Thursday, December 16, 2010

The Nature of Art

Art evokes feelings, memories (good and bad), passions, drives, pleasures, and pains. People come in to contact with art in their daily lives every day even without sometimes realizing it.

Art influences our lives in many ways. From the clothes that you wear, to the car you drive, to the dishes that you eat out of. Someone had to design them. We as human beings create almost every day. We create the way we want our lives to look and feel. Even such a simple act of dressing yourself or the way you decorate your house reflects the way that you perceive yourself as well as the way that you want other people to perceive you.

Art is a representation of an idea that is made with skill with the use of a medium. Artists use different kinds of media to express their ideas and feelings that they want to show others. There are many different kinds of media including clay, fiber, stone, wood, paint, video, computers, photography, music, dance, theater, literature, visual arts, and movies.

The nature of art is people expressing their feelings, views, and passions with different kinds of media. Art is visual expression that is made with skill and media. People can express some things with art that they otherwise could not express in words (or would rather not express in words). Like colors, shapes, political views, social views or religious views. Art can be enjoyed, understood, misunderstood, hated, or loved. Art is around us all the time in our homes, art galleries, and churches just to name a few. Art influences many things and it can take almost any form. In our day to day lives we are around art most of the time from the houses we live in, the art we hang up in our homes, to the ads we see in magazines.

Our languages, arts, beliefs and our traditions are a part of us as human beings. They show who we are and what we believe and what our culture is. Art can be made with many different kinds of medium. As technology advances so does the kind of mediums that artists have to choose from to work with. The kind of mediums that artists choose to work with shows a little about that period of time in which the art piece was made. It also shows what was available to work with at the time. It shows the artists skills that they used in making that art piece with the mediums that were used. Art can also give us an insight to the history surrounding that art piece. Art can make a statement, inform, embellish, inspire, excite, awaken, and thrill us. Art can also make us angry, sad, or humiliated. Art can also confuse us and make us ask questions and investigate and have more of an insight toward it. We may not always know what an artist had in mind when they made an art piece. But that evokes our inner curiosity and insight.

Art can tell stories fictional or true. Art can be practical and useful like flint knives, dishes, and cars. Art can serve useful purposes like the Blackfeet Parfleche rawhide envelop made out of rawhide that was used to carry personal goods in the nomadic Native American society. The dish from East Iran is another useful art piece that was used for day to day living. Both of these art pieces serve as useful objects as well as show the peoples who made them cultures. Art can also have spiritual meanings. The earliest cave paintings and cave carvings were thought of as having spiritual/magical purposes. The arts helped people in the stone-age hunt and gather. Art shows the quest for understanding that human beings have. Art can also be used for worship and ritual. Stonehenge is believed to have been used for various rituals. Many historians believe that Stonehenge was used to show humans their place in the universe. The Chalice made in 1986 made out of pottery could hold concentrated wine for Christian ritual. Art can also be used for personal expression. Rembrandt van Rijn showed his feelings that were directed toward life through his paintings. He had an inner need for self expression. Although not all art is meant to show the artists personality some do. Others provide less information about themselves like the designers of art that is produced cooperatively by many individuals like movies or building designers. All forms of art allow us to express ourselves and our feelings to some degree. Art can serve a social cause. It can show the good and bad events that have happened in the past. Like Francisco Goya’s drawing called The Disasters of War shows his outrage toward the Napoleonic Wars in his country. Art can even show good and bad events that can happen in the future such as Chaz Maviyane-Davies’s poster called Global Warming. Art can also be a visual delight. Art can evoke pleasure, delight, happiness, warm memories, enjoyment, amusement, joy, diversion, and embellishment in our lives. Art can bring beauty into our lives and make us feel good.

In conclusion this article covered the nature of art and about what art is. It talked about how make us feel and how we express ourselves through art. Art can be made with a verity of materials and it can make us feel and be inspired. Art can be in almost any form and you can show your creativity and self expression through it. Art can show out traditions, religions, and cultures to others. Art can describe things without the use of words. Art can also show our past and our future. Art can be very powerful, beautiful, and thought provoking.

-Gutter Chic Inc. 2009

No comments:

Post a Comment