por What is beautiful art?
He beautiful art It is the one that is considered beautiful in view of the beholder. On the contrary, useful art is the one that is based on activities with applications, such as production, musical instruments, clothing, among others.
Talking about beautiful art seems redundant, but this is not necessarily the case, because not everything we call art today can be described as beautiful, although for a long time art and beauty have been intimately related concepts.
Currently the definition of art goes far beyond beauty, trying to encompass everything that moves human beings emotionally and intellectually, in their senses, but also in their intellect; while the beautiful continues to be associated with what is pleasing to the senses.
Art and beauty have been the object of reflection for humans for a long time, proof of this is the existence of a branch of philosophy exclusively dedicated to the relationship between these two concepts: aesthetics.
Aesthetics was initially defined as «the science of beauty», because its main object was linked to the study of «fine arts». Currently it has been extended to the study of perception in general.
Origin of fine art
Beauty has been defined as the quality of a person, object or phenomenon that, when perceived through the senses, produces pleasant or pleasant sensations. Being so, we can ensure that our sense of beauty is prior to the appearance of art.
The view of a landscape, sunsets and sunrises, certain human features and proportions, are part of our perception of beauty in everyday life, and it is natural that we have tried to reproduce it through art.
Although the history of art usually begins with cave paintings and megalithic monuments, these manifestations did not have an artistic function, but a magical or religious one, and they were not intended to reflect the beauty of an animal or enhance a landscape.
This search for beauty in architecture, sculpture and painting appears with the rise of the first cities in Mesopotamia, 5,000 years ago. But the concern and reflection for the beautiful in life and in art did not develop until the appearance of Greek culture and its fullness in the fifth and fourth centuries BC.
The three great Greek philosophers, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, will reflect on what is beautiful in life and in art. However, aesthetics as one of the branches of philosophy did not emerge until the eighteenth century AD, by the German thinker Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714-1762), who coined the term in 1735, in his Philosophical reflections about poetry.
Characteristics of beautiful art
It is harmonious and balanced
In the West, art is considered beautiful when it is harmonious and balanced, that is, when it responds to certain measures and proportions to which we have become accustomed since the 4th century BC, based on the beauty criteria proposed by Greek artists and thinkers. and romans.
It is a cultural concept
The concept of beauty is culturally relative, as different cultures have different visions of what a «beautiful» shape is. This cultural notion is evident in the differences between Western music and that of China or India, for example.
It is historical
The concept of beauty can also vary in the same culture over time. For example, what was considered beautiful in ancient European art changed during the Middle Ages, returned during the Renaissance, and took new forms during modern times.
It is visual and auditory
When we talk about beautiful art, we refer especially to visual and auditory forms, that is, to architecture, sculpture, painting, literature and music. It is not usual to use the term beautiful to refer to flavors and smells.
The ideal and the real
Frequently what is considered beautiful art imitates and stylizes natural forms, searching for the perfect image, while the real tends to identify itself with the imperfect. The search for realism in art has been partly the fight against these idealized forms of nature and the human being.
The beautiful Arts
Although the term «fine arts» originates from the 18th century, it was inspired by the Greek muses. The fine arts would come to be architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry (literature), theater and dance, to which cinema and photography were later added.
art and artifacts
The notion of artistic beauty has been extended to works that did not initially have an aesthetic purpose, such as temples, magical images, ritual masks or cave paintings. Everyday objects such as amphoras or goblets have been invested with aesthetic value by historians, travelers and ethnographers.
Authors and works
Miron (5th century BC)
Originally from Eleutheras, on the border between Attica and Boeotia, he was a sculptor and bronzer, and although he made figures of gods and mythological figures, he is especially recognized for the figures of athletes, of which the Discobolusan example of a perfect human body, in motion and with tense muscles.
This sculpture, which is currently preserved in marble and originally had to be cast in bronze, is considered a representative of early Athenian classical art.
Phidias (500 BC-431 BC)
He is considered the most famous sculptor of ancient Greece, author of the statues of Zeus in Olympia (seen as one of the seven wonders of Antiquity) and of Athena Parthenos on the Acropolis of Athens.
Critics and historians believe that Phidias was also the one who conceived the design for the Parthenon, even though it was built by the architects Ictinus and Callicrates. The Parthenon is the most famous temple of Antiquity, and an example of the Greek concept of beauty applied to architecture.
Notre Dame Cathedral (Paris, France, 1163-1345)
During the Middle Ages, Western culture was decidedly marked by the values of Christianity, reflected in the construction of the great European cathedrals. One of the most beautiful and well-known is the Notre Dame Cathedral, an architectural expression of the Gothic style.
Notre Dame, the work of anonymous craftsmen and builders, is an example of the relationship between the beautiful and the sacred.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
This Italian Renaissance sage, pioneer and innovator in different artistic, technical and scientific branches, is the author of the most famous painting of all time, the portrait of Lisa Gherardini, known worldwide as the Giocondawave Mona Lisa.
The painting represents a young woman with a mysterious smile, and as such is a reflection of Renaissance ideals of beauty. In contrast to Greek ideals, Leonardo’s painting reveals a more earthy ideal of beauty.
Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851)
Beauty in art is a changing concept, and it is something that can be seen in the growing interest of human beings in reflecting different aspects of nature, landscapes and different forms of light in their works.
The English painter Joseph Mallord William Turner was a master landscape painter and an explorer of the effects of light on the landscape, as can be seen in paintings such as The last trip of the “Temerario”either Rain, steam and speed.
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)
Like Turner, the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh is considered an explorer of the effects of light on the landscape, albeit from a more objective point of view. Van Gogh is considered a post-impressionist painter, and his vision of beauty is closer to the contemporary gaze than to the classical or Renaissance vision, as can be seen in his Jug with twelve sunflowers.
References
Is art beautiful? Taken from lapiedradesisifo.com.
What is beautiful art? Taken from crituradelarte.com.
What is Art and/or What is Beauty? Taken from philosophynow.org.