Understanding Art
Art is anything that people add to their 'output' which is not functionally necessary and is other than the default properties of that output. The word "art" has been derived from the Latin word 'ars', which, loosely translated, means "arrangement" or "to arrange". This is the only universal definition of art, that whatever it is was at some point arranged in some way. There are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymological roots. This word comes from the Greek technic meaning art.
Art and science are usually treated diagonally opposite to each other. While science means some phenomenon resulting in truth, which is objective in nature. In other words, scientific findings can be repeated under the same set of circumstances anywhere in the world at any given point of time. The same cannot be said of art. Art, on the other hand is purely subjective in nature. Take for example, a painting - while one calls it a masterpiece, the same feelings cannot be expected from other individuals.
Art can roughly be divided into two, namely philosophical art and aesthetic art. The philosophical type of art involves human figures for some purposeful actions. In other words, philosophical art depicts human condition.
Aesthetic art, on the other hand, shows the perceived frame of mind. Two examples will help illustrate these two points of view - a Mona Lisa painting is philosophical art, while a demon being killed by a super human is aesthetic. These two categories are also called classical and modern art respectively.
There are other ways of classifying art - major among them being architecture, design, painting, music, drawing, literature, performing art, etc. While these have been (and still are) traditional forms of art performed by human kind, newer forms of art have emerged with the advent of technology. Some of the later era art forms are games, animation, movie, computer art, shooting, etc.
Two of the most researched areas of interest to artists, critiques and archaeologists has been the art movement (or art history) and art school. An art movement is a typical style or tendency in art with a specific common philosophy, followed by a group of artists during a restricted period of time (which ranges from a few months to years or decades). Art school is any educational institute offering education to its students on various forms of art.
The birth of art gave rise to another group of individuals - art critics. Art critics study and evaluate a piece of art. Their main purpose is to rationalize the evaluation of art, and ridding of any personal opinion affecting the work of art. Art criticism today deploys systematic and formal methods to evaluate the piece of art.
Museums are known to nurture and store work of arts across the world. Early era museums were patronized by the then kings and emperors. Today these are maintained by governments or private trusts with or without public money. Three major museum institutes are British Museum, Museum of Modern Art, New York and Galerie des Offices in France.
A clear distinction between art and science is that the latter is .
'Drawing' can be defined as a form of art.
An art movement is defined by its .
The period of time an art movement covers considerably.
An art critic different systems in their evaluations of art.
Museums today are sometimes financed by bodies.