Transcript What Is Art?

Lesson One: The History of the
Word “Art”
FYS 100
Creative Discovery in Digital Art
Spring 2002
History of the Word “Art”
Many things that we today
call “art” were not
intentionally created as
works of art.
Paintings at Lascaux,
17,000-15,000 B.C.
Venus of Willendorf, 25,000-20,000 B.C.
History of the Word “Art”
The words for art in Greek (tekhne) and
Latin (ars) don’t refer to the fine arts as we
know them today.
Aristotle, in the 4th century B.C.,
characterized art as any human activity
based on knowledge and governed by rules.
History of the Word “Art”
Not all activities that we
consider to be art today
were considered art in
ancient Greece.
Painting and sculpture
were crafts to be learned,
not art guided by
inspiration.
Poetry and music, on the
other hand, were
considered products of
divine inspiration.
Nike of Samothrace, 190 B.C.
History of the Word “Art”
The idea of the liberal arts
evolved after the time of
Plato and Aristotle.
Martianus Capella was the
first to speak of the seven
liberal arts: Grammar,
Rhetoric, Dialectic,
Arithmetic, Geometry,
Astronomy, and Music.
History of the Word “Art”
In the Middle Ages, art continued to be
viewed as something someone learned
rather than something a person was inspired
to do.
The term “artista” came into use. However,
it referred to either a craftsman or a student
of the liberal arts.
History of the Word “Art”
In the Middle Ages, painters and sculptors were
still considered craftsmen admired for their skill
and technique rather than their artistic inspiration.
The Middle Ages adhered to the scheme of the
seven liberal arts, but in the 12th century they
divided them into two categories: the Trivium
(Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic) and the
Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy,
and Music).
History of the Word “Art”
In the Middle Ages, the mechanical arts
were added to the classification of the
liberal arts.
Painting and sculpture were considered
mechanical arts.
History of the Word “Art”
At the beginning of the Renaissance (14th to
16th centuries), painters and sculptors were
still considered mere artisans.
This situation began to change in the 14th
century, when painters, sculptors, and
architects began to form a group separate
from the mechanical arts.
History of the Word “Art”
Gradually, painters,
sculptors, and architects
gained respect.
There was a new emphasis
on realism in painting and
sculpture. A painter or
sculptor was expected to
learn mathematical
perspective, optics,
geometry, and anatomy.
Drawings by Leonardo Da Vinci,
1452-1519
History of the Word “Art”
Painting and sculpture
slowly began to be
accepted as liberal
arts, “sister arts” to
poetry and rhetoric.
The modern concept
of the “artist” thus
began to emerge.
Maddalena by Raphael, 1482-1520
History of the Word “Art”
Plato (5th – 4th century
B.C.) believed that poets,
musicians, and prophets
were divinely inspired by
the gods.
Renaissance thinkers
returned to the classical
idea of the divinely
inspired poet, carrying this
idea over to the painter or
sculptor.
The Creation of Adam by Michelango,
painted 1508-1512
History of the Word “Art”
Giorgio Vasari wrote about Renaissance
artists in Lives of the Painters, Sculptors,
and Architects
He said that a work of art had a certain
“grazia.”
By the 16th century, the artist was
considered an educated and cultivated
person whose genius was revered.
History of the Word “Art”
The emergence of art as a distinct and worthy
intellectual pursuit is manifested in the founding
of academies of art in the 16th and 17th centuries
Accademia del Disegno in Florence, 1562,
founded by Giorgio Vasari
Accademia di San Luca in Rome in 1580’s
Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in
France, 1648, where the term “beaux arts” began
to be used
History of the Word “Art”
Charles Perrault listed in Le Cabinet des
Beaux Arts eight “fine arts” – eloquence,
poetry, music, architecture, painting,
sculpture, optics, and mechanics
In 1746, Abbé Batteux published Les beaux
arts reduits a un meme principe, in which
he separated music, poetry, painting, and
sculpture from the mechanical arts
History of the Word “Art”
It was not until 1880 that the word “art”
(without “beaux” in front of it) appeared in
any English dictionary.
“the skillful production of the beautiful in
visible forms”