Art Isn't Just About Cutting Your Ears

The subject of art makes us imagine great painters who create great masterpieces before they cut one of their ears. Then there's another artist who painted a vastly lovely visual rendition of the Last Supper riddled with secret codes. Art seems so complex because some famous people who make art seem rather eccentric as most geniuses usually are.

Except perhaps for the first man who made the first art by drawing a picture of his favored cow or horse on a cave.The cave artist must have been down-to-earth, but despite the seeming evidence that he may not have been too brilliant at colors, he did create something also called art.

What is art? It is any work in any medium done with style. Style is subjective. It is the manner by which the work is portrayed

Indeed, there are different terms for "styles" but they can be simply defined---like "landscape", which means exactly that. Or "Figure in the landscape" which means someone or something in the landscape. There's also "figurative art" which means there's a figure and you can forget the landscape. "Portrait art" , which means a face."Still life" which means objects that are "just there"." Floral art " meaning flowers. "Illustration art" which tells us a tale. "Realism" which can be anything we've previously mentioned.

"Fantasy art" which tells shows us giants and sci-fic characters. "Abstract art" which looks like something rearrange or rather different, sometimes, strange except that it has some form. "Non-Objective" art which has no form and whatever you think of it, is acceptable.

"French Impressionism" is that made popular by artists such as Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Monet all painted different styles including landscape and floral. Now you see how all these terms now seem to make more sense? French Impressionism is any work that makes known what the artist feel. Another term for it is Romantic Art. Singer and Lyricist Don Maclean describes Impression or Romantic art this way in his song Vincent : " Flaming flowers that brightly blaze.. rugged men with ragged clothes.. silver thorn of bloody rose are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand". Now you GET the idea of Impressionism. It is a work that cries out out for attention.

Now a bit more complicated is explaining Fine Art which does not mean fine art, but rather, art created for aesthetic purposes.This excluded some other art forms such as craft work, weaving, textile colors and designs or anything that has a practical purpose.

Fine art is the kind that you display on your living room because it is supposed to be admired.

Contemporary art is the NOW art and those that have been made after World War II, like those that you find being sold by starving talented painters at Central Park or your collection of your daughter's paintings. They' re the here and now art -- and they can be tatooes, murals, sculptures, acoustics, junk and even software or computer art. The most expensive and famous pieces of contemporary art was that of Picasso.

Now, we can talk about a brief history of what we call art. Remember that caveman who first painted his cow?

He and those like him had to start "making art" because it was a means of telling others his ideas. Call it the need to communicate to another human being. That's art, and so it went through history that mankind needed to create something to express him/herself.

It could have been through a drawing, a song, written words, sculpture and later even through architecture. Art has always been humankind's manner of trying to get an important message to the rest. The Egyptian pyramids are a work of art, because the Pharoahs wanted to tell us that they were great and they existed. Thus, art doesn't mean only those museum masterpieces.

After the cavemen, there were the ancient Egyptians, Aztecs and the Incas who likewise left us their art, which was rather pleasantly more colorful than those left by the cavemen. There was Homer, a Greek poet who existed sometime in the 5th century and who made his mark by leaving us the story of the Battle of Troy. It is one of the best ancient written arts. The Greeks also left us the Parthenon which is the greatest form of architectural art. They also did leave us the Acropolis plus an assortment of sculptured odd looking figures - most of which they called "gods".

The Romans left us the same except that they seemed to have better materials and seemed to be much too fond of marble. Roman art left sculptures they also called " gods" which were basically looked like human beings created with wings, huge feet and hands, and other idealistic exaggerations. They were pretty great fantasy artists. Like the Greeks, they showed us what architectural art meant when they late built villas, the Coliseum, the Aqueducts and their public baths. What was distinctively Roman however, is their creation of arches in their houses.

After the time of Jesus, art showed the dominance of the Roman Church. Byzentine and Gothic art was in, which meant that most of the art works were about heaven and the angels. Gothic art started in the Middle Ages and were usually Christian sculptures, paintings, icons, and later Church stained glass paintings. During this period, it wasn't fashionable to be creating anything three dimensional. Why? Then, the material world wasn't deemed too important to waste "art" on. Much as the world was perceived as flat then, so was art. Literally.

Creativity was frozen in a time warp. And artists then meant only those who made icons and religious pieces.Making sculpture was "worldly". So was anything that had to to with anything on earth. These motifs were then deemed as sinful, earthly and carnal.

The art trend evolved as the Renaissance arrived. This meant that art became three dimensional once again, and that artists during that period again started to make sculptures of the human body, paintings of the real world, and realistically earthly lovely landscapes.

The Renaissance gave rise to a new collective mentally that heaven can wait, mankind is supposed to be rational. Also that there is that deep spiritual innate need of the human spirit to appreciate living, breathing, seeing every sunset or writing a poem about a rainbow.

At about the same, there was also Eastern art which was similar to the Western Medieval works except that it it was a bit more "loud" and seemed to emphasize color. Such was the art of China and India. Common themes were red dragons, lovely graceful ladies with more than two arms, peacocks with reptilian tails, huge women with the tiniest feet -- Eastern art was beautiful though a bit more surreal, even before surrealism was in vogue.

Now, everyone knows what Islamic art is which has no iconography because such is forbidden by their religion. Instead their art was (and is still is) religious ideas expressed through geometric designs. There was some paintings then though which expressed the Islamic religious theme which looked much like both Christian and Jewish religious paintings. If course, Islamic art also included architecture, such as the famous Mosque design.

As the Enlightenment was about to take place in the world and scientific discoveries shattered some religious myths, freedom of art reached its peak. Leonardo Da Vinci painted his Last Supper, Michelangelo created the Pietà at St. Peter Basilica, Rome, Parmigianino created his Madonna with the Long Neck. The Globe Theater in London was built and William Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet followed by Hamlet.

Later Realism and Impressionism became the trend. Victor Hugo wrote Les Misérables while Leo Tolstoy finished his novel War and Peace. Vincent van Gogh painted his first painting Cafe Terrace at Night after which the The Eiffel Tower was completed.

The 19th and 20th centuries was THE period of free art. "Anything goes", as far as art was concerned. This was the golden age of science, reason, and most important - freedom of thought and expression. Surrealism became a cultural movement that began in the early-1920s which meant any work that can surprise you. Thus a painting of a lady with no head beside a round elephant can be described as Surrealistic art. Most of these artists believed in something more extreme than Communism, called anarchism, and their sentiments were reflected in their works. Max Ernst's painting called " The Elephant Celebes" is a visual sample of such art.

This was the period when Virginia Wolf wrote Mrs Dalloway, Salvador Dalí completed The Great Masturbator and The Empire State Building in New York was built.

Art blossomed like never before as different artists came up with their subjective view of what they consider to be art.

Every new art however, had its appreciative audience. Pablo Picasso who invented his own type of art which really was "a mixture of all styles". Protest art was beginning to emerge. Anti-establishment paintings, sculptures and novels were written, feminism was taking over most of the western world. Modernity was never so modern.The Beatles reigned supreme as they expressed their art in songs that were extremely appreciated and lauded all over the world.

Suddenly, art was for everyone. Woodstock happened in protest against the Vietnam war and love and peace was the cry. Art was the peace sign pendants, the 60's to the 70's "sloppy" clothing fad, men wearing long hair, anti-war songs, free love, and anything anti-establishment symbols, sculptures, music and paintings. As the 21st century came along, so did the internet which has given rise to new art forms and mediums. There is now a new broad art spectrum called "digital arts". This covers everything from graphics,web designs, anime, video creation, and even gaming.

Today,art is anything that you like-- an expression of your preference.

Sotheby's knew that when it sold Picasso's Dora Maar au Chat for USD $95.2 million in 2006. If you have time, take a peek at that painting. THAT is one piece that tells you that art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder indeed.

Indeed,art is the witness to human history.