Introduction to Art: Assumptions and Nature

Introduction, Assumptions, and Nature of Art

• Art is integral to human existence
• Art gives meaning and purpose to humanity
• Art acts as a reflection of culture
• The term "art" originates from the Latin word "ars," which originally meant 'skills' and 'crafts'
• Art encompasses 'making' or 'creating something'

Why Art Matters

• Art has value because it is, reflective and process-driven
• Art emphasizes both process and experience
• Art connects with and offers insight and expression
• Art enables deeper thinking, passionate striving, and experiencing joy more freely

Art Appreciation Defined

• Art appreciation involves understanding the universal and timeless qualities defining great art
• Appreciation involves interpreting and understanding man-made arts through work and experience with art tools and materials
• Art appreciation is learning, understanding, creation, and enjoyment of the arts
• Art appreciation allows to gain knowledge, acquire methods, identify movements and evaluate artwork

Importance of Creativity

• Everyone is inherently creative
• Creativity is a process of generating original ideas that have worth
• Without creativity, there is no real innovation, pure idea generators and modifiers are needed

Forms of Art

• Painting involves creating meaningful effects on a flat surface using pigments
• Sculpture refers to the design and construction of three-dimensional forms
• Architecture involves designing and constructing buildings and structures
• Music is combining and regulating sounds of varying pitch
• Dance uses the human body as its medium
• Theater recreates stories via actors on a stage
• Motion pictures are a popular addition to theater
• Literature combines spoken or written words with artistic and emotional appeal

Classifications of Art

• Directly Functional Art - objects commonly used by man while exhibiting aesthetic qualities
• Indirectly Functional Art - arts perceived through senses include fine arts, painting, sculpture, dance, literature, theatrical performances, and music

Functions of Art

• Personal function of art expresses artists' feelings and ideas, and serves as expression
• Art can be a therapeutic value for people, music cannot ignored
• Art makes people aware of ways of thinking, feeling and imagining
• Social function means art is closely related to every aspect of social life
• Art influences social behavior
• Art displays and celebrates
• Art becomes a social description
• Physical function means art creates objects that make lives physically comfortable

Subject in Art

• Subject is the visual focus or image extracted from the artwork
• Subject is ‘the what’

Types of Subject

• Representational art refers to objects or events in the real world, also called figurative art
• Non-representational art does not reference the real world, it uses shapes, lines, and colors to translate feeling, emotion, or concept

Kinds of Subject

• History
• Landscape
• Still life
• Seascape
• Animals
• Cityscape
• Figures
• Mythology
• Nature
• Dreams
• Myth
• Fantasies

Elements of Art

• Line is a mark on a surface created with a tool
• Color consists of hue, intensity, and value
• Space is the distance or area in between
• Texture is the surface quality or "feel" of an object

Artist and Artisan

• Artists and artisans make art for appreciation, progress, and culture
• Artists are talented and work on visual arts like painting, drawing, and photography for aesthetic value
• Artisans are skilled workers who work on furniture, pottery, and jewelry for practical and decorative reasons

Art Making: Production Process

• Use medium and technique to materialize concepts

Art Making: Mediums

• Painting uses watercolor, oil, crayon, pastel, fresco and tempera
• Sculpture uses stone, wood, steel, cement and brass
• Music uses melody and lyrics, musical instruments and human voice
• Dance uses body language, sound and song
• Theatre uses performers, music, scoring, lights, script and stage
• Cinema uses films and other equipment
• Literature uses language, dialect, pen, paper and computer
• Digital Arts uses software and computers

Art Making: Techniques

• Use appropriate techniques as method, or means of using medium to finish an art
• Blowing air forms molten glass
• Throwing is a pottery technique
• Coloring is painting through water color, colored pencil, or crayons
• Cutting carves wood

Art Management Stakeholders

• Those involved in the business side of art
• Sales
• Purchasing
• Collecting
• Exhibitions
• Promotion

Role of Stakeholders

• Art managers do art projects, plan and arrange tours and events
• Gallerists exhibit and promote arts and artists
• Art Collectors love to collect arts
• Curators acquire, care, arrange, and interpret arts
• Art Dealers buy and sell arts
• Art Critics do critical analysis on art
• Auctioneers facilitate art dealers and art collectors to sell artworks
• Artists are the important stakeholders that creates arts in the form of literature, visual graphics, decorative, music, theatre and architecture

Historical and Philosophical Underpinnings of Art

• An art movement is a style in art with a shared philosophy or goal, followed by artists in a specific period
• Art movements were important in modern art
• Avant-garde is experimental, radical or unorthodox works
• Art movements are important to modernism and postmodernism
• During "modern art," each movement was a new avant-garde
• Each "modern art" movement rethought what came before it
• Postmodernist suggest art movements are no longer as applicable
• The term refers to visual art, novel ideas, architecture, and sometimes music is more about genres

Top Art Movements and Styles

• Abstract expressionism encompasses a wide variety of American 20th century art and depicts large abstract painted canvases
• Art Nouveau is a decorative style that grew from 1890-1920
• Avant-garde is innovative or experimental in culture, politics, and art
• Baroque art and architecture developed in Europe from the early 17th to mid-18th century
• Classicism embodies ancient Greece and Rome styles, theories, and philosophies while concentrating on traditional forms with a focus on elegance and symmetry
• Conceptual art emphasizes ideas over creating visual forms, from the 1960's
• Constructivism developed by the Russian avant-garde in 1915 by rejecting idea of "art for art’s sake" preferring art for social purposes
• Cubism begun in 1907 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque developed a visual language using geometric planes
• Dada/Dadaism rejects art formed during World War I
• Expressionism flourished art between 1905-1920 expressing meaning of emotional experience
• Fauvism is associated with Henri Matisse and André Derain, work characterized by strong, vibrant color and brushstrokes
• Futurism was founded to capture the dynamism, speed, and energy of the modern mechanical world
• Impressionism used small, thin, visible brushstrokes emphasizing movement and light with artistis like Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley
• Installation art utilizes large-scale, mixed-media constructions Land art/ Earth art sculpts directly from the landscape
• Minimalism consists of simple art, like geometric shapes
• Neo-Impressionism renounces the spontaneity of Impressionism, for measured technique
• Neoclassicism is opposite of pop art, taking inspiration from work of greek and roman artists
• Performance art uses actions by the artist or participants
• Pointillism uses tiny dots of pure color to form images
• Pop art draws inspiration from popular imagery
• Post-Impressionism reacts against light and color in art movements like Impressionism
• Rococo consists of elaborate ornamentation, and light, sensuous style.
• Surrealism looks to liberate thought and experience from rationalism
• Suprematism expresses art in the simplest geometric forms