Cultural training is impossible without reference to the artistic values accumulated by society throughout its existence. The beautiful Arts they reflect social debates, they offer areas of friction to deal with reality, they point beyond the everyday, they are expressions of human existence.
The beautiful Arts
In the broadest sense, the word art designates any developed activity based on knowledge, practice, perception, imagination and intuition. Art is a human cultural product, the result of a creative process. The artwork is usually at the end of this process, but since modern times it can also be the process itself.
Since the Enlightenment, art has been understood primarily as the forms of expression of the fine arts:
- Visual arts: with the classical genres painting, sculpture, architecture and since the XNUMXth century the decorative arts or applied arts in reference to crafts.
- Performing arts: with the main areas of theater, dance and cinematographic art.
- Music: with the main categories of vocal and instrumental music,
- Literature: with the main genres of the novel, dramatic arts and poetry.
The forms of expression and the techniques of art have greatly expanded since the beginning of modernism, for example with photography in the visual arts. In the performing arts, music and literature, new media forms of expression such as radio, television and the Internet can also be counted today. The classical classification has been losing importance since the last decades of the XNUMXth century.
What is the art?
The word "art" is used in two senses: in a strict sense, it is a specific form of practical and spiritual mastery of the world; roughly speaking - the highest level of skill, regardless of the area in which they manifest themselves (the art of a stovemaker, doctor, baker, etc.). Fine Arts are a special subsystem of the spiritual sphere of social life, which is a creative reproduction of reality in artistic images.
Initially, a high degree of skill in any business was called art. This meaning of the word is still present in the language when we speak of the art of a doctor or teacher, martial arts or oratory. Later, the concept of "art" was used more and more to describe a special activity designed to reflect and transform the world according to aesthetic norms, that is, according to the laws of beauty. At the same time, the original meaning of the word has been preserved, as the greatest skill is required to create something beautiful.
The subject of art is the world and man in the totality of their reciprocal relationship. The form of existence of art is a work of art (poetry, painting, play, film, etc.). Art also uses special means to reproduce reality: for literature it is a word, for music sound, for painting color, for sculpture volume.
The purpose of art is twofold: for the creator it is artistic self-expression, for the viewer it is the enjoyment of beauty. In general, beauty is as closely related to art as truth is to science. Art is an important component of the spiritual culture of humanity and a reflection of the reality that surrounds a person. In terms of its potential to understand and transform reality, art is not inferior to science. However, science uses strict and unequivocal concepts for this, whereas art is artistic images.
Art, as an independent form of social consciousness and as a branch of spiritual production that grew out of material production, was originally intertwined as an aesthetic but purely utilitarian moment. Man is an artist by nature and always strives to bring beauty in one way or another. Aesthetic human activity is constantly manifested in work, daily life, social life and not only in art. There is an aesthetic assimilation of the world by a social person.
Fine art features
Art fulfills a series of social functions. The functions of the fine arts can be distinguished, summarizing what has been said:
- The aesthetic function allows you to reproduce reality in accordance with the laws of beauty, forms an aesthetic taste. By perceiving and understanding a work of art, we not only assimilate its content, but we pass this content through the heart, the emotions, we give sensually concrete images created by the artist, an aesthetic evaluation as beautiful or ugly, sublime or basic. Art forms in us the ability to give similar aesthetic evaluations, to distinguish what is truly beautiful and sublime from all kinds of substitutes.
- The social function is manifested in the fact that art has an ideological impact on society, thus transforming social reality.
- The compensatory function allows you to restore mental balance, solve psychological problems, “escape” for a while from gray everyday life, compensate for the lack of beauty and harmony in everyday life.
- The hedonistic function reflects the ability of art to bring pleasure to a person.
- The cognitive function allows us to know reality and analyze it with the help of artistic images.
- The predictive function reflects the ability of art to make forecasts and predict the future.
- The educational function is manifested in the ability of works of art to shape a person's personality.
What are the fine arts?
In modern art history literature, a certain scheme and classification system for fine art has been developed, although there is still no single one and they are all relative. The most common scheme is to divide it into three groups.
- The first includes spatial or plastic arts. For this group of arts, spatial construction in the dissemination of an artistic image is fundamental: Painting, Decorative and Applied Arts, Architecture, Photography.
- The second group includes temporary or dynamic arts. In them, the composition that evolves over time (Music, Literature) acquires a key importance.
- The third group is represented by temporary space types, which are also called synthetic or spectacular arts: choreography, literature, theatrical art, cinematography.
The existence of various types of arts is due to the fact that none of them, by their own means, can give a complete artistic picture of the world. Such an image can only be created by the entire artistic culture of mankind as a whole, consisting of individual types of art.
Architecture
Architecture is a monumental art form, the purpose of which is to create structures and buildings necessary for the life and activities of mankind, satisfying the utilitarian and spiritual needs of people. The forms of architectural structures depend on the geographical and climatic conditions, the nature of the landscape, the intensity of sunlight, seismic safety, etc. Architecture does not directly reproduce reality, it is not pictorial, but expressive
Architecture, more closely than other arts, is related to the development of the productive forces, to the development of technology. The architecture is able to combine with monumental painting, sculpture, decoration and other forms of art. The basis of the architectural composition is the volumetric-spatial structure, the organic interconnection of the elements of a building or a set of buildings. The scale of the building largely determines the nature of the artistic image, its monumentality or intimacy.
visual arts
They are a set of types of artistic creation that reproduce reality perceived visually. Works of art have a subject form that does not change in time or space. Fine arts include: painting, graphics, sculpture.
Painting
Painting is a form of fine art, which is a way of capturing the surrounding world with paints on a surface. The main expressive means of painting is color, which affects the viewer's general perception of the image, allowing attention to important details, which enhances the emotional component of the work. The nuances and tones necessary for the artist to accurately convey color, volume, and space are achieved by mixing paints on a palette.
Sculpture
Sculpture is a spatially visual art that explores the world in plastic images. The main materials used in sculpture are stone, bronze, marble, wood. At the current stage of development of society, technological progress, the number of materials used to create sculptures has expanded: steel, plastic, concrete and others. There are two main types of sculpture: three-dimensional and relief.
Literature
Literature is an art form in which the word is the material carrier of images. The sphere of literature includes natural and social phenomena, various social cataclysms, the spiritual life of a person, his feelings. In its various genres, literature covers this material, whether through a dramatic rendition of an action, through an epic narrative of events, or through a lyrical self-disclosure of a person's inner world.
The specificity of literature is a historical phenomenon, all the elements and constituent parts of a literary work and literary process, all the characteristics of literature are constantly changing. Literature is a living ideological and artistic system, mobile and sensitive to changes in life. The ancestor of literature is oral folklore.
Music
Music is an art form in which sounds organized in a certain way serve as a means of embodying artistic images. The main elements and expressive means of music are mode, rhythm, compass, tempo, sound dynamics, timbre, melody, harmony, polyphony, instrumentation. The music is recorded in musical notation and performed during the performance.
The division of music into secular and spiritual is accepted. The main area of sacred music is worship. The development of European music theory of music notation and music pedagogy is associated with European worship music (usually called church music). In terms of performance, music is subdivided into vocal (singing), instrumental, and vocal-instrumental. Music is often combined with choreography, theater art, and film.
Certain relatively stable typical structures are characteristic of musical works. Music uses sound images as a means to incorporate reality and human feelings. Music in sound images generally expresses the essential processes of life. An emotional experience and an idea colored by feeling, expressed through sounds of a special kind, which are based on the intonation of human speech - this is the nature of a musical image.
Dance
It is an art form, whose material is the movements and postures of the human body, poetically significant, organized in time and space, which constitute an artistic system. The dance interacts with the music, forming with it a musical and choreographic image. In this union, each component depends on the other: the music dictates its own laws to the dance and is simultaneously influenced by the dance. In some cases, the dance can be performed without music, accompanied by clapping, tapping heels, etc.
The origins of the dance were: imitation of labor processes; celebrations and ritual ceremonies, whose plastic aspect had a certain regulation and semantics; dance spontaneously expresses in movements in movements the culmination of a person's emotional state. Dance has always, at all times, been associated with life and the lives of people. Therefore, each dance meets the character, the spirit of the people from whom it originated.
Theater
Theater is an art form that artistically assimilates the world through dramatic action carried out by a creative team. Theater is based on drama. The synthetic nature of theater art determines its collective character: the work combines the creative efforts of a playwright, director, artist, composer, choreographer and actor. Theatrical performances are divided into genres: drama, tragedy, comedy, musical, etc. Theatrical art has its roots in deep antiquity.
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