Re 5: MSN Encarta Encyclopedia

I Introduction

Art, the product of creative human activity in which materials are shaped or selected to convey an idea, emotion, or visually interesting form. The word art can refer to the visual arts, including painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, decorative arts, crafts, and other visual works that combine materials or forms. We also use the word art in a more general sense to encompass other forms of creative activity, such as dance, drama, and music, or even to describe skill in almost any activity, such as “the art of bread making” or “the art of travel.”
In this article art refers to the visual arts.

The next sections of the article offer answers to the following questions: How have the visual arts been defined, and what purposes have they served? How have the different kinds of visual art been categorized and valued at different times? What are the elements of art? How do art historians study changes in art through time? The article concludes with some suggestions for appreciating works of art.


II Defining Art

All definitions of art, including the one in the first sentence of this article, are open to question and debate. There are several reasons for this.
A. Difficulties
A definition of art that seems correct to many Americans in the 21st century is likely to differ greatly from definitions of art in non-Western cultures, in tribal societies, and in other historical periods. Our rather open-ended definition may even sound strange to those in contemporary Western society who expect art to be limited to familiar categories such as painting and sculpture.

Defining art raises problems also in that since the beginning of the 20th century some artists have sought to challenge the very definition of art. Their art objects may lack the qualities long associated with art, such as beauty, skilled craftsmanship, and clear organization. These art objects may even be indistinguishable from consumer products. Conceptual artist Jeff Koons, for example, assembles sculpture from commercially manufactured products such as vacuum cleaners and lawn ornaments.
In addition, during the last quarter of the 20th century, critics and art historians considered many more types of objects as art. Today, these authorities often speak of “visual culture”—which may include motion pictures, television, advertising, and comic books—instead of giving special attention to sculpture, painting, or architecture.
Perhaps the major difficulty in defining art lies in the fact that art implies value—monetary, social, and intellectual. Large amounts of money may be involved when an object is regarded as art. A sculpture of beer cans by American artist Jasper Johns is worth millions of dollars, while beer cans themselves are worth almost nothing. Many critics would say that the sculpture qualifies as art because the artist intended it to be seen as art. But what if the maker had no such thought in mind? Consider, for example, blankets woven by Navajo women whose identities are unknown.
Items like Navajo blankets by anonymous weavers were long classified as crafts or as cultural artifacts (objects made by humans) rather than as art because of their seemingly nonartistic materials as well as their usefulness, the anonymity and female gender of their makers, and their origins in tribal culture. That we are beginning to consider such objects as art is a reflection of our changing social values.
Regarding useful objects made in tribal cultures as crafts or artifacts would not seem inappropriate if we did not think of these categories as essentially different from painting, sculpture, and other categories considered “high art.” Critics and art historians today often try to avoid this division between high and low art, substituting for “high art” terms such as “art with a capital A,” “art-as-such,” and “serious art.” But these terms still make a distinction. We could speak instead of “art that is displayed in museums,” “art that is taught in art history classes,” or “art that art critics can interpret.” These expressions would encompass tribal objects and give them an intellectual value, no matter who made them or what their intent may have been.
B Is a Definition Necessary?
Despite the difficulty in forming a definition for art, we go to an art museum expecting to see paintings and sculpture, not comic books, loaves of bread, or works by amateurs. And usually we are not disappointed, even if sometimes an exhibit features comic books and, as a result, opens our eyes to what is “artful” about them. That we expect to see paintings in frames and carvings on pedestals stems more from historical conventions than from any specific material or visual quality belonging to art. Many objects we call “art” represent significant ideas, but some do not. Someone considered a “serious artist” might even be more interested in marketing his or her products than a designer of industrial products is.
Although a firm definition of art may seem like a good idea, and philosophers in the field of aesthetics have attempted to come up with one, it is possible to create and enjoy art without such a definition. Artists are generally more concerned with how best to use materials to convey their ideas than with deciding what is or is not art, whereas museum curators and art historians are busier looking for examples of particular types of objects, such as Greek vases or Rembrandt drawings. It is most important to remember that art is a category with changing boundaries, not only in its general definition but also in its subdivisions. People not only make art, but also choose which objects should be called art.
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III Historical Views of Art

Many qualities that we now associate with art—originality, individual expression, something to contemplate rather than use—began to take shape only about 1500 and flourished in the 1700s. Before that time objects of great beauty and symbolic significance generally served purposes other than artistic self-expression. Art was more closely woven into the fabric of society, and artists were workers, although people admired them for a skill that at times seemed almost magical.
A Antiquity: Skill or Technique
In ancient Greece, the word techne is the closest equivalent to art. Techne, which means work or technical skill, can be applied to the fashioning of any sort of object. But the Greeks had a special appreciation of mimesis (the imitation of reality) in painting and of especially pleasing proportions in sculpture and architecture.
The ancient Romans used the word ars, but ars still referred to a technique or a method of working, not to the expressive, creative activities that we now associate with art. Roman writer Pliny the Elder provides most of our knowledge about artists from the classical (ancient Greek and Roman) period. He wrote about the arts of painting and sculpture in the section on metallurgy in his Natural History. Although Pliny praises the skills of particular painters and sculptors, he does not single out painting or sculpture as being better than pottery, metalwork, or other crafts.
B The Middle Ages: Craftsmanship
During the Middle Ages (about 350 to 1450), Christianity dominated Western culture. Thus the main purpose of the visual arts was to teach people, many of whom could not read, about religion. Art taught by means of delight, drawing people’s attention and helping them understand the spiritual through fascinating forms (whether delicately refined saints or monstrous devils), ornately carved and painted decoration, precious materials (including gold, ivory, and gems), and colored light pouring forth from stained glass.

No particular form of art was considered superior during the Middle Ages. High value was placed on small-scale luxury objects such as illuminated manuscripts, jewelry, and metal objects used in church services. The great medieval cathedrals—buildings that required the skills of hundreds of craftsmen—became the pride of entire cities. Wealthy people decorated their homes with huge tapestries that told stories from mythology. Even clothing could be elaborately decorated and express a person’s status and moral views.
Craftsmen, carefully trained in specialized medieval workshops, made the objects we now call art. Our word masterpiece comes from this medieval workshop tradition. The term refers to an object made by a craftsman at the end of his training to show he had acquired the skills to be called a master. During the Middle Ages a masterpiece could be a statue, a stained glass window, or a pair of shoes.

C The Renaissance: Genius and Design
The importance of skill and craftsmanship continued well into the Renaissance, a period of artistic and literary revival that began in the 1400s. During the Renaissance, the visual arts were often associated with other trades based upon the type of material they used. For example, in the guilds (trade associations) of 15th-century Italy painters were grouped with doctors because both used chemicals, and sculptors who worked in bronze were grouped with makers of armor. However, the position of artists began to change in the 15th century. Painters and sculptors associated informally with poets, who occupied a higher social status because poetry had long been considered a higher art. Books were written to explain the theory of art and architecture, and artists claimed that they were inspired geniuses and not merely workers.
During the 16th century, Italian theorists began to group architecture, painting, and sculpture as the arts of disegno (“design”)—that is, as creative activities that required an artist to visualize an idea and to transfer this idea to a drawing. (The Italian word disegno means both design and drawing.) Italian Renaissance writers also regarded narrative painting as more valuable than other kinds of painting, such as portraiture or landscape. Narrative painting told a story—mythological, historical, or religious—and thus could teach morals just as literature could. This type of painting, called istoria in Italian or history painting in English, was considered the highest form of painting until the late 19th century.

D The 17th to the 19th Century: The Fine Arts
By the 17th century, artists across Europe were seeking more creative freedom. They viewed the workshops of the Middle Ages and Renaissance as restrictive. Some artists gained freedom by working at the courts of monarchs and the nobility, while others made art to sell directly to individual collectors. Such freedom could mean a loss of artistic quality, however. As a result, art academies became increasingly important as a way to enter into the profession without conforming to guild regulations.
Academies emphasized ideas, particularly ideas that connected the visual arts to the sciences or to literature, fields that enjoyed much higher status than the visual arts. At the same time, the academies wanted to separate themselves from the workshops, where sign painting and figure painting were seen as two variations on the same craft. The Académie des Beaux-Arts (Academy of Fine Arts), founded in 1648 in Paris, France, especially emphasized this distinction; it gave the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture the name beaux-arts, meaning “fine arts.”
The French Academy of Fine Arts made drawing from the nude the cornerstone of its program, and it had enough influence to force passage of a law that prohibited figure drawing in any workshop other than the Academy. It considered those visual arts that did not use the human figure as crafts or mechanical arts, with much lower prestige than painting or sculpture. Although the Academy held classes in other subjects, such as perspective, geometry, and anatomy, the working methods of painting and sculpture were taught in the studios of individual academy artists.

E The 19th Century: Self-Expression
The French Academy of Fine Arts enjoyed special favors from the French government, and because of this connection it became part of the establishment (dominant institutions). During the 19th century artists in France fought against these institutions. In the early 19th century artists of the romantic movement (Romanticism), such as Eugène Delacroix, emphasized passionate expression. They often chose subjects that criticized the government, although their method of painting generally followed academic principles of composition and technique.
At mid-century Gustave Courbet and other French artists promoted their individuality: They not only chose subjects that the government might see as offensive, but also used techniques and compositions that went against academic teaching. Starting in the 1860s Édouard Manet and the painters who became known as impressionists (see Impressionism) broke away from the Academy and established alternatives to government-sponsored exhibitions and competitions. These alternatives eventually evolved into the modern commercial gallery system in which artists provide works to dealers who exhibit and sell the works to any buyer who can afford them.
The idea that artists should express their own subjective experience—what they personally feel about a theme or subject—became firmly established in the 19th century. Already in the 18th century some artists had reacted against the lack of feeling in most of the art of their time. The romantic movement continued this antiestablishment trend through its emphasis on passion, imagination, and escape from reality. Around the middle of the 19th century artists of the realist tradition (see Realism) reacted against the subjective expression of romanticism and demanded a return to depicting the actual appearance of things. This response led in the 1860s and 1870s to efforts by the impressionists to record light and color as we see them. Their interest in light and color provided a way for artists of the next generation to express what they felt—not what they saw—through even purer (unmixed), bolder colors (see Postimpressionism). The idea that art should be a form of self-expression has remained an important part of our definition of art to this day.

F The 20th and 21st Centuries: New Media, New Art Forms
In the 20th and 21st centuries many trends have developed, including some that seek to destroy our definitions of art. Artists of the dada movement, which flourished in the early 20th century, created works and sponsored events that pointed out the absurdity of all definitions. One of the most famous dada works was exhibited in 1917 by French-born artist Marcel Duchamp: a urinal turned on its back, titled “Fountain,” and signed with a fictitious name (R. Mutt) that plays on the urinal manufacturer’s name (J. R. Mott) rather than Duchamp’s own name. Pop artists revived the dada spirit during the 1960s, with Jasper Johns’s painted flags and Andy Warhol’s painted soup can labels.

Contemporary artists, aware of earlier traditions, can choose to work in traditional media (including painting, sculpture, printmaking, and now photography), combine media (collage and assemblage), or avoid the traditional categories entirely. For example, some artists create so-called environments that we can walk around or through. Others, such as Bulgarian-born Christo and American Robert Smithson, have rearranged the natural landscape in ways that cannot really be called architecture, landscape architecture, or sculpture. Art critics have coined the terms land art and earthworks for such endeavors. Still other artists have focused attention on the monetary value we give to what we call art, by creating works that cannot be sold, as some conceptual artists did in the last decades of the 20th century (see Conceptual Art). Artists today can ignore the line that the academies drew to separate fine art from craft, or they can affirm essential differences between one art form and another according to their beliefs.

IV Art in Non-Western Societies

The definitions and developments in the Historical Views of Art section of this article apply to the Western tradition—the visual arts of western Europe and the Americas after European settlement. Yet every human culture has its own tradition of art, as rich and complex as the Western tradition. At many times in the past, non-Western art has influenced European artists, and at times this influence has changed the course of Western art. Pablo Picasso’s fascination with African sculpture in the early 20th century, for example, contributed to a simplification of form in 20th-century art. Only since the 1970s, however, have textbooks presented non-Western traditions to beginning art history students while mainstream museum exhibitions have exposed the general public to these works.

A Other Purposes
While the study of world art can broaden our way of thinking about art in general, it can also present difficulties to those trained in the Western tradition. First, Westerners tend to impose Western categories and Western values on the art of other cultures. African masks, for example, have been admired for at least a century by Western collectors, who see them as forms of sculpture to be hung on walls and admired for their powerful abstract qualities. But in an African society, masks are only one part of a ritual dance, which involves elaborately costumed performers who take on specific roles that dramatize important social interactions. For these societies the mask has value and symbolic meaning only while it is used in the dance. The mask has no special distinction as a sculpture, while the ritual dance does not distinguish between the visual arts, dance, music, and theater within it.

B Other Values
Even when the art of a non-Western culture seems quite similar to Western art, aspects of it may be valued quite differently. For example, during the Northern Song period in China (960-1126), respected artists with individual styles made brush paintings of landscapes and other subjects comparable to those found in Western art. Western viewers might note differences in brushwork or in the illusion of three-dimensional space in the Chinese works but would tend to overlook other differences that have no counterpart in the Western tradition. Yet in Chinese art, individual strokes of ink themselves conveyed meaning and were not simply a way to represent the subject, as in Western art.
Artists in China were carefully trained to form a variety of strokes, a skill very close to the art of calligraphy. This skill points to another fundamental difference between Chinese art and Western art: Chinese writings about art set calligraphy above all other art forms, rather than painting (as Westerners think of it), sculpture, and architecture. Chinese artists even thought of the inkstone on which they prepared their inks as an art object in itself, whereas Western painters give little thought to how their tubes of paint or palettes look.

C Avoiding Misconceptions
Another difficulty in looking at the art of other cultures is a tendency to oversimplify—that is, to see all the art of a wide area as the same or else to see it as fundamentally opposite from ours. In thinking about Chinese art and Western art, we should keep in mind that art in China forms a continuous tradition dating back about 5,000 years. The Western tradition, in contrast, is generally said to start with Greek art in the 8th century BC, making it little more than half as old as Chinese art. Whereas Western viewers might regard Chinese art as unchanging, Chinese art in fact reflects the many changes in cultural centers, political systems, and religious beliefs through the centuries.

With African art, Westerners tend to think solely of the art of Africa south of the Sahara, omitting Egyptian art and the Christian art of Ethiopia. Another tendency is to think of all the different cultures of Africa as the same—and totally unlike the so-called civilized cultures of the European tradition. Until recently, anthropologists studied African art more often than art historians did, and scholars compared it to the art of prehistoric people or children. In several African languages, however, words used to describe art translate into English as “accomplishment, skill, and value,” “things made by hand,” and “things to look at.” The first two definitions are quite comparable to European definitions of art until the Renaissance, whereas the last is closer to Western definitions of art from the 18th century on.
Africa has famous individuals who make art, just as Europe and the Americas do, and African art over the centuries has also displayed stylistic change and innovation. Some aspects of African art remain similar from one culture to another, such as a tendency to create abstract (simplified and generalized) forms or a preference for three-dimensional art over painting. There are, however, great differences in the arts of the different African regions and cultures. A number of books on African and other non-Western cultures have addressed Western misconceptions and raised awareness of the vast variety and richness of art traditions throughout the world.

V Types of Art

We categorize art for the sake of understanding and interpretation: It is easiest to compare and make connections between works that are similar in fundamental ways. Painting, sculpture, and architecture are the arts most commonly discussed in textbooks as “the fine arts,” and they are sometimes grouped together with music and poetry. The wording fine arts, however, suggests that these art forms in some way rank higher than other art forms generally categorized as decorative arts or crafts. There are various justifications for this distinction: The fine arts use the human figure as their subject (although this is a difficult rationale when applied to architecture); they can convey ideas or moral values; they are interpreted or discussed in theoretical writings; and they can be appreciated for their own sake, without regard to their usefulness. The idea of fine arts traces back to the French Academy of Fine Arts of the 17th century, however, and since then artists have on many occasions actively worked to tear down this division.

We might instead think of painting, sculpture, and architecture as corresponding roughly to two-dimensional art, three-dimensional art, and arts that enclose or define space. Some of the newer art forms that add motion—for example, film and video art—are sometimes referred to as time-based media. Decorative arts, such as jewelry and textiles, and crafts, such as woodworking and basketry, are defined primarily by their practical use: for example, in fashion, furniture, or household items.

A Painting and Two-Dimensional Art
Painting involves applying a pigment (coloring substance, often a mineral) on a surface. The pigment is suspended in a medium such as oil, water, or egg yolk, which helps the pigment adhere to the surface or gives it other qualities such as transparency or sheen. Among the most common types of painting are fresco painting, in which a water-soluble paint is applied to wet plaster; oil painting, in which pigment is suspended in slow-drying oil; tempera painting, in which pigment is suspended in egg yolk; and watercolor, in which pigment is suspended in water. The surface on which the paint is applied is called the ground; some commonly used grounds include wood panels, plaster, canvas, and paper.
Other two-dimensional media include vase painting, mosaics, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, sand painting, ink painting, and all forms of drawing and printmaking. These other media share visual qualities with painting—for example, color arrangements, light and dark contrasts, or the illusion of space—and so are often compared to each other in art textbooks.
Drawing and printmaking are often grouped together as the graphic arts; they are generally done on paper, and line is usually used to create form in each of them. Since the 1960s, however, the term graphic art has been more often applied to art made for commercial purposes, such as advertising. Today, graphic artists use photography and digital media (images transformed or altered by computer) as often as drawing.
B Sculpture
Sculpture, a broad category, comprises three-dimensional objects, whether freestanding (without other structures for support) or attached to a background and called relief sculpture. Sculptors can make their objects by modeling a soft material such as clay or wax; by carving hard materials, such as stone or wood; or by assembling different sorts of materials. Works modeled in a soft material are often cast in a more durable material such as plaster or bronze. Traditionally, we have thought of sculpture as objects without movement that are isolated from the viewer on a pedestal. Since the mid-20th century, however, sculptors have created objects that move, that share space with the viewer, or that create whole environments in which people can move.
C Architecture
Architecture is the art of creating structures in which we can live, work, worship, and play. Architects, more than painters and sculptors, are concerned with the function of their buildings as well as with the visual appearance, structural solidity, and way in which a building fits into the landscape. Landscape architecture and garden design use plants and the land itself as materials to create outdoor spaces and interesting visual effects. Urban planners use architecture and landscape design at a larger scale, to shape the communities in which we live. A designer—someone who imagines and works with the ideas—is common to all of these fields. Although many people with specialized skills work to make the projects a reality, the person considered the artist is the one who creates the design.
D Photography and New Media
Photography, video art, film, and digital art all use sophisticated technology to create images, which then can usually be reproduced in multiple copies. Photography may most closely resemble painting and the graphic arts because most photographs are stable, two-dimensional objects. The photographer’s role, however, is different from the painter’s. Photographers select their subject matter, but light, rather than the artist’s hand, makes the image. Photographers make many creative decisions about film development, printing, or digital adjustments, and they can even add drawing or color by hand. However, the primary process is mechanical and chemical.
Video artists and filmmakers also use photography to record images, and they often combine visual effects with dramatic action, narrative, and music. Some video artists, such as Korean-born Nam June Paik, incorporate their work into sculptures or environments, blurring the line between new and traditional media. Digital art, another new artistic medium, uses the computer to create works of art. Digital art can use video, photography, or traditional methods of drawing. The works may be printed out and displayed like other drawings or photographs, or they may exist only in virtual form, to be viewed on computer screens.
E Decorative Arts
Decorative arts furnish or embellish the spaces in which we live, or adorn our bodies. Among the decorative arts are textile and furniture design, metalwork, glass, ceramics (see pottery), and fashion design. The categories of decorative arts and crafts overlap a great deal, although we generally think of crafts as handmade objects of simple materials, such as clay ceramics or woven cloth. Generally decorative arts and crafts are useful and lack narrative or symbolic content. But the separation between the decorative and fine arts is not always clear. Painters can make works that avoid subject matter entirely, and architects often design the furnishings for their buildings. In many non-Western cultures, household items, such as painted Chinese screens and African carved doors, can have highly symbolic subject matter.

VI Purposes of Art

Through most of its history, art has served a variety of purposes: to honor the dead, to recall the appearance of rulers or relatives, to give visual form to gods, to create sacred places, to display wealth, to teach, and to give pleasure. Many people today think of the visual arts at best as isolated objects to contemplate in museums or, at worst, as mere frills, unnecessary in education or life. Historians trace such attitudes to 18th-century philosophers who hoped to find an intellectual basis for our perception of beauty and thus separated it from other activities. Their view became known as “art for art’s sake.”

Even if we think of art as isolated from the rest of life, we still must turn to architects to design buildings with important functions, whether churches or banks. We still value design in furniture and other useful everyday objects, and want monuments to honor our heroes. Visual effects in movies astound us, well-designed Web pages appeal to us, and gorgeous images in advertising persuade us. The methods and materials have changed dramatically, but art is still very much a part of our lives.

A Recording Appearances
An artist’s ability to reproduce the appearance of things in our world lies behind some of the earliest uses of art. Prehistoric people may have made carvings and cave paintings of animals to ensure the fertility of the flock or for use in rituals aimed at guaranteeing a good hunt. Female figures in prehistoric sculpture typically have exaggerated breasts and genitals and were probably used in fertility rites. Other sculptures found at burial sites show the appearance of the person buried there. Although no written records exist from this period, it seems clear that prehistoric people made images for use in rituals related to the most important events in their lives: birth, death, and hunting—the means of the group’s survival.
In many periods, works of art that showed the appearance of important people served as substitutes for those people. Egyptian statues served as substitute bodies that the pharaoh’s soul could inhabit after his death. Statues or portraits of leaders served as reminders of their power, a function especially important before mass communication became available. But even ordinary people turned to artists to record the appearance of their loved ones in portraits and in tomb sculpture. Today, photographs of people surround us, and it is easy to forget how important the art form of portraiture once was. Talented artists from places as different as ancient Rome, the royal courts of Spain, and colonial America created vivid portraits from paint or marble that remain living presences for viewers today.
B Making Visible the Invisible
Art can also make visible things we normally cannot see. The extraordinary special effects in movies have their origins in the ability of human beings to imagine and transform these imaginings into substantial form. Dreams and visions are dominant themes in some styles of art—symbolism (symbolist movement) and surrealism, for example. Throughout history, people have made images of gods, angels, and demons; of events from the distant past or the far-off future; and of what they wished the present would be but is not. Imagination is at work in more practical forms of art as well. Any act of planning involves imagining a result, and the artist or architect uses drawings or models to show patrons—the people who request the work—what the completed project will look like. The drawings, as well as the finished projects, are valued as works of art.
Giving visible form to a deity is only one way people have used art for religious purposes. Some of the most important works of architecture are religious structures, such as cathedrals, chapels, mosques, or temples. Their sizes, plans, and decoration reflect the religious practices of the people who use them. An enormous, ornate structure shows the power and glory of the god, while a smaller, restricted space may express the mystery of the divine presence. Some societies have found exquisitely worked, costly objects as appropriate ways to honor God, while simpler forms might emphasize the accessibility of God to humans.
Just as monumental architecture can honor gods, it can also show the power and prestige of human beings and their institutions. The scale, organization, and ornamentation of government buildings, schools, and residences (palaces or private homes) give us good indications not only of the function of the building, but also of the social or economic status of the owners.
C Communicating
Art in all its forms can display wealth, power, and prestige. Because of the high value of art, it may seem affordable to only an elite class of patrons and collectors. Some works of art, however, were created specifically to appeal to the general populace. For example, art that adorned churches communicated religious beliefs to worshipers. Portraits of leaders or images of historic events sometimes carried a political point of view. Before newspapers became widely available art also conveyed news of general interest. Easily reproducible art forms, such as photographs or prints, are the perfect media for art that teaches or persuades.
D Delighting
An important purpose of art is to delight. Some works of art are beautiful or charming in themselves. Others delight us through their visual intricacy, by reminding us of patterns in nature, and in many other ways. Some art works even delight by frightening us with terrifying sights, which are not really terrifying because we know they exist only in the work of art.

VII The Elements of Art

To talk about art we need to describe it precisely. One way to begin is to think about how the artist has created the forms we see. Color, line, shape, texture, and shading are some of the elements of form we can describe in two-dimensional arts. In three-dimensional works we might also think about mass, solids and voids, balance, and scale. Architecture has a specialized vocabulary related to structures, proportions, and patterns of decoration. Yet some of the formal elements found in the other arts, such as color and scale, also apply to architecture.
A Composition
Of the formal elements in art, composition is probably the term most commonly used and most confusing. Composition is the arrangement of elements in a work of art. All works of art have an order of some sort determined by the artist: They may be balanced and symmetrical, swirling and dynamic, or even chaotic and seemingly random. We can describe some compositions by referring to a geometric figure—for example, figures may be grouped to form a triangle—but not all works are designed this way. It sometimes helps to squint at a work or step back from it to see its composition. Look for general patterns of organization, no matter what shape they may take.
B Illusionism
With painting, drawing, and printmaking, people often speak of illusionism—that is, the illusion of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. The techniques of illusionism range from overlapping shapes, to using light-to-dark shading that models or rounds out a shape, to using full linear perspective. Perspective creates the illusion of three-dimensionality through lines that seem to extend back in space and meet at a single point known as the vanishing point. The history of Western art is more often than not a history of the quest to create perfect illusionism. At times, however, artists have turned their backs on this pursuit.
C Realism, Naturalism, and Idealism
The terms realism and naturalism are used to describe how closely objects seen in a work of art resemble those we experience in everyday life. The terms are closely related but not quite interchangeable. Realism suggests a precise copying of the actual appearance of objects, warts and all. Naturalism is a way of depicting objects as they might exist—in other words, it implies a certain amount of improvement of the actual appearance.
Idealism refers to a perfected, or idealized, view of nature. Sometimes this idealized image comes from an idea in the mind, rather than anything actually observed in nature. Idealized works also may be naturalistic in that they are based upon nature, but at the same time they ignore imperfections. Idealized portraits, for example, show the subjects in flattering ways, whereas realistic portraits show them with more flaws, but also with more individuality.
D Abstraction
Abstract and nonobjective are terms most often used in reference to modern art, although abstraction also commonly occurs in ancient art and in the art of many world cultures. Abstract art usually begins with a recognizable object, that the artist then simplifies to show some purer underlying form. Nonobjective, or nonrepresentational, art goes a step further and removes any references to recognizable objects. From a Western perspective, the elimination of a recognizable subject from painting or sculpture seems a radical development of the 20th century, but in other traditions people have long placed higher value on abstraction. In Islamic art, for example, elaborate patterns and calligraphic lines enrich the surfaces of book pages and places of worship.

E Expression
No matter how realistic or abstract a work is, it can also be expressive. Clashing colors or rough brushstrokes often convey violent emotions, such as anguish or anger. Gentle curves and subdued colors can elicit quieter emotions, such as maternal love. It is easy to assume that artists express the emotions they are feeling when creating a work, but more often the artist chooses an expressive style appropriate for the subject matter, genre, or setting of the piece.

F Style
The works produced by an individual artist usually have in common distinctive and identifiable visual qualities. These qualities form what is called the artist’s personal style. Because artists from a particular time or place share ways of working, it is also possible to talk about the style of a period—for example, a Renaissance style—or regional styles—Polynesian style, for instance.
G Subject Matter
All of the formal elements of art and the more general idea of style are separate from subject matter. Artists working in 16th-century Italy and 19th-century France may paint the same mythological subject, but their styles will be quite different. Literary sources, such as classical writings or the Bible, can help us understand the subjects of many works of art. Even when we recognize a work’s subject matter, further interpretation by experts often reveals additional messages about the work or the artist’s time.

VIII The Study of Art

Art history is the study of works of art in their historical context. Styles change through time and artists introduce new materials, techniques, subject matter, and purposes for art. Art historians study such changes and use them to determine the chronological periods and approximate dates of art works. A work of art can reflect the historical period or context in which it was made by representing society’s assumptions about people, by depicting customs or rituals, or by showing us what was thought beautiful, ornamental, or fashionable. In addition to these aspects of art, art historians study the lives of artists, including their training and practices. Art historians answer fundamental questions about art objects, such as: Who made the work? When was it made? How was it made? What was its purpose? What did it mean?
Information about famous artists and their works exists from the time of the ancient Romans. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder, for example, includes notes on important Greek sculptors in his Natural History, written in the 1st century AD. In the 16th century Italian writer and painter Giorgio Vasari wrote his Lives of the Artists, which consisted of biographies of Italian artists from the 14th through the 16th century. Vasari provided a historical framework for his biographies, in which Italian art developed from Byzantine patterns toward greater naturalism and then to greater liveliness. But he rarely tied this development to broader cultural phenomena. This step was taken in the 18th century by German archaeologist and art historian Johann Winckelmann. In The History of Ancient Art (1764), Winckelmann tried to explain the serenity and noble grandeur of Greek art by looking at many aspects of Greek life, from the weather to the political situation, and especially at the development of democracy in Athens. He described Greek art vividly for an audience who had seen little of it.
Winckelmann began a tradition within art history of explaining changes in style by looking to other political, historical, or cultural trends. Later art historians have carried out the meticulous work of identifying and dating works of art by means of careful visual comparisons and the study of historical documents. This type of work, called connoisseurship, still is a basic part of the study of art.
Art historians are often faced with deciphering unfamiliar symbols in works of art. Any object in a painting can serve as a symbol. In paintings of the Madonna and Child, for example, a goldfinch, which builds its nest in thorns, can refer to Christ’s suffering and the crown of thorns he was forced to wear. Iconography is the study and explanation of the meaning of symbols in art and the meaning of the painting or sculpture as a whole. Iconographic studies always involve some degree of interpretation; that is, art historians determine not only what a symbol means but also speculate on why an artist used it and what it might suggest about an artist’s ideas, a patron’s wishes, or a society’s customs.

From the 1970s on, several new methods of interpretation have become popular. Social historians use methods derived from the theories of German political philosopher Karl Marx to look for indications of class distinctions and social conflict in art. Feminist methods of interpretation are concerned with what images convey about women, either as artists or as the subjects of art works. Semiotics and deconstruction are methods that focus on how images function as signs that transmit different meanings at different times, or on how internal structures or contradictions reveal meaning.

IX The Enjoyment of Art

When people ask, “What is art?” or state that something “is not art,” they usually are not seeking a philosophical definition but are instead expressing an opinion that a painting is not realistic enough, that it is offensive, or that it does not use traditional materials. Defining art too narrowly, or in a way that only affirms what we already believe, deprives us of many delightful and thought-provoking experiences. An awareness of all the things that art can be should encourage us to enjoy many different types of art, or at least to wonder why we value one type above another.
The art museum is a natural place to start learning more about the visual arts, but many people find it difficult to sustain interest when faced with so many objects by so many artists they have never heard of. Next time you are in an art museum look first at the other people. Count how many are looking carefully at the art; then look at how many simply read labels, walk away, or do other things without looking at the art itself. Most of us share a tendency to look for works by artists we already know something about, especially those we know about through their odd or interesting lives. This is one way to appreciate art, but it is not the only way.
Try looking for only one specific thing: kinds of paint strokes or particularly energetic brushstrokes, the use of a particular color, or sculptures that are constructed of many parts or from different materials. Or you might seek out more conventional groupings, such as portraits, landscapes, and still lifes.
Make judgments, but get specific. Go into a room at a museum and decide which painting shows the most interesting use of light and dark. Which painting is most colorful? Which artist is the best at capturing emotions?
With a painting, try to imagine the steps the artist took to paint the work. Does the canvas or wood backing show through? Did the artist paint quickly or slowly? How do the paints sit on top of each other? Look at the way shapes are repeated or ordered. If you had no idea what the painting was about—and with some modern art, you really might not—would you still feel something simply by looking at the colors or brushwork?
If you are looking at a sculpture, think about how it might have been seen in its original position, perhaps in a church or on the front of a building. Can you walk all the way around the sculpture? Is it more interesting from a particular point of view? Is it on a pedestal, and if it is, does its added height make you feel smaller or more distant from the subject? As with painting, you might think about how the artist made the piece. Is it wood, stone, or metal, or something else entirely?
With architecture, try to become aware of the shape and size of the spaces around you. Notice how doors and windows are spaced. Sometimes they frame special views, sometimes they create pleasing patterns when seen from the outside, sometimes they are framed or made of special materials for interesting visual effect.
With decorative arts and craft objects, consider their use and whether the changes that the artist has made to the basic form add to or detract from their function. How would it feel to hold the teacup, sit on the chair, or wear the clothing on exhibit? Museums often display decorative arts in rooms that replicate historic rooms. If this is the case, can you sense a pattern of how the people of that time might have felt about ornament, wealth, or simplicity? How might you think differently about these objects if they were displayed on pedestals?
As with the decorative arts, museums often display arts of non-Western cultures in an evocative setting, to demonstrate not just their form but also their function. Here, too, you might ask what the display itself is telling you. Would you respond differently to these objects if they were displayed like the masterpieces of Western art?
New media—video, film, digital arts—can sometimes be difficult to appreciate as art because we so commonly see these same forms in advertising and entertainment. As viewers, we may find them intriguing or amusing but still wonder if they are art. Some artists who work in these media try to set their work apart from commercial uses, while others consciously use commercial imagery and techniques. Rather than decide on a verdict (art or nonart), consider works like these as a starting point for a dialogue. What do these pieces say about images in our lives, or about the distinctions and values we give to certain art forms?
Similarly, many works made today are deliberately provocative. Conceptual art sometimes seems to mock everything we value about art, from beauty and craftsmanship to the precious and timeless nature of art. Many works take stabs at cultural traditions that we value enormously, including religion, patriotism, and morality. It is not necessary to agree with every artist, to like every work of art, or to visit every gallery or museum. But it is important to think and talk about the art before passing judgment.