Portal:Visual arts

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THE VISUAL ARTS PORTAL

Introduction

Vincent van Gogh: The Church at Auvers (1890)

The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines (performing arts, conceptual art, textile arts) 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 the 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, craft, or applied art 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.

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[[File:|center|300px|Sand mandala]]

Credit: Henryart

Sandpainting in the form of a temporary sand mandala, constructed by Tibetan Buddhist monks in the City-Hall of Kitzbuehel in Austria.

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Dürer's Rhinoceros is the name commonly given to a woodcut created by German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer in 1515. The image was based on a written description and brief sketch by an unknown artist of an Indian rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon earlier that year. Dürer never saw the actual rhinoceros, which was the first living example seen in Europe since Roman times. In late 1515, the King of Portugal, Manuel I, sent the animal as a gift for Pope Leo X, but it died in a shipwreck off the coast of Italy in early 1516. A live rhinoceros was not seen again in Europe until a second specimen arrived from India at the court of Philip II in Spain in around 1579.

Despite its anatomical inaccuracies, Dürer's woodcut became very popular in Europe and was copied many times in the following three centuries. It was regarded as a true representation of a rhinoceros into the late 18th century. Eventually, it was supplanted by more realistic drawings and paintings, particularly those of Clara the rhinoceros, who toured Europe in the 1740s and 1750s. It has been said of Dürer's woodcut: "probably no animal picture has exerted such a profound influence on the arts".

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“	Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.	”
	— Salvador Dalí, People (September 27, 1976)

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El Lissitzky was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer, and architect. He was one of the most important figures of the Russian avant-garde, helping develop suprematism with his friend and mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designed numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the former Soviet Union. His work greatly influenced the Bauhaus, Constructivist, and De Stijl movements and experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate 20th century graphic design. Lissitzky's entire career was laced with the belief that the artist could be an agent for change, later summarised with his edict, "das zielbewußte Schaffen" (The task-oriented creation). In 1941 he produced one of his last known works — a Soviet propaganda poster rallying the people to construct more tanks for the fight against Nazi Germany.

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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
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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Did you know...

... that Bathsheba at Her Bath has been called "Rembrandt's greatest painting of the nude"?
...that Ananthabhadram, a film by Indian director Santhosh Sivan, was inspired by classical Kathakali dancing and paintings of Raja Ravi Varma?
...that the Royal Fort in Bristol was built with façades in Baroque, Palladian and Rococo styles because it was a compromise between the designs of three different architects?
...that Lil' Pimp was the first feature-length film to be created entirely with Macromedia Flash animation?
...that the world's tallest statue of Hindu god Lord Shiva (pictured) is located in Murudeshwara, a coastal town in Karnataka, India?
...that the Mona Lisa has no eyebrows?
...that Henri Le Secq was a founding member of the short-lived, first ever photographic organization Société héliographique?