art
art
in the broadest sense, all the processes and products of human
skill, imagination, and invention; the opposite of nature.
In contemporary usage,
definitions of art usually reflect aesthetic criteria, and the
term may encompass literature, music, drama, painting, and
sculpture. Popularly, the term is most commonly used to refer to
the visual arts. In Western culture, aesthetic criteria
introduced by the ancient Greeks still influence our perceptions
and judgements of art.
Two currents of thought
run through our ideas about art. In one, derived from Aristotle,
art is concerned with mimesis ('imitation'), the representation
of appearances, and gives pleasure through the accuracy and
skill with which it depicts the real world.
The other view, derived
from Plato, holds that the artist is inspired by the Muses (or
by God, or by the inner impulses, or by the collective
unconscious) to express that which is beyond appearances - inner
feelings, eternal truths, or the essence of the age.
In
the Middle Ages the term 'art' was used, chiefly in the plural,
to signify a branch of learning which was regarded as an
instrument of knowledge.
The seven liberal arts
consisted of the 'trivium':
that
is grammar, logic, and rhetoric,
and the 'quadrivium':
that
is: arithmetic,
music, geometry, and astronomy.
In the visual arts of
Western civilizations, painting and sculpture have been the
dominant forms for many centuries. This has not always been the
case in other cultures. Islamic art, for example, is one of
ornament, for under the Muslim religion artists are forbidden to
usurp the divine right of creation by portraying living
creatures.
In some cultures masks,
tattoos, pottery, and metalwork have been the main forms of
visual art. Recent technology has made new art forms possible,
such as photography and cinema, and today electronic media have
led to entirely new ways of creating and presenting visual
images.
See
also >prehistoric art, the arts of ancient civilizations, for
examples >Egyptian art, indigenous art traditions, for
example under >Oceanic art; >medieval art; the arts of
individual countries, such as >French art; and individual
movements, such as Romanticism,
Cubism,
and Impressionism.
text is taken from:
The Hutchinson; Dictionary Of The Arts;
Movements, Terms, People: from Ancient Art to World Music.
© Helicon Publishing Ltd 1994. ISBN 1-85986-047-8 (paper).
