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 essential—in 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.[1] 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".[2] Though the definition of what constitutes art is disputed[3][4][5] and has changed over time, general descriptions mention an idea of imaginative or technical skill stemming from human agency[6] and creation.[7]
The nature of art, and related concepts such as creativity and interpretation, are explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics.[8]
History
Sculptures, cave paintings, rock paintings and petroglyphs from the Upper Paleolithic
dating to roughly 40,000 years ago have been found, but the precise
meaning of such art is often disputed because so little is known about
the cultures that produced them. The oldest art objects in the world—a
series of tiny, drilled snail shells about 75,000 years old—were
discovered in a South African cave.[22] Containers that may have been used to hold paints have been found dating as far back as 100,000 years.[23]
Many great traditions in art have a foundation in the art of one of the great ancient civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, China, Ancient Greece, Rome, as well as Inca, Maya, and Olmec.
Each of these centers of early civilization developed a unique and
characteristic style in its art. Because of the size and duration of
these civilizations, more of their art works have survived and more of
their influence has been transmitted to other cultures and later times.
Some also have provided the first records of how artists worked. For
example, this period of Greek art saw a veneration of the human physical
form and the development of equivalent skills to show musculature,
poise, beauty, and anatomically correct proportions.
In Byzantine and Medieval art
of the Western Middle Ages, much art focused on the expression of
subjects about Biblical and religious culture, and used styles that
showed the higher glory of a heavenly world, such as the use of gold in
the background of paintings, or glass in mosaics or windows, which also
presented figures in idealized, patterned (flat) forms. Nevertheless a
classical realist tradition persisted in small Byzantine works, and
realism steadily grew in the art of Catholic Europe.
Renaissance art
had a greatly increased emphasis on the realistic depiction of the
material world, and the place of humans in it, reflected in the
corporeality of the human body, and development of a systematic method
of graphical perspective to depict recession in a three-dimensional picture space.
The stylized signature of Sultan Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire was written in Arabic calligraphy. It reads Mahmud Khan son of Abdulhamid is forever victorious.
The Great Mosque of Kairouan
in Tunisia, also called the Mosque of Uqba, is one of the finest, most
significant and best preserved artistic and architectural examples of
early great mosques. Dated in its present state from the 9th century, it
is the ancestor and model of all the mosques in the western Islamic
lands.[24]
In the east, Islamic art's rejection of iconography led to emphasis on geometric patterns, calligraphy, and architecture.
Further east, religion dominated artistic styles and forms too. 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: jade carving, bronzework, pottery (including the
stunning terracotta army
of Emperor Qin), poetry, calligraphy, music, painting, drama, fiction,
etc. 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. Japan names its styles after imperial dynasties
too, and also saw much interplay between the styles of calligraphy and
painting. Woodblock printing became important in Japan after the 17th century.
Painting by Song Dynasty artist Ma Lin, circa 1250. 24,8 × 25,2 cm
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, 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. cannot be maintained very much beyond the time of their invention. 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. Theodor W. Adorno
said in 1970, "It is now taken for granted that nothing which concerns
art can be taken for granted any more: neither art itself, nor art in
relationship to the whole, nor even the right of art to exist."[25] Relativism was accepted as an unavoidable truth, which led to the period of contemporary art and postmodern criticism, where cultures of the world and of history are seen as changing forms, which can be appreciated and drawn from only with skepticism
and irony. 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.
Source by : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art
As the time being, art can be followed with technology, for example using stop motion to make an art be animation. Here's one of best stop motion i've ever seen from Rachel Ryle :
Source by : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WGT25_wmgs&list=PLVlu01h8p0xQB-5VIA08Dr6MUpeRYWhck&index=2
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