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Portal:Visual arts

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THE VISUAL ARTS PORTAL

Introduction

Vincent van Gogh painting The Church at Auvers from 1890 gray church against blue sky
The Church at Auvers, an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh (1890)

The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, 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. Within the visual arts, the applied arts, such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design, and decorative art are also included.

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

To the left, a woodblock; to the right, a print made from the woodblock. In the print, three figures on the left look up at an arm on a crucifix. The right side of the print is obscured. The foremost figure speaks via a ribbon emanating from his mouth; he says in Latin: "Vere filius Dei erat iste".
One side of the Bois Protat woodcut, c. 1370–1380. A banderole emanating from the centurion's mouth reads "Vere filius Dei erat iste" ("This was really the son of God").

The woodblock fragment Bois Protat ([bwɑ pʁɔta] ("Protat wood[block]"); also Protat block or Protat woodblock, c. 1370–1380) is a fragmentary woodblock for printing, and the images on it are the oldest surviving woodcut images from the Western world. It is cut on both sides, with a scene from Christ's crucifixion on the recto, and a kneeling angel from a presumed Annunciation scene on the verso. The crucifixion scene likely consisted of three or more blocks; the surviving block fragment features Longinus the Roman centurion at the Crucifixion, shown speaking with a banderole, a mediaeval precursor to the modern speech balloon containing his words.

The Bois Protat's name comes from the Mâconnais printer Jules Protat who acquired the block after its discovery in 1898 near La Ferté Abbey in Saône-et-Loire, France, where it was wedged under a stone floor. Because of such poor preservation, only a quarter of the block has survived, and only one side was able to withstand making prints at the time of discovery. It is kept in the Department of Prints and Photographs at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the National Library of France in Paris. (Full article...)

Selected picture

Portrait of Wally Neuzil
Portrait of Wally Neuzil
Portrait of Wally Neuzil
Credit: Google Art Project

Selected quote


Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.
Henri Matisse, unknown


Selected biography

Trofeo (1499–1500), Loggia palazzo, Brescia, south-east view

Gasparo Cairano, also known as Gasparo da Cairano, de Cayrano, da Milano, Coirano, and other variations (born Milan or Pieve del Cairo or Cairate, before 1489 – Brescia, died before 1517), was an Italian Renaissance sculptor.

The artist emerged in 1489 as part of the cultural world of Milan, beginning a successful career that turned him into a leading exponent of Renaissance sculpture in Brescia, distinguishing himself with works of cultural import such as his cycle of the Caesars for the Loggia palace in Brescia, as well as the Mausoleum of Martinengo. He introduced a powerful and highly expressive classical taste, as opposed to the hitherto existing refined decorativeness. During the first decade of the sixteenth century, Gasparo was able to win over public and private clients who sought to translate into stone their pride in their supposed historical descent from ancient Rome. (Full article...)

  • ... that two books of photos and drawings by Margot Dias were called "among the best-illustrated anthropological volumes ever produced"?
  • ... that an Arkansas TV station apologized for not being on the air by sending local media a drawing of ducks?
  • ... that the filmmakers of 100 Litres of Gold brewed 20 litres of sahti at the Finnish embassy in Rome for its premiere?
  • ... that The Wiccan Web recommends drawing pentagrams on your computer screen with tinctures?
  • ... that although the icosian game was advertised as a "highly amusing game for the drawing room", it was too easy to play and not a commercial success?
  • ... that Nickelodeon storyboard artists created a book with hundreds of pornographic drawings of SpongeBob SquarePants characters?
  • ... that the documentary Lynch/Oz incorporates hundreds of film clips to illustrate the influence of The Wizard of Oz on the work of filmmaker David Lynch?
  • ... that Mayu Sakai found drawing Peter Pan Syndrome difficult because of its fantasy elements?

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