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
The Holy Thorn Reliquary was probably created in the 1390s in Paris for John, Duke of Berry, to house a relic of the Crown of Thorns. The reliquary was bequeathed to the British Museum in 1898 by Ferdinand de Rothschild as part of the Waddesdon Bequest. It is one of a small number of major goldsmiths' works or joyaux that survive from the extravagant world of the courts of the Valois royal family around 1400. It is made of gold, lavishly decorated with jewels and pearls, and uses the technique of enamelling en ronde bosse, or "in the round", which had been recently developed when the reliquary was made, to create a total of 28 three-dimensional figures, mostly in white enamel.
Except at its base the reliquary is slim, with two faces; the front view shows the end of the world and the Last Judgement, with the Trinity and saints above and the resurrection of the dead below, and the relic of a single long thorn believed to come from the crown of thorns worn by Jesus when he was crucified. The rear view has less extravagant decoration, mostly in plain gold in low relief, and has doors that opened to display a flat object, now missing, which was presumably another relic. (Full article...)Selected picture
Selected quote
“ | Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do. | ” |
— Edgar Degas, unknown |
Related portals
Selected biography
William Adam (1689 – 24 June 1748) was a Scottish architect, mason, and entrepreneur. He was the foremost architect of his time in Scotland, designing and building numerous country houses and public buildings, and often acting as contractor as well as architect. Among his best known works are Hopetoun House near Edinburgh, and Duff House in Banff. His individual, exuberant style built on the Palladian style, but with Baroque details inspired by Vanbrugh and Continental architecture.
In the 18th century, Adam was considered Scotland's "Universal Architect". However, since the early 20th century, architectural critics have taken a more measured view, Colin McWilliam, for instance, finding the quality of his work "varied to an extreme degree". As well as being an architect, Adam was involved in several industrial ventures and improvement schemes, including coal mining, salt panning, stone quarries and mills. In 1731 he began to build up his own estate in Kinross-shire, which he named Blair Adam. He was the father of three architects; John, Robert and James, the last two were the developers of the "Adam style". (Full article...)Did you know (auto generated) -
- ... that in 1933 Nazi sympathisers attempted to kidnap two German-Jewish filmmakers in Liechtenstein?
- ... 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 a British filmmaker forced the British Board of Film Classification to watch paint drying for ten hours?
- ... that John Hoke III, who is dyslexic and the chief design officer of Nike, has described drawing as his first language?
- ... 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 Bernie Wrightson spent seven years drawing an illustrated edition of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein?
- ... that Mexican filmmaker David Zonana wrote his first feature film after producing for two other directors?
- ... that Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn were co-nominees for the 2018 Cinema for Peace Award for their documentary What the Health?
General images
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 |
WikiProjects
Things you can do
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus