THE DEFINITION OF VISUAL ARTS

The ambit of ’art’ has grown from the 17th century to oil-on paint canvas and has expanded to its other forms with the inclusion of art in the 20th century.

Visual Arts are extremely diverse including any and all experiential art which you can see. If we go into the history of art classification we would see that during Classical Antiquity, the world saw artists as only painters or carvers.

Now, to further understand the broad concept of Visual arts, one could refer to a visual art encyclopedia online for art appreciation and comprehension. One such encyclopedia is Wiki Art which is a humongous record of the exquisite art of centuries that have gone by.

History Shapes The Future: Evolution of Visual Arts

It’s always said that to conquer the present, we must know the history. For further simplification of the meaning of Visual Art, let’s track how it traveled from its narrower perspective to what it’s known to be now.

Artists were merely seen as artisans of sorts and their creations weren’t auctioned for hundreds of dollars which is their worth in today’s time. It was only through the inclusion of artists like Da Vinci and Michelangelo during the Renaissance that this profession was given the due credit.

The mental revolution regarding visual arts took some time. After the Renaissance, even till 1900, visual arts were broadly bifurcated into categories namely fine arts in the form of aesthetic painting and crafts, which only the 20th century accepted. Craftsmen were seen as lower strata of people and not at par with ”artists” as such even though a humongous amount of work went into it.

The 20th century was generally welcoming for visual arts as it also saw the advent of newer forms of it like collages and conceptual art which opened the gateway for more foreign entries as well. It was only the 21st century which was the kindest to visual arts as all its forms were embraced then.

This term however expanded with time into other art forms like photography, film making, etc. Visual Arts being an umbrella term renders any restricting definitions futile so to really absorb the idea of visual arts, we can dive right into its components.

1. Immaculate Fine Arts

This term was arrived at, long after people began to distinguish science from art and saw it as something meant to soothe our senses.

Fine Arts encompasses the forms generally associated with Visual arts which are namely drawing, painting and sculpting along with activities like graphic art, calligraphy, illustrations, etc.

2. Contemporary Arts

Contemporary Arts incorporates many modern art forms like Conceptual Art, Performance Art along with motion-based disciplines like Animation, Photograph, etc.  Another modern visual art is the novel graffiti art which often embellishes many walls.

3. Decorative Arts

This category boldly includes both decorative art and crafts which include ceramics, studio pottery, glass, etc.

4. Other forms of art

Visual arts also include an extended branch which is applied arts like interior design, graphic design and fashion design. Another novel category is related to body painting and face painting which is still proliferating around the world.

What Is Wiki Art? How Does It Aid In Learning About Visual Arts?

Wiki art teaches users all about art appreciation as well as about the nuances and elements of art. It contains the works of hundreds of artists and has over 200,000 paintings depicting a myriad of painting styles that have prevailed over the years.

It has bifurcated the artists and the artworks in simple categories so that it’s easier to browse. It describes the various art movements that have inspired many artistic geniuses, displaying the many masterpieces that fall under the category and it’s one of the primary steps to understanding visual arts. Another step is the timeline which showcases the evolution of not just art genres but also techniques like shifting to acrylic paints and the implication.

The next step is the most crucial which involves learning about the background of the paintings that are the sociocultural scenarios that influenced artists to stain many canvases, driven by angst.

Visual Arts aren’t just supposed to be looked at but observed, understood and experienced as mentioned earlier. In line with doing that, one must go into the in-depth analysis which involves seeing art with an eagle’s eye for implied meanings.

So, let’s look at one of the brilliant artwork to learn art appreciation.

This exemplary piece of visual arts is Le Pont Neuf Paris by Pierre Auguste Renoir which is a raw and candid representation of the beautiful city of Paris. Renoir was an Impressionist, generally famous for his painting style which covered landscapes and figures.

This painting is the representation of city life during the Paris Commune which impacted the lives of many including the eviction of Renoir’s own family twice.

The fast-paced life of Paris that this revolution caused is evident by the swift brushstrokes of Renoir, giving the figures an illusion of motion.