social construction. The Invention of Art: A Cultural History is an art history book which examines the construction of the modern system of the arts i. Shiner finds evidence that the older system of the arts before our modern system fine art held art to be any skilled human activity i. Ancient Greek society did not possess the term art but techne. Techne can be understood neither as art or craft, the reason being that the distinctions of art and craft are historical products that came later on in human history.
Techne included painting, sculpting and music but also; cooking, medicine, horsemanship , geometry , carpentry , prophecy , and farming etc. Following Duchamp during the first half of the twentieth century, a significant shift to general aesthetic theory took place which attempted to apply aesthetic theory between various forms of art, including the literary arts and the visual arts, to each other.
This resulted in the rise of the New Criticism school and debate concerning the intentional fallacy. At issue was the question of whether the aesthetic intentions of the artist in creating the work of art, whatever its specific form, should be associated with the criticism and evaluation of the final product of the work of art, or, if the work of art should be evaluated on its own merits independent of the intentions of the artist. In , William K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley published a classic and controversial New Critical essay entitled " The Intentional Fallacy ", in which they argued strongly against the relevance of an author's intention , or "intended meaning" in the analysis of a literary work.
For Wimsatt and Beardsley, the words on the page were all that mattered; importation of meanings from outside the text was considered irrelevant, and potentially distracting. This fallacy would later be repudiated by theorists from the reader-response school of literary theory. Ironically, one of the leading theorists from this school, Stanley Fish , was himself trained by New Critics. Fish criticizes Wimsatt and Beardsley in his essay "Literature in the Reader" So details of the act of creating a work, though possibly of interest in themselves, have no bearing on the correct interpretation of the work.
Gaut and Livingston define the intentionalists as distinct from formalists stating that: The end of the 20th century fostered an extensive debate known as the linguistic turn controversy, or the "innocent eye debate", and generally referred to as the structuralism- poststructuralism debate in the philosophy of art.
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This debate discussed the encounter of the work of art as being determined by the relative extent to which the conceptual encounter with the work of art dominates over the perceptual encounter with the work of art. Decisive for the linguistic turn debate in art history and the humanities were the works of yet another tradition, namely the structuralism of Ferdinand de Saussure and the ensuing movement of poststructuralism.
In , the artist Mark Tansey created a work of art titled "The Innocent Eye" as a criticism of the prevailing climate of disagreement in the philosophy of art during the closing decades of the 20th century. The power of language, more specifically of certain rhetorical tropes, in art history and historical discourse was explored by Hayden White. The fact that language is not a transparent medium of thought had been stressed by a very different form of philosophy of language which originated in the works of Johann Georg Hamann and Wilhelm von Humboldt.
An Approach to a Theory of Symbols came to hold that the conceptual encounter with the work of art predominated exclusively over the perceptual and visual encounter with the work of art during the s and s. Sperry's view eventually prevailed by the end of the 20th century with aesthetic philosophers such as Nick Zangwill strongly defending a return to moderate aesthetic formalism among other alternatives.
Disputes as to whether or not to classify something as a work of art are referred to as classificatory disputes about art. Classificatory disputes in the 20th century have included cubist and impressionist paintings, Duchamp 's Fountain , the movies, superlative imitations of banknotes , conceptual art , and video games. Rather, "the passionate concerns and interests that humans vest in their social life" are "so much a part of all classificatory disputes about art" Novitz, According to Novitz, classificatory disputes are more often disputes about societal values and where society is trying to go than they are about theory proper.
For example, when the Daily Mail criticized Hirst 's and Emin 's work by arguing "For 1, years art has been one of our great civilising forces. Today, pickled sheep and soiled beds threaten to make barbarians of us all" they are not advancing a definition or theory about art, but questioning the value of Hirst's and Emin's work. Cultural interpretation an art theory of some kind is therefore constitutive of an object's arthood. Anti-art is a label for art that intentionally challenges the established parameters and values of art; [] it is term associated with Dadaism and attributed to Marcel Duchamp just before World War I, [] when he was making art from found objects.
Architecture is often included as one of the visual arts; however, like the decorative arts , or advertising, it involves the creation of objects where the practical considerations of use are essential in a way that they usually are not in a painting, for example. Somewhat in relation to the above, the word art is also used to apply judgments of value, as in such expressions as "that meal was a work of art" the cook is an artist , [] or "the art of deception", the highly attained level of skill of the deceiver is praised.
It is this use of the word as a measure of high quality and high value that gives the term its flavor of subjectivity. Making judgments of value requires a basis for criticism. At the simplest level, a way to determine whether the impact of the object on the senses meets the criteria to be considered art is whether it is perceived to be attractive or repulsive. Though perception is always colored by experience, and is necessarily subjective, it is commonly understood that what is not somehow aesthetically satisfying cannot be art.
However, "good" art is not always or even regularly aesthetically appealing to a majority of viewers. In other words, an artist's prime motivation need not be the pursuit of the aesthetic. Also, art often depicts terrible images made for social, moral, or thought-provoking reasons. Yet at the same time, the horrific imagery demonstrates Goya's keen artistic ability in composition and execution and produces fitting social and political outrage. Thus, the debate continues as to what mode of aesthetic satisfaction, if any, is required to define 'art'.
The assumption of new values or the rebellion against accepted notions of what is aesthetically superior need not occur concurrently with a complete abandonment of the pursuit of what is aesthetically appealing. Indeed, the reverse is often true, that the revision of what is popularly conceived of as being aesthetically appealing allows for a re-invigoration of aesthetic sensibility, and a new appreciation for the standards of art itself. Countless schools have proposed their own ways to define quality, yet they all seem to agree in at least one point: Art is often intended to appeal to and connect with human emotion.
It can arouse aesthetic or moral feelings, and can be understood as a way of communicating these feelings. Artists express something so that their audience is aroused to some extent, but they do not have to do so consciously.