Portal:Visual arts

THE VISUAL ARTS PORTAL

Introduction

The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts, also involve aspects of the visual arts, as well as arts of other types. Within the visual arts, the applied arts, such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design, and decorative art are also included.

Current usage of the term "visual arts" includes fine art as well as applied or 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' had for some centuries often been restricted to a person working in the fine arts (such as painting, sculpture, or printmaking) and not the decorative arts, crafts, or applied visual arts media. The distinction was emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement, who valued vernacular art forms as much as high forms. Art schools made a distinction between the fine arts and the crafts, maintaining that a craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner of the arts.

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 being 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. (Full article...)

Outline of the visual arts

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The World Before the Flood, 1828, 140 by 202.3 cm (55.1 by 79.6 in)

The World Before the Flood is an oil-on-canvas painting by the English artist William Etty, first exhibited in 1828 and currently in the Southampton City Art Gallery. It depicts a scene from John Milton's Paradise Lost in which, among a series of visions of the future shown to Adam, he sees the world immediately before the Great Flood. The painting illustrates the stages of courtship as described by Milton: a group of men select wives from a group of dancing women, drag their chosen woman from the group, and settle down to married life. Behind the courting group, an oncoming storm looms, foreshadowing the destruction which the dancers and lovers are about to bring upon themselves.

When first exhibited at the 1828 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition the painting attracted large crowds, and strongly divided critical opinion. It was greatly praised by many critics, who counted it among the finest works of art in the country. Other reviewers condemned it as crude, tasteless, offensive and poorly executed. (Full article...)

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Cuevas de las Manos

Credit: Mariano Cecowski

Hand paintings at the Cueva de las Manos on Río Pinturas in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. These were made by the indigenous inhabitants (possibly forefathers of the Tehuelches) some 9,000 years ago.

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“	Most painting in the European tradition was painting the mask. Modern art rejected all that. Our subject matter was the person behind the mask.	”
	— Robert Motherwell, The Times (November 17, 1985)

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Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede (c. 1670)

Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈjaːkɔp fɑn ˈrœyzdaːl] ^ⓘ; c. 1629 – 10 March 1682) was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of great wealth and cultural achievement when Dutch painting became highly popular.

Prolific and versatile, Ruisdael depicted a wide variety of landscape subjects. From 1646 he painted Dutch countryside scenes of remarkable quality for a young man. After a trip to Germany in 1650, his landscapes took on a more heroic character. In his late work, conducted when he lived and worked in Amsterdam, he added city panoramas and seascapes to his regular repertoire. In these, the sky often took up two-thirds of the canvas. In total he produced more than 150 Scandinavian views featuring waterfalls. (Full article...)

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Did you know (auto generated) - load new batch

... that the documentary Lynch/Oz incorporates hundreds of film clips to illustrate the influence of The Wizard of Oz on the work of filmmaker David Lynch?
... that as a senior in high school, manga artist Yama Wayama began drawing male–male romance manga as a hobby?
... that art historian Zehava Jacoby was able to suggest a reconstruction of the lost tomb of Baldwin V of Jerusalem, destroyed in an 1808 fire, using an 18th-century drawing by Elzear Horn?
... that Percy Kelly hoarded his drawings and paintings until the end of his life, saying that his cottage would someday "upstage Beatrix Potter's home"?
... that the art of Irma Blank, of "drawing languages without words" and including sounds, was recognised in the 1970s but fell into obscurity until a rediscovery in the 2010s?
... that Graham Crowley entered the John Moores Painting Prize ten times since 1976 before finally winning in 2023?
... that although the icosian game was advertised as a "highly amusing game for the drawing room", it was too easy to play and not a commercial success?
... that to encourage the development of Bissau-Guinean cinema, one foreign filmmaker provided the country's film institute with cameras, lights, and a Steinbeck guitar?

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General images

The following are images from various visual arts-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Lascaux, Aurochs (Bos primigenius primigenius) (from History of painting)
Image 2A Chinese painted jar from the Western Han Era (202 BCE – 9 CE) (from History of painting)
Image 3Joan Miró, Horse, Pipe and Red Flower, 1920, abstract Surrealism, Philadelphia Museum of Art (from History of painting)
Image 4Eland, rock painting, Drakensberg, South Africa (from History of painting)
Image 5Pierre Bonnard, 1913, European modernist Narrative painting (from History of painting)
Image 6Giorgio de Chirico 1914, pre-Surrealism (from History of painting)
Image 7Gwion Gwion rock paintings found in the north-west Kimberley region of Western Australia c. 15,000 BC (from History of painting)
Image 8Silk painting depicting a man riding a dragon, painting on silk, dated to 5th–3rd century BC, Warring States period, from Zidanku Tomb no. 1 in Changsha, Hunan Province (from History of painting)
Image 9Max Beckmann, The Night (Die Nacht), 1918–1919, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (from History of painting)
Image 10Morgan Russell, Cosmic Synchromy (1913–14), Synchromism (from History of painting)
Image 11Hellenistic Greek terracotta funerary wall painting, 3rd century BC (from History of painting)
Image 12A fresco showing Hades and Persephone riding in a chariot, from the tomb of Queen Eurydice I of Macedon at Vergina, Greece, 4th century BC (from History of painting)
Image 13Muromachi period, Shingei (1431–1485), Viewing a Waterfall, Nezu Museum, Tokyo. (from History of painting)
Image 14Colour (from Graphic design)
Image 15Piet Mondrian, "Composition No. 10" 1939–1942, De Stijl (from History of painting)
Image 16Francis Picabia, (Left) Le saint des saints c'est de moi qu'il s'agit dans ce portrait, 1 July 1915; (center) Portrait d'une jeune fille americaine dans l'état de nudité, 5 July 1915: (right) J'ai vu et c'est de toi qu'il s'agit, De Zayas! De Zayas! Je suis venu sur les rivages du Pont-Euxin, New York, 1915 (from History of painting)
Image 17Lascaux, Bulls and Horses (from History of painting)
Image 18Diego Rivera, Recreation of Man at the Crossroads (renamed Man, Controller of the Universe), originally created in 1934, Mexican muralism movement (from History of painting)
Image 19The Eternal Father Painting the Virgin of Guadalupe. Attributed to Joaquín Villegas (1713 – active in 1753) (Mexican) (painter, Museo Nacional de Arte. (from History of painting)
Image 20Young Mother Sewing, Mary Cassatt (from History of painting)
Image 21Rembrandt van Rijn, The Jewish Bride, ca. 1665–1669 (from History of painting)
Image 22Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, rock painting, Stone Age, India (from History of painting)
Image 23Patrick Henry Bruce, American modernism, 1924 (from History of painting)
Image 24Bharat Mata by Abanindranath Tagore (1871–1951), a nephew of the poet Rabindranath Tagore, and a pioneer of the movement (from History of painting)
Image 25Two Scribes Seated with Books and a Writing Table Fragment of a decorative margin Northern India (Mughal school), ca. 1640–1650 (from History of painting)
Image 26A fresco from Cave 1 of Ajanta. (from History of painting)
Image 27Baptism of Christ on a medieval Nubian painting from Old Dongola (from History of painting)
Image 28Pictographs from the Great Gallery, Canyonlands National Park, Horseshoe Canyon, Utah, c. 1500 BCE (from History of painting)
Image 29An Ethiopian illuminated Evangelist portrait of Mark the Evangelist, from the Ethiopian Garima Gospels, 6th century AD, Kingdom of Aksum (from History of painting)
Image 30Edvard Munch, 1893, early example of Expressionism (from History of painting)
Image 31The Sakyamuni Buddha, by Zhang Shengwen, 1173–1176 AD, Song dynasty period. (from History of painting)
Image 32Max Ernst, 1920, early Surrealism (from History of painting)
Image 33Lascaux, Horse (from History of painting)
Image 34A Boeing 747 aircraft with livery designating it as Air Force One. The cyan forms, the US flag, presidential seal and the Caslon lettering, were all designed at different times, by different designers, for different purposes, and combined by designer Raymond Loewy in this one single aircraft exterior design. (from Graphic design)
Image 35Henri Matisse 1909, late Fauvism (from History of painting)
Image 36The Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, Florida (from Contemporary art)
Image 37Golden section in book design (from Graphic design)
Image 38Cueva de las Manos (Spanish for Cave of the Hands) in the Santa Cruz province in Argentina, c. 7300 BC (from History of painting)
Image 39In 2021, researchers discovered ancient cave art in Leang Tedongnge, Sulawesi, Indonesia, estimated to be at least 45,500 years old. Depicting a warty pig, this artwork is recognized as the world’s oldest known example of figurative or representational art. (from History of painting)
Image 40Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, 1912, Philadelphia Museum of Art (from History of painting)
Image 41Wayang beber, 17th century (from History of painting)
Image 42Book of Hours (from History of painting)
Image 43Paul Klee, 1922, Bauhaus (from History of painting)
Image 44Juan Luna, La Bulaqueña, 1895 (from History of painting)
Image 45Barnett Newman, Untitled Etching 1 (First Version), 1968, Minimalism (from History of painting)
Image 46Spanish cave painting of Bulls (from History of painting)
Image 47Mother Goddess A miniature painting of the Pahari style, dating to the eighteenth century. Pahari and Rajput miniatures share many common features. (from History of painting)
Image 48Juan Luna, The Parisian Life, 1892 (from History of painting)
Image 49Due to its interdisciplinary nature, graphic design can be performed in different areas of application: branding, technical and artistic drawing, signage, photography, image and video editing, 3D modeling, animation, programming, among other fields. (from Graphic design)
Image 50Loquats and Mountain Bird, anonymous artist of the Southern Song dynasty; paintings in leaf album style such as this were popular in the Southern Song (1127–1279). (from History of painting)
Image 51Brice Marden, 1966/1986, Monochrome painting (from History of painting)
Image 52Irbid, Jordan, "We are Arabs. We are Humans". Inside Out is a global participatory art project, initiated by the French photographer JR, an example of Street art. (from Contemporary art)
Image 53Qianlong Emperor Practicing Calligraphy, mid-18th century. (from History of painting)
Image 54Spring Morning in the Han Palace, by Ming-era artist Qiu Ying (1494–1552 AD) (from History of painting)
Image 55Hand stencils in the "Tree of Life" cave painting in Gua Tewet, Kalimantan, Indonesia (from History of painting)
Image 56Graphic symbols are often functionalist and anonymous, as these pictographs from the US National Park Service illustrate. (from Graphic design)
Image 57Grant Wood, 1930, social realism (from History of painting)
Image 58Petroglyphs, from Sweden, Nordic Bronze Age (painted) (from History of painting)
Image 59Kiasma, a contemporary art museum in Helsinki, Finland (from Contemporary art)
Image 60Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942, an American Scene painting (from History of painting)
Image 61Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, rock painting, Stone Age, India (from History of painting)
Image 62Cover of the Thanksgiving 1895 issue of The Chap-Book, designed by Will H. Bradley (from Graphic design)

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Major topics

Types of visual art – Architecture • Art intervention • Ceramic art • Computer art • Drawing • Fashion • Film • Installation art • Land art • Mixed media • Painting • Performance art • Photography • Printmaking • Sculpture • Stained glass; • Artists' Books

Art history – Pre-historic art • Ancient art • Art of Ancient Egypt • Art in Ancient Greece • Minoan pottery • Scythian art • Roman art • Women artists

Western art periods and movements – Medieval art • Gothic art • Renaissance • Mannerism • Baroque • Rococo • Neoclassicism • Romanticism • Realism • Modern Art • Impressionism • Symbolism • Fauvism • Proto-Cubism • Cubism • Futurism • Dada • Art Deco • Surrealism • Abstract Expressionism • Lyrical abstraction • Conceptual Art • Contemporary Art • Postmodern art visual arts.

Eastern and Middle Eastern art – Buddhist art • Chinese art • Islamic art • Japanese art • Laotian art • Thai art • Tibetan art

Lists – Architects • Art movements • Art periods • Painters • Printmakers • Sculptors • Statues

Lists of basic topics – Visual arts • Architecture • Film • Painting • Photography • Sculpture

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