by Alex Storey

Created on: September 20, 2011

Creative arts can be divided into categories such as decorative arts, plastic arts, performing arts or literature.  

Paint is the medium used in painting and paper is the medium used in drawing and the form refers to the space it occupies. Sculpture for example, has three dimensions, paintings have texture and brush strokes.  

Genre in movies are easily recognized such as horror or comedy and in painting you have portraits, still life or landscape.  

Styles in fashion are casual or smart and in paintings you have Expressionism, Cubism or High Renaissance. Art has a purpose though this function is difficult to define and art influences the senses and emotions of our brain because it is a mode of expression ranging from music, literature and film to sculpture, architecture and painting.  

Often seen as an upper class activity, art is associated with wealth in owning it an enjoying it with regard to paintings, however these days art of this type is often talked about as visual culture and this includes computer games and embroidery.  

Cave paintings dating 40,000 years back tell us a little about these pre-historic cultures and medieval art in the Middle Ages focused on the bible and used gold to highlight their paintings in a heavenly manner.  

With Renaissance art came naturalism and more realistic embodiments of people in our world with a three-dimensional aspect of plane and recession to it, building upon the biblical medieval art and becoming more technical in the depiction of biblical stories.  

Islamic art preferred geometry and patterns in its art rather than Europe’s use of symbols. Calligraphy and dance were considered art in Asia and the Chinese sculpting of the terracotta army reflected the politics of the Qin Dynasty ruling at that time and woodblock printing was prominent in Japan in the seventeenth-century.  

All of the above culminated in new styles in the twentieth-century when artists developed new ideas. For example, Picasso used African masks in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and this was reciprical with the west influencing the east.  

Art means creative skill, whether we study, use or enjoy this creative skill it is for everyone the world over and begins at the earliest of ages. It can be fun, educational, religious or peculiar but one thing is for sure without different types of art the world would definitely be a poorer place.

With prejudices involved within the Academy and canon of art history, the repression of women as artists should now be a thing of the past, paving the way for more art and different art to come.

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