William Turner. Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway (1844)
Painting, sculpture, architecture, music, literature, theatre, dance, photography, film… all of these artistic expressions are different facets of the arts, many ways of explaining and understanding the reality of each historical period. And so, from the beginning of humanity (in the pre-historic age, over 75,000 years ago) until contemporary times, art has been one of the most important kinds of human expression, communication and entertainment between people as well as societies. Through art, people have expressed their feelings, thoughts, emotions, beliefs, dreams, wisdom and concerns. Art has helped humanity to teach and share knowledge, being an essential factor for the diffusion and development of most of the world’s religions because it has ritualistic and symbolic functions. Not only has art been related with religion but also with all the transformations that have taken place throughout the various historical periods: art has been used for publishing political thoughts and for promoting and consolidating political changes, for reflecting the methods of punishment of the governments around the world, for showing the people the greatness of some of their political, spiritual, philosophical and religious leaders and even for healing and psychological purposes. Art also can improve one’s sense of aesthetic beauty, as it explores the nature of perception to generate any kind of emotion; and so each literary and philosophical current has had a different conception of the meaning and the scope of art, according the background of its artistic thought.
Art has focused its emphasis differently in each historical period: Greek art gave importance to the study of the human physique; in the Byzantine and Medieval periods, art focused on the expression of Biblical and religious thought; in the Renaissance, the emphasis was on the realistic description of the world, the corporeality of the human body and the development of three-dimensional pictorial space; in the 18th century, artists focused on the study of the universe, revolutionary visions of political ideas, geometry and propaganda; after the emergence artistic movements such as Symbolism, Fauvism and Impressionism in the late 19th century, the first half of the 20th century was distinguished by research into new types of art, which consolidated artistic movements like Impressionism and Fauvism and led to others such as Surrealism, Expressionism, Cubism and Dadaism; finally, in the second half of the 20th century, Modernism rose in importance. Furthermore, there has been a huge influence from other cultures (African, Japanese, South American…) that have promoted the expansion of mixed artistic styles, something very common nowadays. Thus, art has evolved from producing the necessities and mainstays of life to being considered as creative, something that can be expressed by artist’s creativity whose finality is to engage the aesthetic sensibilities of the audience.
Not only has the conception of art changed through these periods but also the way that art can be enjoyed and understood. Public access to art has changed from ancient civilizations until now. Although there was a time in which art was principally the domain of rich and powerful people (as materials were expensive), there have been many historical periods in which art was not only restricted to a social elite but widely used by all social classes (including the poor and the middle class) because it was identified with ordinary element such as pottery, textiles, woodcuts, cylinder seals, coins, printed books and illustrations… Public monuments and religious temples were usually free because these structures were built to be used and displayed to the general public, especially in the case of religious buildings like churches, cathedrals, mosques, temples, sanctuaries and synagogues. Another way of discovering and enjoying art was paying a small price to visit palaces, royal castles, mansions… and the art collections that they held. From the 18th century to the present day, governments and cities have made efforts to allow people access to many of the most famous royal and private collections of painting and sculpture in the world; to implement that action and to facilitate the development of such initiatives, the governments of each country have provided public buildings for these art collections. Some of the buildings that have been transformed into galleries and museums are the British Museum, the Prado Museum, the Uffizi Gallery and the Louvre Museum.
Tim Noble and Sue Webster. HE/SHE, (Diptych) 2004
The need to make art available to everyone has been one of the most important objectives of these first years of the 21st century. Thus, one of the main aims of museums around the world has been the digitalization of art; namely, to offer art to everyone through the Internet. To do this, many museums have added to their websites the option of visiting their artworks digitally. This is usually done in two ways: directly accessing every painting and sculpture of the museum’s collection or taking a virtual tour by their galleries. In both we have the option of reading about the author, with technical information and explanations of every artwork included on the site. One of the biggest collections of digital artwork on the internet is the Google Art Project, an initiative born in February 2011 that presents high-resolution images of artwork collections exhibited in many governmental institutions (Palazzo Vecchio Museum, Princeton University Art Museum…), art galleries (Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of Ontario…), foundations (Fundación Banco Santander, Fondazione Musei Senesi…) and in the world’s most famous museums (Tate Britain, MOMA, Uffizi Gallery, Prado Museum, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Musée du Louvre, Musée d’Orsay…) as well as virtual tours of the galleries they’re in. Besides this, visitors can add comments to every artwork and customize their own collections. The platform features more than 36,000 artworks from 184 museums in 40 countries and is updating and adding more museums and art galleries continually.
Life is evolving and art is an important element of life. Therefore, the evolution of art through the digitalization of artworks is an interesting (and cheap) way to access, understand and enjoy art. Let’s get to know it and benefit from it!
Uinen
Excellent post! Thanks for the great links!!
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