Understanding the 8 Art Forms

Art in any form is an expression of human creativity and imagination. Art is generally categorized into the 8 different art forms. Recognizing and understanding each of the distinct art forms not only enables us to enjoy art more, but it also helps us to make informed decisions about the artworks we wish to purchase.

Painting

Painting is what most people think of when we think of art. It is a form of expressing artistic vision using paint as the primary medium. Paint mediums used in painting are generally oil, acrylic, or watercolor, but pigments, dyes, and inks can also mediums used when painting. The application of these paint mediums can take many forms; it can be brushed on, smeared, dabbed, or splashed. Paintings are classified by both the subject matter, style, and genre. Painting subjects usually fall into still life, landscape, seascape, portraiture, or abstract. There are many painting styles, including modernist, expressionist, classical, surreal, cubist, abstract, and impressionist styles. Many of today’s best-known contemporary artists work in this medium.

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional art made by one of four basic processes: carving, modelling, casting, or constructing. Classical sculptors mostly favoured carving and casting techniques, using marble and bronze. Many of the most well-known sculptures in the world, such as ‘David’, used these materials. Modern sculptors have almost any object at their disposal to create a sculpture, including metals, plastics, glass, ceramics, and even discarded objects.

Photography

The word photography literally means ‘drawing with light’, which is derived from the Greek word: ‘photo’. Photographs are recognised as art because photographs, like paintings, are artificially constructed portrayals, because they too must be carefully composed, lit, and produced. The advent of digital photography, which was invented in the 1950’s and accelerated by the introduction of commercially available digital cameras in the 1990’s, has led to the rise of digital prints. These prints are created from stored graphic formats and can then be printed by selecting and using one of a wide range of printer types. Inkjet printers are a popular printer type and prints that are produced by such a printer are commonly called ‘giclée’ prints.

Digital art

Digital art is a term first coined in the eighties with the advance of computers and is used to describe art that is made using digital technology. Digital art can be computer generated, scanned or drawn using a computer. Although there was resistance to this artform at first, there seems to be a strong consensus within the digital art community that it has vastly expanded the ‘creative sphere’ and that it has greatly broadened the creative opportunities available to professional and non-professional artists alike. As such, digital art has had an impact on painting, drawing, sculpture and even interactive art experiences.

Drawing

Drawing is one of the oldest forms of human expression within the visual arts. It is essentially a technique where images are depicted on a surface by making lines. Ink, pencil, crayon, charcoal and chalk are the most commonly used materials, but drawings can also be made in combination with paint and most other media. The wide availability of drawing instruments makes drawing one of the most common artistic activities. There are several categories of drawing, including figure drawing, cartooning, doodling, and freehand. There are also many drawing methods, such as line drawing, stippling, shading, and tracing. Drawing is often exploratory and is regularly used in preparation for a painting. Drawings created for these purposes are called studies.

Ceramic

Ceramics is a hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant material made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, non-metallic material, such as clay. The word "ceramic" comes from the old Greek word ‘keramikos’ meaning ‘for pottery’. Hence, there is a long history of ceramic art in almost all developed cultures of the world. In fact, ceramic objects are often all the artistic evidence left from vanished cultures. Ceramics can be used to create a wide range of objects and can take various forms, including tableware, tiles, figurines, and other types of sculpture.

Collage

Collage is derived from the French word ‘coller’, which means to glue or stick together. It describes both the technique and the resulting work of art in which pieces of paper, photographs, fabric, and other materials are arranged and stuck down onto a supporting surface. Collage can also include other media, such as painting and drawing. The origins of collage can be traced back hundreds of years, but this technique has made a dramatic reappearance in the 20th century as a legitimate art form.

Mosaic

Mosaic involves the decoration of a surface with designs made up of variously coloured, small pieces of materials, such as stone, glass, tile, marble or shell, that are held in place by plaster or mortar to a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration and were particularly popular in the Ancient Roman world. Today, mosaics have developed into a popular art. While ancient mosaics tended to be architectural, modern mosaics are found covering everything from park benches and to guitars. In styles that owe as much to videogame pixel art and pop culture as to traditional mosaic, street art has seen a novel reinvention and expansion of mosaic artwork.