Classifications Of Art
What Are The Classifications Of Art?
The various classifications of art include fine art, visual art, plastic
art, performance art, applied art, and decorative art.
Fine Art
The Ballerina by Teresa Bernard
This category includes works of art that are created primarily
for aesthetic reasons.
Fine arts include:
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Drawing – charcoal, chalk, crayon, pastel, pencil, or pen and
ink
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Painting – oils, watercolor, gouache, acrylics, ink and
wash, tempera, or encaustic paints
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Printmaking – woodcuts, stencils, engraving, etching and
lithography, or screen-printing, foil imaging, or giclee prints
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Sculpture – bronze, stone, marble, wood, or clay
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Calligraphy – beautiful and stylized handwriting
Click for more information regarding fine
art.
Visual Art
Digital Art
The visual arts include all the fine arts, in addition
to the following:
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New media – digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual
art, Internet art, interactive art, video games, computer robotics, 3D
printing, and art as biotechnology
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Photography
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Environmental art
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Contemporary forms of expression – assemblage, collage, conceptual,
installation
Plastic Art
The term plastic art includes artworks that are molded and not
necessarily plastic objects. This category consists of three-dimensional works
like clay, plaster, stone, metals, wood and, paper (origami).
Performance Art
This classification consists of an art form that refers to public
performance events that occur mainly in the theater. Performance arts include:
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Traditional performance art –
theatre, opera, music, and ballet
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Contemporary performance art
– mime
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Hyper-modern performance art
– happenings
Applied Art
This category encompasses the application of aesthetic designs to
everyday functional objects. Applied arts are intended for the use of a career.
It includes architecture, computer art, photography, industrial design, graphic
design, fashion design, and interior design.
Decorative Art
Decorative Art
This classification refers to functional but ornamental art forms, such
as jewelry, ceramics, mosaic art, and other embellished items by ornaments and
other designs. It also includes works in glass, clay, wood, metal, textile
fabric, furniture, furnishings, stained glass, and tapestry art. Interior
designers often use this art form for home, commercial and retail outlets, and
office décor.
The Definition of 'Form' in Art
The Definition of 'Form' in Art
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Illustration by Grace Kim. ThoughtCo.
By
Updated
on January 24, 2020
The term form can mean
several different things in art. Form is one of
the seven elements of art and
connotes a three-dimensional object in space. A formal
analysis of a work of art describes how the elements and
principles of artwork together independent of their meaning and the feelings or
thoughts they may evoke in the viewer. Finally, form is
also used to describe the physical nature of the artwork, as in metal
sculpture, an oil painting, etc.
When used in tandem with the word art as in art form, it can
also mean a medium of artistic expression recognized as fine art or an
unconventional medium done so well, adroitly, or creatively as to elevate it to
the level of fine art.
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An
Element of Art
Form is one of the seven elements of art which
are the visual tools that an artist uses to compose a work of art. In addition,
to form, they include line, shape,
value, color, texture,
and space. As
an Element of Art, form connotes
something that is three-dimensional and encloses volume, having length, width,
and height, versus shape, which is
two-dimensional, or flat. A form is a shape in three dimensions, and, like
shapes, can be geometric or organic.
Geometric forms are forms that are mathematical, precise, and can
be named, as in the basic geometric forms: sphere, cube, pyramid, cone, and
cylinder. A circle becomes a sphere in three dimensions, a square becomes
a cube, a triangle becomes a pyramid or cone.
Geometric forms are most often found in
architecture and the built environment, although you can also find them in the
spheres of planets and bubbles, and in the crystalline pattern of snowflakes,
for example.
Organic forms are
those that are free-flowing, curvy, sinewy, and are not symmetrical or easily
measurable or named. They most often occur in nature, as in the shapes of
flowers, branches, leaves, puddles, clouds, animals, the human figure, etc.,
but can also be found in the bold and fanciful buildings of the Spanish
architect Antoni Gaudi (1852
to 1926) as well as in many sculptures.
Form
in Sculpture
Form is most closely tied to sculpture, since it is
a three-dimensional art and has traditionally consisted almost primarily of
form, with color and texture being subordinate. Three-dimensional forms can be
seen from more than one side. Traditionally forms could be viewed from all
sides, called sculpture in-the-round, or
in relief, those in which the sculpted elements remain
attached to a solid background, including bas-relief, haut-relief, and sunken-relief.
Historically sculptures were made in the likeness of someone, to honor a hero
or god.
The twentieth century broadened the meaning of
sculpture, though, heralding the concept of open and closed forms, and the
meaning continues to expand today. Sculptures are no longer only
representational, static, stationery, forms with a solid opaque mass that has
been carved out of stone or modeled out of bronze. Sculpture today may be
abstract, assembled from different objects, kinetic, change with time, or made
out of unconventional materials like light or holograms, as in the work of
renowned artist James Turrell.
Sculptures may be characterized in relative terms
as closed or open forms. A closed-form has
a similar feeling to the traditional form of a solid opaque mass. Even if spaces exist
within the form, they are contained and confined. A closed-form has an
inward-directed focus on the form, itself, isolated from ambient space.
An open form is transparent, revealing its structure,
and therefore has a more fluid and dynamic relationship with the ambient
space. Negative space is a major component and activating force of an open
form sculpture. Pablo Picasso (1881
to 1973), Alexander Calder (1898 to 1976), and Julio Gonzalez (1876 to 1942)
are some artists who created open form sculptures, made from wire and other
materials.
Henry Moore (1898 to 1986), the great English
artist who, along with his contemporary, Barbara Hepworth (1903 to 1975), were
the two most important British sculptors in modern art, both revolutionized
sculpture by being the first to pierce the form of their biomorphic (bio=life,
morphic=form) sculptures. She did so in 1931, and he did in 1932, noting that
“even space can have form” and that “a hole can have as much shape meaning as a
solid mass.”
Form
in Drawing and Painting
In drawing and painting, the illusion of
three-dimensional form is conveyed through the use of lighting and shadows, and
the rendering of value and tone. Shape is defined by the outer contour of an
object, which is how we first perceive it and begin to make sense of it, but
light, value, and shadow help to give an object form and context in space so
that we can fully identify it.
For example, assuming a single light source on a
sphere, the highlight is where the light source hits directly; the mid-tone is
the middle value on the sphere where the light does not hit directly; the core
shadow is the area on the sphere that the light does not hit at all and is the
darkest part of the sphere; the cast shadow is the area on surrounding surfaces
that is blocked from the light by the object; reflected highlight is light that
is reflected back up onto the object from the surrounding objects and surfaces.
With these guidelines as to light and shading in mind, any simple shape can be
drawn or painted to create the illusion of a three-dimensional form.
The greater the contrast in value, the more
pronounced the three-dimensional form becomes. Forms that are rendered with
little variation in value appear flatter than those that are rendered with
greater variation and contrast.
Historically, painting has progressed from a flat
representation of form and space to a three-dimensional representation of form
and space, to abstraction. Egyptian painting was flat, with the human form
presented frontally but with the head and feet in profile. The realistic
illusion of form did not occur until the Renaissance along with the discovery
of perspective. Baroque artists such as Caravaggio (1571 to 1610), explored the
nature of space, light, and the three-dimensional experience of space further
through the use of chiaroscuro, the strong contrast between light and dark. The
portrayal of the human form became much more dynamic, with chiaroscuro and
foreshortening giving the forms a sense of solidity and weight and creating a
powerful sense of drama. Modernism freed artists to play with the form more
abstractly. Artists such as Picasso, with the invention of Cubism,
broke up the form to imply movement through space and time.
Analyzing
an Artwork
When analyzing a work of art, a formal analysis is
separate from that of its content or context. A formal analysis means applying
the elements and principles of art to analyze the work visually. The formal
analysis can reveal compositional decisions that help to reinforce content, the
work’s essence, meaning, and the artist’s intent, as well as give clues as to
historical context.
For example, the feelings of mystery, awe, and
transcendence that are evoked from some of the most enduring Renaissance masterpieces,
such as the Mona Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci,
1517), The Creation of Adam (Michelangelo,
1512), the Last Supper (Leonardo da
Vinci, 1498) are distinct from the formal compositional elements and principles
such as line, color, space, shape, contrast, emphasis, etc., the artist used to
create the painting and that contribute to its meaning, effect, and timeless
quality.
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