Portal:Visual arts
Introduction
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, comics, 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. Also included within the visual arts are the applied arts, such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design, and decorative art.
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...)
Selected article
Léal Souvenir (also known as Timotheus or Portrait of a Man) is a small oil-on-oak panel portrait by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck, dated 1432. The sitter has not been identified, but his highly individual features suggest a historical person rather than the hypothetical ideal usual at the time in northern Renaissance portraiture; his slight and unassuming torso is contrasted with a sophisticated facial expression. His features have been described as "plain and rustic", yet thoughtful and inward-looking. A number of art historians, including Erwin Panofsky, have detected mournfulness in his expression. The sitter was apparently significant enough a member of the Burgundian duke Philip the Good's circle that his court painter portrayed him.
The man sits before an imitation parapet with three sets of painted inscriptions, each rendered to look as if chiselled or scratched into stone. Van Eyck did not have full command of either classical Greek or Latin and made errors, so readings by modern scholars vary. The first inscription is in Greek and seems to spell "TYΜ.ωΘΕΟϹ", which has not been satisfactorily interpreted but has led some to title the work Timotheus. The middle reads in French "Leal Souvenir" ("Loyal Memory") and indicates that the portrait is a posthumous commemoration. The third records van Eyck's signature and the date of execution. The 19th-century art historian Hippolyte Fierens-Gevaert identified the lettering "TYΜ.ωΘΕΟC" with the Greek musician Timotheus of Miletus. Panofsky drew the same conclusion, eliminating other Greeks bearing the name Timothy; they were of religious or military background, professions that do not match the civilian dress of the sitter. Panofsky believed the man was probably a highly placed musician in Philip's court, possibly Gilles Binchois. (Full article...)Selected picture
Selected quote
| “ | The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. | ” |
| — Marcel Duchamp, The Creative Act (1957) |
Related portals
Selected biography
Xue Susu (Chinese: 薛素素; also known as Xue Wu(薛五), Xuesu(薛素), Sujun among other pen names) (c.1564–1650? C.E.) was a Chinese Gējì in Ming Dynasty.She was an accomplished painter and poet, and was noted for her skill at mounted archery. She was particularly noted for her figure paintings, which included many Buddhist subjects. Her works are held in a number of museums both in China and elsewhere. Her archery was commented upon by a number of contemporary writers, as were her masculine, martial tendencies; these were regarded as an attractive feature by the literati of the period.
She lived in Eastern China, residing for most of her life in the Zhejiang and Jiangsu districts. After a career as a celebrated Gējì in Nanjing, Xue Susu was married about four times. During her later life, she eventually opted for the life of a Buddhist recluse. (Full article...)Did you know (auto generated) -
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- ... that The Summer Hikaru Died went from drawings on a Twitter account to receiving three times more orders than copies available in its first print run?
- ... that Joseph Binder influenced modern poster design, creating posters for the 1939 New York World's Fair, the U.S. Army Corps and the American Red Cross?
- ... that Mexican filmmaker David Zonana wrote his first feature film after producing for two other directors?
- ... 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?
General images
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Two Scribes Seated with Books and a Writing Table Fragment of a decorative margin Northern India (Mughal school), ca. 1640–1650 (from History of painting) -
Book of Hours (from History of painting) -
A fresco from Cave 1 of Ajanta. (from History of painting) -
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Silk 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) -
A 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) -
Gwion Gwion rock paintings found in the north-west Kimberley region of Western Australia c. 15,000 BC (from History of painting) -
The Sakyamuni Buddha, by Zhang Shengwen, 1173–1176 AD, Song dynasty period. (from History of painting) -
Irbid, 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) -
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Cueva de las Manos (Spanish for Cave of the Hands) in the Santa Cruz province in Argentina, c. 7300 BC (from History of painting) -
Pictographs from the Great Gallery, Canyonlands National Park, Horseshoe Canyon, Utah, c. 1500 BCE (from History of painting) -
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Lascaux, Horse (from History of painting) -
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Graphic symbols are often functionalist and anonymous, as these pictographs from the US National Park Service illustrate. (from Graphic design) -
Pettakere Cave are more than 44,000 years old, Maros, South Sulawesi, Indonesia (from History of painting) -
Young Mother Sewing, Mary Cassatt (from History of painting) -
A 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) -
Hand stencils in the "Tree of Life" cave painting in Gua Tewet, Kalimantan, Indonesia (from History of painting) -
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Rembrandt van Rijn, The Jewish Bride, ca. 1665–1669 (from History of painting) -
Wayang beber, 17th century (from History of painting) -
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Spring Morning in the Han Palace, by Ming-era artist Qiu Ying (1494–1552 AD) (from History of painting) -
Due 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) -
Golden section in book design (from Graphic design) -
Joan Miró, Horse, Pipe and Red Flower, 1920, abstract Surrealism, Philadelphia Museum of Art (from History of painting) -
Lascaux, Bulls and Horses (from History of painting) -
Loquats 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) -
Cover of the Thanksgiving 1895 issue of The Chap-Book, designed by Will H. Bradley (from Graphic design) -
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Diego Rivera, Recreation of Man at the Crossroads (renamed Man, Controller of the Universe), originally created in 1934, Mexican muralism movement (from History of painting) -
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Colour (from Graphic design) -
Max Beckmann, The Night (Die Nacht), 1918–1919, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (from History of painting) -
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Francis 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) -
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The 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) -
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Mother 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) -
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Spanish cave painting of Bulls (from History of painting) -
Muromachi period, Shingei (1431–1485), Viewing a Waterfall, Nezu Museum, Tokyo. (from History of painting) -
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An Ethiopian illuminated Evangelist portrait of Mark the Evangelist, from the Ethiopian Garima Gospels, 6th century AD, Kingdom of Aksum (from History of painting) -
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The Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art (France), is a private institution based in a Renaissance castle. (from Contemporary art) -
A Chinese painted jar from the Western Han Era (202 BCE – 9 CE) (from History of painting) -
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Bharat Mata by Abanindranath Tagore (1871–1951), a nephew of the poet Rabindranath Tagore, and a pioneer of the movement (from History of painting)
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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
- 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
Subcategories
Architecture | Ceramic art | Comics | Crafts | Design | Drawing | Illustration | Film | Glass | Graphic design | Industrial design | Landscape architecture | Multimedia | Painting | Photography | Pottery | Printmaking | Public art | Sculpture | Typography | Mosaic
Artists | Visual arts awards | Artist collectives | Art collectors | Art critics | Art curators | Visual arts exhibitions | Art forgery | Art history | Visual arts materials | Art schools | Artistic techniques |
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