Western Art: Formal Qualities and Their Changes Essay

Introduction

The process of defining and evaluating arts has become controversial since the start of the early twentieth century. These changes resulted in the use intentions to characterize arts other than considering the real value of the art and with no consideration of the intended purpose by the creator of the art (Arnold and Iverson 2003, 45). Arnold and Iverson (2003, 78) noted that “this conception changed during the Romantic period when art came to be seen as “a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science”. The uses of arts changed and during that time, arts started to be used as a way of communication and expression through the appreciation of ideas. This paper will discuss how these changes occurred and the meaning of these changes by the use of specific arts as examples.

Discussion

During the start of the twentieth century, arts started to be created using creative art which was also referred to as fine art. Fine art meant that there was the application of an artist’s skills and creativity to bring the aesthetic sensibility of art to the audience (Arnold and Iverson 2003, 102). Many traditional arts were based on ancient civilizations. These civilizations were experienced in nations like Ancient Egypt, Persia, China, and Mesopotamia. These civilization centers employed distinct characteristics to develop arts. Stiles and Selz (1996, 56) noted that “because of the size and duration these civilizations, more of their art works have survived and more of their influence has been transmitted to other cultures and later times”. Some of these civilization centers like Greece kept records concerning the skills used by the artists in developing the arts (Holly and Moxey 2002, 58).

Byzantine and medieval arts were developed during the middle ages and such arts focused on the expression of the history of the bible. For instance, the “Christ Pantocrator mosaic” mosaic was created between 1080 and 1100. Originally located in Greece, it is one of the names that were used to refer to God. The meaning of this art to Christians was that God was almighty or powerful meaning that he had the power to do anything. The mosaic is made up of a semi-dome icon that looked the figure of Jesus, with his right hand raised as if he was blessing or teaching. The gessoed panel of the art was painted finely by the use of wax median placed on a wooden panel. However, some changes were introduced to this mosaic later. One such change was the cleaning of the wax that was over-painted on the faces and hands; this cleaning revealed that that the mosaic was a high-quality icon (Holly and Moxey 2002, 78). Arts of this period were characterized by the use of natural resources to design them.

Paintings of the Baroque era were done by Peter Paul Rubens at the Luxembourg Palace. According to Holly and Moxey (2002, 65) “there were highly diverse strands of Italian baroque painting, from Caravaggio to Cortona; both approaching emotive dynamism with different styles”. Most of the arts of this time were mostly deep-colored, the amount of light used was also too high therefore making the paintings have deep shadows. Contrary to the arts of the renaissance period which waited until an event had taken place, arts of this are were done instantly when an event was occurring. An example of such art was Saint Theresa in Ecstasy, the art was found in the Cornaro chapel; this art was done with a combination of knowledge from architecture, theatre, and sculpture. The arts of this period were painted using a specific pool of ideas and concerning religion (Stiles and Selz, 1996, 23). Caravaggio and Rembrandt were the best-known Baroque painters.

However, due to secularism most of the arts developed later did not have ideological considerations during design; for instance, those that were designed during Mannerism (16^th Century) and Baroque periods (17-18^th Century). Stiles and Selz (1996, 45) noted that “Mannerism, a reaction against the idealist perfection of Classicism, employed distortion of light and spatial frameworks in order to emphasize the emotional content of a painting and the emotions of the painter”. Paintings of the mannerism era lasted from 1508 up to the 17^th century when the Baroque style started replacing them. These arts were characterized by harmonious and realistic paintings which were styles in the baroque era. Leonardo Da Vinci and early Michelangelo were the most famous artists of the time. These artists employed intellectual skills and also artificial painting styles as opposed to natural styles.

Conclusion

This paper has found out that there were several changes in the design of arts in most of the early periods. Civilization and secularism were responsible factors for these changes. This was noted by Stiles and Selz (1996, 45) who argued that “artists therefore employed neoclassicism, romanticism, academism and realism in their work”.

Reference List

Arnold, Dana and Iverson, Margaret. 2003. Art and Thought. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Holly, Ann, and Moxey, Keith. 2002. Art History and Visual Studies. New York: Yale University Press.

Stiles, Kristine and Selz, Peter. 1996. Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art. Berkeley: University of California Press.