ART – “ars” (skill or craft). Useful starting point.

This broad approach leads to art being

defined as the product of body of knowledge, most often using a set of skills.
- An expression of our thoughts, emotions, intuitions, and desires, but it is even
more personal than that.

TYPES OF ART
 VISUAL ART – arts that meet the eye and evoke an emotion through an
expression of skill and imagination. E.g. painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking,
photography and installation art.

 LITERARY ART – something in the form of writing or stories that have artistic and
cultural value that displays the beauty of speech and language to convey certain
meanings.

 PERFORMANCE ART – time-based art form that typically features a live

presentation to an audience and draws on such arts as acting, poetry, music,
dance, and painting.

NATURE OF ART – art is an creative activity that expresses imaginative or technical skill.
It produces a product, an object.

CLASSIFICATION OF ARTS
1. Motivated (Functional)
2. Non-motivated (non-functional)

COMMON FUNCTIONS OF ARTS

 PERSONAL FUNCTION – arts are vehicles for the artists’ expression of their
feelings and ideas.

 SOCIA FUNCTION – it influences social behavior. It seeks or tends to influence the

collective behavior of a people.
  SPIRITUAL FUNCTION – the designs of religious structures tell so many things
about the culture of the faithful.

 EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION – regarded as time off for good behavior or as therapy,

and how the ease and carefreeness of the arts are supposed to bring joy and
sense of calmness.

 POLITICAL FUNCTION – statues of national heroes that grace our parks and
plazas, ideals of heroism and leadership.

 PHYSICAL FUNCTION – works of art that are created to perform some service
such as tools and containers are object which make our lives physically
comfortable.

STONE AGE (30,000 BC – 2,500 BC) – cave painting (mineral pigment,

humans/animals/symbols.

MESOPOTAMIAN (3500 BC – 539 BC) – stone sculpture and narrative reliefs steele of
code of Hammurabi standard of UR

EGYPTIAN (3100 BC – 30 BC) – awe inspiring architecture of the ancient Egyptian

including the great pyramids

GREEK AND HELLENISTIC (850 BC – 31 BC) – idealism and perfection ; wisdom and
welfare

ROMAN – 500 BC – 476 AD) – there’s a vast history of roman architecture, which you
can learn about in this history of roman art: including the construction of pantheon

BYZANTINE AND ISLAMIC (476 AD – 1453 AD) – hagia Sophia and Alhambra
MIDDLE AGES (500 – 1400) – this was the era of celtic and gothic art, which saw the rise
of intricate gothic cathedrals and structures like notre dame

EARLY AND HIGH RENAISSANCE (1400-1550) – mcihael angelo di lodovico bounarroti

simony was considered the best artist in his lifetime, and ever since then he has been
held as greatest artist of all times.

EARLY AND HIGH RENAISSANCE (1400 – 1550) – Leonardo di ser piero da vinci known for
his dramatic and expressive work. His keen eye and quick mind led him to make
important scientific discoveries yet he never published his ideas.
- Donato di niccolo di betto bardi was a Florentine sculpture of the renaissance
period. He studied classical sculpture and used this develop a complete
renaissance style in sculpture.

VENETIAN AND NORTHERN RENAISSANCE (1430 – 1550) – during this era, the
renaissance movement spread from Italy to france, Germany, Poland and other
northern European countries. Bellini, jan van eyck, bosch, and other artists reigned
during this time.

BAROQUE (1600 – 1750) – baroque artists like Rembrandt and Caravaggio were well
known during this time for the tense, moody, and extremely dramatic style of their
work, reflected in lighting techniques and subject matter.

NEO-CLASSICAL (1750 – 1850) – it was likely the overlapping age of enlightenment,

which saw another turn towards the scientific over the religious. That set the tone for
this era, as well as the concurrent industrial revolution.

ROMANTICISM (1780 – 1850) – emphasis on the self: as well as a rejection of the kind of
order that the enlightenment had imposed in favor of a more chaotic approach to life
(Theodore Gericault)
REALISM (1848 – 1900) – realism was the first movement to finally reject all the drama,
intensely exaggerated emotion, and grandeur of other art styles for a more grounded
approach to human nature.

IMPRESSIONISM (1865 – 1900) – might have been one of the first purely aesthetic art
periods, a style focused on capturing a visual phenomenon rather than a intensely
political or religious one.

POST – IMPRESSIONISM (1885 – 1910) – an art style that maintained its philosophy – a
rejection of traditional art rules and its focus on perfection but also rejected its
supposed limitations.

FAUVISM AND EXPRESSIONISM (1900 – 1935) – it flourished during and after the first
world war with its harsh colors, bold shapes, and often its disturbing emotional content.

CUBISM, FUTURISM, SUPREMATIVISM, CONSTRUCTIVISM, DE STIJL (1900-1920) – this

era saw shapes, abstract objects and highly deconstructed renders of landscapes and
other things used as a means of expression, rather than traditional techniques seen
before.

DADA AND SURREALISM (1917-1950) – rejected so much of traditional art that it divided
into absurdism.

POP ART (1950-1960) – they were interested in advertising, consumer products,

television, magazines, and comics.

NEO EXPRESSIONISM (1980) – by the end of the 1970s a movement emerged that threw
out the cool ideas of minimalism and embraces the impassioned emotions of
expressionism.
ART APPRECIATION – the knowledge and understanding of the universal and timeless
qualities that identify all great art.

EXPRESSION – it is the ability to convey meaning.

IMAGINATION – it is the ability to produce and simulate novel objects, peoples and
ideas in the mind.

CREATIVITY – it is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is

formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a
musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object.

THE VISUAL ELEMENTS OF ART

 LINE – is the foundation of all drawing.
o CURVED LINES – suggest comfort and ease.
o HORIZONTAL LINES – suggest distance and calm
o VERTICAL LINES – suggest height and strength.
o JAGGED LINES – suggest turmoil and anxiety
o FREEHAND LINES – can express the personal energy and mood of the
artist. Ability to draw something without depending on instruments or
something else to draw.
o MECHANICAL LINES – can express a rigid control. Combinations of straight
lines and curved lines that show the edges and surfaces of an object.
o CONTINUES LINES – can lead the eye in certain directions.
o BROKEN LINES – express the ephemeral or the insubstantial.
o THICK LINES – express strength.
o THIN LINES – express delicacy.

 SHAPE – can be natural or man-made, regular or irregular, flat (2 dimensional) or

solid (3 dimensional), representational or abstract, geometric or organic,
transparent or opaque, patterned or textured.
 o PERSPECTIVE DRAWING – angles and curves of shapes appear to change
depending on our viewpoint.

 COLOR – visual element that has the strongest effect on our emotions.

 TONE – lightness of darkness of a color.

 PATTERN – repeating or echoing the elements of an artwork to communicate a

sense of balance, harmony, contrast rhythm or movement.
o NATURAL PATTERN – occur in nature.
o MAN-MADE PATTERN – both structural and decorative purposes.

 TEXTURE – surface quality of an artwork, the roughness or smoothness of the

material from which it is made.
o OPTICAL TEXTURE – an artist may use their skillful painting technique to
create the illusion of texture.
o PHYSICAL TEXTURE – can be felt by touching the surface.
o EPHEMERAL TEXTURE – fleeting forms are subject to change like clouds,
smoke, flames, bubbles, and liquids.

 FORM – physical volume of a shape and the space that it occupies.

PRINCIPLES OF ART – essentially a set of criteria which are used to explain how the
visual elements are arranged in a work of art.

BALANCE – visual weight of the elements of the composition; feels right and stable.
 SYMMETRY – both sides of a composition have the same elements in the same
position.
 ASYMMETRY – composition is balanced due to the contrast of any of the
elements of art.
 RADIAL SYMMETRY – elements are equally spaced around a central point.

CONTRAST – difference between elements of art in a composition, such that each

element is made stronger in relation to the other.
EMPHASIS – when the artist creates an area of the composition that is visually
dominant and commands the viewer’s attention.

MOVEMENT – result of using the elements of art such that they move the viewer’s
eye around and within the image.

PATTERN – the uniform repetition of any of the elements of art.

RHYTHM – is created by movement implied through the repetition of elements of art

in a non-uniform but organized way.

UNITY/VARIETY – too much unity, creates monotony, too much variety, creates
chaos, you need both.

HARMONY – it refers to how well all the visual elements work together in a work of
art.