Since 2019, the World Art Day each April 15 for promote its development, dissemination and promotion. When we ask ourselves what it is that we consider art or why the current art in some cases seems to us to be mere occurrences, we would be wrong; art is subjective that varies in each era, culture, society and even political moment.
Art is nourished by creativity, innovation and the cultural diversity of all the peoples of the world. According to UNESCO, it plays a role essential in knowledge exchange and in cultural promotion between countries” qualities that art has had, and will continue to maintain, “if artists and creative freedom are promoted and protected.”
What is the definition of art?
There is no a single and definitive concept of art. Its definition is part of the explorations that art itself provokes and has been proposed over time.
The word art comes from Latin ars-artis, which refers to a lot of work and a lot of creativity, and from the Greek techne, “technique”. Taking into account the roots of the word, the definition would be: “manifestation or expression of ‘any’ creative activity and aesthetics on the part of the Humans, where their emotions, feelings and perceptions about their environment, experiences or illusions about reality are captured for aesthetic, symbolic, social and entertainment purposes. To do this, it uses different plastic and sensitive, linguistic, corporal or sound resources with certain criteria, rules and techniques.
Panofsky, historian and critic of aesthetic ideas, considers that art designates the conscious and intentional capacity of man to produce objects in the same way that nature produces phenomena. In his words, art is something artificial that transforms nature.
For your part Dino FormaggioItalian philosopher, considers that art “is everything that men call art” because as the Austrian art historian Ernst Gombrich said: “There is no art, only artists .”
The concept of art changes every momentso we can all be agents, creators of something different, or at least personal.
What are the currents of art?
In the 18th century the concept of Fine arts to distinguish arts with capital letters and arts with lower case for crafts and popular manifestations. In the 20th century, cinema, photography and comics were incorporated into the major arts, that is, architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry, theater and dance.
What was previously associated with human beauty, governed by the laws of nature, has been replaced by a series of ideas that are closer to what conceptual and require the participation of the viewer as an active subject in front of the work.
The art of the 20th century has as its common point the rejection of academicism and successive innovations. From the admiration for primitive art, which unites Matisse and Picasso with the expressionists, the revolution of art arises. cubism and abstract painting.
On the other hand, the two world wars enriched the vision of artistic counter-culture with movements such as dadaism and surrealism, but also with the works of Dubuffet or Bacon. After the 70’s, facing the conquests and the renewal of the modern Artmultiplies the break in any direction.
With the arrival, in the nineties, of the digital age and globalization, the contemporary art has undergone a new transformation. postmodern art It is characterized by a mixture of styles and techniques, as well as a break with the traditional conventions of art. Everything seems old and outdated.
Among the movements of this era are the urban art, digital art, transgressive art even what is called participatory art. And more recently, today’s artists focus on themes related to identity, cultural diversity, technology and the relationship between human beings and their environment.
Currently art is not related to beauty, it fulfills different functions
Our era has inherited the definition that art is the production of the canon of beauty, which imitates nature; but this promotes urging for new definitions, since the beauty is an ambiguous notion and it can mean anything that pleases.
This idea arises because there are concepts that are difficult to define exactly. He art Not only does it take different forms depending on times, countries and cultures, it also performs different functions; deals with things that are external to man, stimulates the inner life of the artist, excites and impresses, it cannot be ignored. And it cannot be reduced to just one of its functions.
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A confluence of several concepts enters into the definition of art. One is novelty. The essence of art is novelty, It even benefits him by creating a permanent revolution.
Hamparte, the art that is everywhere
Antonio García Villarán, plastic artist, critic and art disseminator, created the term «hamparte», with which he criticizes some contemporary artistic trends and also established artists, overrated by Art History, such as Warhol, Miró or Tapiés, says “Art is everywhere, without it we would die of boredom. Depending on our look, from our personal perspective because the art is born in the brainI can do an artistic thing, and another person perceives it as such or not.
The Sevillian artist quotes Duchampwho, upon presenting a urinal, assured that “This is art”, and it was because he said so. That continues to happen, everything that is exposed and admired by an audience, is. Nobody dares to object to empathizing with “the experts.”
Imagination is also needed, says Villarán, the union of previous knowledge since if you have seen many things it adds up to create. But his definition is overrated and he explains it to us didactically by remembering the best example: the impressionisma movement from the end of the 19th century, one of the most applauded, recognized and valued, but at the beginning it was not, they were not considered worthy of exhibiting in collective exhibitions of traditional art.
He Impressionism It was an artistic movement that was rejected for moving away from traditional art, but little by little they included it and exhibited it in galleries, thus accepting it as art thanks to its novelty.
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And just like him Impressionismin the end all the isms of the beginning of the last century ended up being admittedyes it happens with everything new that after assuming a certain change, in the end it is assimilated. From rejection we move to acceptance, recognition and settlement.