DEVELOPMENT OF ART

Development of art

The history of art is the history of any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview. Over time visual art has been classified in diverse ways, from the medieval distinction between liberal arts and mechanical arts, to the modern distinction between fine arts and applied arts, or to the many contemporary definitions, which define art as a manifestation of human creativity. The subsequent expansion of the list of principal arts in the 20th century reached to nine: architecture, dance, sculpture, music, painting, poetry (described broadly as a form of literature with aesthetic purpose or function, which also includes the distinct genres of theatre and narrative), film, photography and comics. At the conceptual overlap of terms between plastic arts and visual arts were added design and graphic arts. In addition to the old forms of artistic expression such as fashion and gastronomy, new modes of expression are being considered as arts such as video, computer art, performance, advertising, animation, television and videogames.
The history of art is a multidisciplinary science, seeking an objective examination of art throughout time, classifying cultures, establishing periodizations and observing the distinctive and influential characteristics of art. The study of the history of art was initially developed in the Renaissance, with its limited scope being the artistic production of western civilization. However, as time has passed, it has imposed a broader view of artistic history, seeking a comprehensive overview of all the civilizations and analysis of their artistic production in terms of their own cultural values (cultural relativism), and not just western art history.
Today, art enjoys a wide network of study, dissemination and preservation of all the artistic legacy of mankind throughout history. The 20th century has seen the proliferation of institutions, foundations, art museums and galleries, in both the public and private sectors, dedicated to the analysis and cataloging of works of art as well as exhibitions aimed at a mainstream audience. The rise of media has been crucial in improving the study and dissemination of art. 

STUDY ON HISTORIC CHANGE

Prehistory

Human arts might have origins in early human evolutionary prehistory. According to a recent suggestion, several forms of audio and visual arts (rhythmic singing and drumming on external objects, dancing, body and face painting) were developed very early in hominid evolution by the forces of natural selection in order to reach an altered state of consciousness

Paleolithic

The Paleolithic had its first artistic manifestation on 25,000 BC, reaching its peak in the Magdalenian period (±15,000-8000 BC). The first traces of man-made objects appear in southern Africa, the Western Mediterranean, Central and Eastern Europe (Adriatic Sea), Siberia (Baikal Lake), India and Australia. These first traces are generally worked stone (flint, obsidian), wood or bone tools. To paint in red, iron oxide was used, in black, manganese oxide and in ochre, clay. Surviving art from this period is small carvings in stone or bone and cave painting, this especially from in the Franco-Cantabrian region; there are pictures with magical-religious character and also pictures with a naturalistic sense, which depict animals

Neolithic

This period—from c. 8000 BC in the Near East—was a profound change for the ancient man, who became sedentary and engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry, new forms of social coexistence and religion developed. Neolithic painting was schematic, reduced to basic strokes (man in the form of a cross and woman in a triangular shape). New materials were produced like amber, crystal of rock, quartz, jasper, etc

Metal Age

Megalithic complex of Stonehenge

The last prehistoric phase is the Metal Age, as the use of elements such as copper, bronze and iron proved to be a great material transformation for these ancient societies. In the Chalcolithic (also called Copper Age) the Megalith emerged, monuments of stone, i.e. the dolmen and menhir or the English cromlech, as in the magnificent complex of Stonehenge. The pottery was polychromic, with geometric decorations and applications of metallic ornaments. 

Ancient art

Art, in the first period of history, began with the invention of writing, founded by the great civilizations of Near East: Egypt and Mesopotamia. This period also differed from others because artistic manifestations occurred in every culture of all the continents. In this period appear the first great cities in the main big rivers: Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, Indus and Yellow River.One of the great advances of this period was writing, generated primarily by the need to keep records of economical and commercial nature. The first writing code was the cuneiform script, which emerged in Mesopotamia c. 3500 BC, written on clay tablets. It was based on pictographic and ideographic elements, while later Sumerians developed syllables for writing, reflecting the phonology and syntax of the Sumerian language.

Mesopotamia

Diorite Statue I, Louvre Museum, Paris

Mesopotamian art was developed in the area between Tigris and Euphrates (modern day Syria and Iraq), where from the 4th millennium BC many different cultures existed such as Sumer, Akkad, Amorite, Chaldea, etc. Mesopotamian architecture was characterized by the use of brick, lintel and the introduction of construction elements like arc and vault. Notable are the ziggurats, large temples with the form of a terraced step pyramid, from which we have practically no traces left except their bases. The tomb was usually a corridor, with a covered chamber and a false dome, as in some examples found in Ur. There were also palaces walled with a terrace in the form of a ziggurat, giving great importance to gardens (the Hanging Gardens of Babylon is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World).

Sculpture was developed through wood carving and relief and was used in religious, military and hunting scenes, depicting both human and animal figures, whether they were real or mythological. In the Sumerian period there were small statues of angular form, with colored stone, bald head and with hands on the chest. 

Egypt

The pyramids of Giza

In Egypt arose one of the first great civilizations, with elaborate and complex works of art, which assume the professional specialization of the artist/craftsman. Its art was intensely religious and symbolic, with a highly centralized power structure and hierarchy, giving great importance to the religious concept of immortality, especially of the pharaoh, for whom were built great monuments. The Egyptian art spans from 3,000 BC until the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great. However its influence persisted in the Coptic art and Byzantine art.

The architecture is characterized by its monumentality, achieved by the use of stones in large blocks, lin.

tel and solid columns. Notable are the funerary monuments, with three main types: mastaba, tomb of rectangular form; pyramid, which can be a step pyramid (Saqqarah) or smooth sided (Giza); and the hypogeum, underground tomb (Valley of the Kings). The other great building is the temple, a monumental complex preceded by an avenue of sphinxes and obelisks, which give way to two pylons and trapezoid walls, a hypaethros, a hypostyle hall and a shrine. Notable are the temples of Karnak, Luxor, Philae and Edfu. Another type of temple is the rock temple, which has the form of a hypogeum, like in Abu Simbel and Deir el-Bahari.

Painting was characterized by the juxtaposition of overlapping planes. The images were represented hierarchically, i.e . the Pharaoh is larger than the subjects or enemies at his side. Egyptians painted the head and limbs in profile, while the shoulders and eyes in front. Applied arts were developed significantly in Egypt, in particular woodwork and metalwork, with superb examples like cedar furniture inlaid with ebony and ivory of the tombs at the Egyptian Museum, or the pieces found in Tutankhamun's tomb, which are of great artistic quality

Western Europe

Although some of the books listed above attempt a global approach, they are universally strong in western art history. The books use representative examples from each era in order to create a story that blends changing styles with social history. The Western narrative begins with prehistoric art such as Stonehenge, before discussing the ancient world. The latter begins with Mesopotamia, then progresses to the art of Ancient Egypt, which then transitions to Classical antiquity. Classical art includes both Greek and Roman work.

Medieval Western art

In Byzantine and Gothic art of the Middle Ages, the dominance of the church insisted on the expression of biblical truths. There was no need to depict the reality of the material world, in which man was born in a "state of sin", especially through the extensive use of gold in paintings, which also presented figures in idealised, patterned (i.e."flat") forms.

Renaissance Western art

The Renaissance is the return yet again to valuation of the material world, and this paradigm shift is reflected in art forms, which show the corporeality of the human body, and the three dimensional reality of landscape.

Eastern art

Eastern art has generally worked in a style akin to Western medieval art, namely a concentration on surface patterning and local colour (meaning the plain colour of an object, such as basic red for a red robe, rather than the modulations of that colour brought about by light, shade and reflection). A characteristic of this style is that the local colour is often defined by an outline (a contemporary equivalent is the cartoon). This is evident in, for example, the art of India, Tibet and Japan.

Religious Islamic art forbids iconography, and expresses religious ideas through geometric designs instead. However, there are many Islamic paintings which display religious themes and scenes of stories common among the three main monotheistic faiths of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.

Modern and contemporary art

Modernism, the idealistic search for truth, and progress, gave way in the latter decades of the 20th century to a realization of its un-attainability. Relativity was accepted as an unavoidable truth, which led to the Post-modern period, where cultures of the world and of history are seen as changing forms, which can be appreciated and drawn from only with irony. Furthermore the separation of cultures is increasingly blurred and it is now more appropriate to think in terms of a global culture, rather than regional cultures.

In art and art criticism, form and content are considered distinct aspects of a work of art. The term form refers to the work's style, techniques and media used, and how the elements of design are implemented. Content, on the other hand, refers to a work's essence, or what is being depicted.

           BREIF ON CHANGING HISTORY IN TERMS OF:

Content:

– The emotional or intellectual message of an artwork.
– The expression, essential meaning, significance, or aesthetic value of a work of art.
– Content refers to the sensory, subjective, psychological, or emotional properties we feel in a work of art.
– Content is not just a description of the subject matter.


Context:

– The set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event, situation, etc.
This could include when a work of art was made, where, how, and for what purpose.
This could include historical information on the artist or issues or things the artist references.

Form 

FORM is an element of art. At its most basic, a form is a three-dimensional geometrical figure (i.e.: sphere, cube, cylinder, cone, etc.), as opposed to a shape, which is two-dimensional, or flat.
In a broader sense, form, in art, means the whole of a piece's visible elements and the way those elements are united. In this context, form allows us as viewers to mentally capture the work and understand it.

Finally, form refers to the visible elements of a piece, independent of their meaning. For example, when viewing Leonardo's Mona Lisa, the formal elements therein are: color, dimension, lines, mass, shape, etc., while the feelings of mystery and intrigue the piece evokes are informal products of the viewer's imagination.