Portal:Visual arts
Introduction
![Vincent van Gogh painting The Church at Auvers from 1890 gray church against blue sky](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Vincent_van_Gogh_-_The_Church_in_Auvers-sur-Oise%2C_View_from_the_Chevet_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/220px-Vincent_van_Gogh_-_The_Church_in_Auvers-sur-Oise%2C_View_from_the_Chevet_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, comics, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines, such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts, also involve aspects of the visual arts as well as arts of other types. Also included within the visual arts are the applied arts, such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design, and decorative art.
Current usage of the term "visual arts" includes fine art as well as applied or decorative arts and crafts, but this was not always the case. Before the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and elsewhere at the turn of the 20th century, the term 'artist' had for some centuries often been restricted to a person working in the fine arts (such as painting, sculpture, or printmaking) and not the decorative arts, crafts, or applied visual arts media. The distinction was emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement, who valued vernacular art forms as much as high forms. Art schools made a distinction between the fine arts and the crafts, maintaining that a craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner of the arts. The increasing tendency to privilege painting, and to a lesser degree sculpture, above other arts has been a feature of Western art as well as East Asian art. In both regions, painting has been seen as relying to the highest degree on the imagination of the artist and being the furthest removed from manual labour – in Chinese painting, the most highly valued styles were those of "scholar-painting", at least in theory practiced by gentleman amateurs. The Western hierarchy of genres reflected similar attitudes. (Full article...)
Selected article
![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/Johannes_Vermeer_-_Het_melkmeisje_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/220px-Johannes_Vermeer_-_Het_melkmeisje_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence.
The new Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe and led European trade, science, and art. The northern Netherlandish provinces that made up the new state had traditionally been less important artistic centres than cities in Flanders in the south. The upheavals and large-scale transfers of population of the war, and the sharp break with the old monarchist and Catholic cultural traditions, meant that Dutch art had to reinvent itself almost entirely, a task in which it was very largely successful. The painting of religious subjects declined very sharply, but a large new market for all kinds of secular subjects grew up. (Full article...)Selected picture
![Matryoshka dolls](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Russian-Matroshka_no_bg.jpg/300px-Russian-Matroshka_no_bg.jpg)
Selected quote
“ | When I've painted a woman's behind so that I want to touch it, then it's finished! | ” |
— Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vollard, Ambroise (1925). Renoir: an initimate record. Translated by Van Dooren, Harold L.; Weaver, Randolph T. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 57. OCLC 631984646. |
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Selected biography
![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/91/Eleanor_Norcross_%281854-1923%29.jpg/220px-Eleanor_Norcross_%281854-1923%29.jpg)
Ella Augusta "Eleanor" Norcross (June 24, 1854 – October 19, 1923) was an American painter who studied under William Merritt Chase and Alfred Stevens. She lived the majority of her adult life in Paris, France, as an artist and collector and spent the summers in her hometown of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Norcross painted Impressionist portraits and still lifes, and is better known for her paintings of genteel interiors.
Her father provided her a comfortable living, under the proviso that she would not sell her paintings. With a life mission to provide people from her hometown the ability to view great works of art, Norcross collected art, made copies of paintings of Old Masters, and systematically documented decorative arts from the 12th through the 19th century. Her funding and art collection were used to establish the Fitchburg Art Museum. (Full article...)Did you know (auto generated) -
![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg/47px-Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg.png)
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Major topics
- Types of visual art – Architecture • Art intervention • Ceramic art • Computer art • Drawing • Fashion • Film • Installation art • Land art • Mixed media • Painting • Performance art • Photography • Printmaking • Sculpture • Stained glass
- Art history – Pre-historic art • Ancient art • Art of Ancient Egypt • Art in Ancient Greece • Minoan pottery • Scythian art • Roman art • Women artists
- Western art periods and movements – Medieval art • Gothic art • Renaissance • Mannerism • Baroque • Rococo • Neoclassicism • Romanticism • Realism • Modern Art • Impressionism • Symbolism • Fauvism • Proto-Cubism • Cubism • Futurism • Dada • Art Deco • Surrealism • Abstract Expressionism • Lyrical abstraction • Conceptual Art • Contemporary Art • Postmodern art visual arts.
- Eastern and Middle Eastern art – Buddhist art • Chinese art • Islamic art • Japanese art • Laotian art • Thai art • Tibetan art
- Lists – Architects • Art movements • Art periods • Painters • Printmakers • Sculptors • Statues
- Lists of basic topics – Visual arts • Architecture • Film • Painting • Photography • Sculpture
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![Category puzzle](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/C_Puzzle.png/42px-C_Puzzle.png)
Architecture | Ceramic art | Comics | Crafts | Design | Drawing | Illustration | Film | Glass | Graphic design | Industrial design | Landscape architecture | Multimedia | Painting | Photography | Pottery | Printmaking | Public art | Sculpture | Typography | Mosaic
Artists | Visual arts awards | Artist collectives | Art collectors | Art critics | Art curators | Visual arts exhibitions | Art forgery | Art history | Visual arts materials | Art schools | Artistic techniques |
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