Portal:Visual arts

THE VISUAL ARTS PORTAL

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...)

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The woodblock fragment Bois Protat ([bwɑ pʁɔta] ("Protat wood[block]"); also Protat block or Protat woodblock, c. 1370–1380) is a fragmentary woodblock for printing, and the images on it are the oldest surviving woodcut images from the Western world. It is cut on both sides, with a scene from Christ's crucifixion on the recto, and a kneeling angel from a presumed Annunciation scene on the verso. The crucifixion scene likely consisted of three or more blocks; the surviving block fragment features Longinus the Roman centurion at the Crucifixion, shown speaking with a banderole, a mediaeval precursor to the modern speech balloon containing his words.

The Bois Protat's name comes from the Mâconnais printer Jules Protat who acquired the block after its discovery in 1898 near La Ferté Abbey in Saône-et-Loire, France, where it was wedged under a stone floor. Because of such poor preservation, only a quarter of the block has survived, and only one side was able to withstand making prints at the time of discovery. It is kept in the Department of Prints and Photographs at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the National Library of France in Paris. (Full article...)

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Alcobaça Monastery

Credit: Alvesgaspar

Alcobaça Monastery, Portugal

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“	Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.	”
	— Edgar Degas, unknown

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Gerhard von Kügelgen's portrait of Friedrich, c. 1808, Hamburger Kunsthalle

Caspar David Friedrich (German: [ˌkaspaʁ ˌdaːvɪt ˈfʁiːdʁɪç] ^ⓘ; 5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his allegorical landscapes, which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. His primary interest was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that, according to the art historian Christopher John Murray, directs "the viewer's gaze towards their metaphysical dimension".

Friedrich was born in the town of Greifswald on the Baltic Sea in what was at the time Swedish Pomerania. He studied in Copenhagen until 1798, before settling in Dresden. He came of age during a period when, across Europe, a growing disillusionment with materialistic society was giving rise to a new appreciation of spirituality. This shift in ideals was often expressed through a reevaluation of the natural world, as artists such as Friedrich, J. M. W. Turner and John Constable sought to depict nature as a "divine creation, to be set against the artifice of human civilization". (Full article...)

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... that an Arkansas TV station apologized for not being on the air by sending local media a drawing of ducks?

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General images

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

Image 1A 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 2Henri Matisse 1909, late Fauvism (from History of painting)
Image 3Pettakere Cave are more than 44,000 years old, Maros, South Sulawesi, Indonesia (from History of painting)
Image 4The 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 5Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, rock painting, Stone Age, India (from History of painting)
Image 6Barnett Newman, Untitled Etching 1 (First Version), 1968, Minimalism (from History of painting)
Image 7Joan Miró, Horse, Pipe and Red Flower, 1920, abstract Surrealism, Philadelphia Museum of Art (from History of painting)
Image 8A 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 9Max Beckmann, The Night (Die Nacht), 1918–1919, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (from History of painting)
Image 10Lascaux, Bulls and Horses (from History of painting)
Image 11Pierre Bonnard, 1913, European modernist Narrative painting (from History of painting)
Image 12The Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, Florida. (from Contemporary art)
Image 13Piet Mondrian, "Composition No. 10" 1939–1942, De Stijl (from History of painting)
Image 14Juan Luna, The Parisian Life, 1892 (from History of painting)
Image 15Irbid, 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 16Paul Klee, 1922, Bauhaus (from History of painting)
Image 17Cover of the Thanksgiving 1895 issue of The Chap-Book, designed by Will H. Bradley (from Graphic design)
Image 18Hellenistic Greek terracotta funerary wall painting, 3rd century BC (from History of painting)
Image 19A Chinese painted jar from the Western Han Era (202 BCE – 9 CE) (from History of painting)
Image 20Gwion Gwion rock paintings found in the north-west Kimberley region of Western Australia c. 15,000 BC (from History of painting)
Image 21Pictographs from the Great Gallery, Canyonlands National Park, Horseshoe Canyon, Utah, c. 1500 BCE (from History of painting)
Image 22Muromachi period, Shingei (1431–1485), Viewing a Waterfall, Nezu Museum, Tokyo. (from History of painting)
Image 23Rembrandt van Rijn, The Jewish Bride, ca. 1665–1669 (from History of painting)
Image 24Book of Hours (from History of painting)
Image 25Brice Marden, 1966/1986, Monochrome painting (from History of painting)
Image 26Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, 1912, Philadelphia Museum of Art (from History of painting)
Image 27An Ethiopian illuminated Evangelist portrait of Mark the Evangelist, from the Ethiopian Garima Gospels, 6th century AD, Kingdom of Aksum (from History of painting)
Image 28Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, rock painting, Stone Age, India (from History of painting)
Image 29Kiasma, a contemporary art museum in Helsinki, Finland (from Contemporary art)
Image 30The Sakyamuni Buddha, by Zhang Shengwen, 1173–1176 AD, Song dynasty period. (from History of painting)
Image 31Francis 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 32Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942, an American Scene painting (from History of painting)
Image 33Spanish cave painting of Bulls (from History of painting)
Image 34Qianlong Emperor Practicing Calligraphy, mid-18th century. (from History of painting)
Image 35Juan Luna, La Bulaqueña, 1895 (from History of painting)
Image 36Giorgio de Chirico 1914, pre-Surrealism (from History of painting)
Image 37Golden section in book design (from Graphic design)
Image 38Two 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 39Loquats 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 40Max Ernst, 1920, early Surrealism (from History of painting)
Image 41A fresco from Cave 1 of Ajanta. (from History of painting)
Image 42Cueva de las Manos (Spanish for Cave of the Hands) in the Santa Cruz province in Argentina, c. 7300 BC (from History of painting)
Image 43Eland, rock painting, Drakensberg, South Africa (from History of painting)
Image 44Bharat Mata by Abanindranath Tagore (1871–1951), a nephew of the poet Rabindranath Tagore, and a pioneer of the movement (from History of painting)
Image 45Patrick Henry Bruce, American modernism, 1924 (from History of painting)
Image 46Diego 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 47Due 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 48Colour (from Graphic design)
Image 49Baptism of Christ on a medieval Nubian painting from Old Dongola (from History of painting)
Image 50Hand stencils in the "Tree of Life" cave painting in Gua Tewet, Kalimantan, Indonesia (from History of painting)
Image 51Grant Wood, 1930, social realism (from History of painting)
Image 52Mother 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 53Lascaux, Horse (from History of painting)
Image 54Petroglyphs, from Sweden, Nordic Bronze Age (painted) (from History of painting)
Image 55Silk 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 56Wayang beber, 17th century (from History of painting)
Image 57Graphic symbols are often functionalist and anonymous, as these pictographs from the US National Park Service illustrate. (from Graphic design)
Image 58Lascaux, Aurochs (Bos primigenius primigenius) (from History of painting)
Image 59Edvard Munch, 1893, early example of Expressionism (from History of painting)
Image 60Morgan Russell, Cosmic Synchromy (1913–14), Synchromism (from History of painting)
Image 61Young Mother Sewing, Mary Cassatt (from History of painting)
Image 62Spring Morning in the Han Palace, by Ming-era artist Qiu Ying (1494–1552 AD) (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; • 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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