What is art?

We explain what art is and what are the artistic disciplines we know. Evolution of the concept. How the arts are classified.

1. What is art?

Art is every form of creative expression that a human being can have . It is about expressing what a person feels through an infinite number of forms and techniques.

Art is the ability of a man to represent his feelings, emotions and perceptions about his experiences and his creativity . Commonly, the term art is confused with  “craftsman.”  An artisan is one who manages to reproduce multiple works and is dedicated to that, however, art is a unique work.

Throughout history , the word art has been spreading throughout the world in all its forms. In the past, when someone talked about art, they only implied some aspects of it, such as painting and drawing. Today this word encompasses much more than that.

In many countries, art is one of the most important components of  culture , for example, in Argentina, a type of dance such as tango is one of its most traditional works.

Not all historians, philosophers and other thinkers agree on the definition of current art. Many people do not usually consider art to certain expressions such as cooking, that is, culinary art  and only call art what refers to painting, drawing, singing and dance . But the reality is that throughout the years everything has been advancing, and art was expanding not only in the places of the world, but also in its own meaning.

2. What are the artistic disciplines?

visual arts

• Architecture : Architecture is about the art of designing and concreting the constructions of houses and buildings. It is a process that encompasses the design of structures for future use, such as schools, institutions, hospitals, among others. Some countries, such as Dubai, are noted for their impressive architectural works. It is currently the country that has the tallest buildings in the world. Centuries ago, the architecture was carried out through other processes very different from the current ones, that is, with other materials andconstruction methods .
• Body art : It is one where the human body is used as support. Within this art is makeup, costumes and modifications such as piercings and tattoos.
• Digital art : It is one of the most used in recent years, this is the use of digital media to realize, for example, a video game,
• Cinematography : It is the technique in which a type of reproduction of a moving image is shown. This emerged during the year 1895.
• Drawing : It is the best known type of art and is based on the graphic representation of any type of element. It is one of the basic techniques for other types of art.
• Sculpture : This type of art is based on the creation of hand-modeled works with various types of materials such as clay, clay, wood, metal , among others.
• Photography : This is a technique based on capturing any type of image that is in motion or not. During the last years these techniques have been able to move forward very quickly.
• Painting : It is the creation of images by means of color pigments. This is done on a large number of different surfaces such as wood, paper, metal, etc.

Performing arts

• Dance : This type of art originated centuries ago. It is about the movement of the human body made through music. Each culture can have a different type of dance that responds to its traditions .
• Theater : It is a branch of art where a group of people, called actors, perform a representation of a literary drama on stage.

Musical Arts

• Singing : In an expression method that is done making full use of the voice. As in dance, there are also varieties of singing in this type of art.
• Music : It is produced by the use of any type of musical instrument or sounds in which a rhythm can be generated . Music also encompasses singing.

Literary arts

• Poetry : It is a literary composition in which there are several types of structures for its expression.
• Drama : It is a written form that is based on the dialogue between two or more people. Through the dialogue a story is presented where the actions of the characters are developed.

All these types of art have been advancing with time , creating new styles in which each person finds a better way to identify and develop them over time.

The advancement of technology was part of one of the pillars for the creation of new forms of art, like for example the digital art .  Without technology it could not have been created, since it is an art born from everything that implies a current technological use.