What Is Art?

To first define if games are indeed art I have to find out what is art itself and suitable definition of all types of art such as, paintings,drawings,sculptures and also film and music.The most common thought of art is that it renaissance paintings, such of those of Da Vinci.But art is ever changing, the first known “art” as it were caveman paintings such as the one below[1], These early pieces of works used the methods of finger painting into soft clay of the rock they only had used 3 colours to create these works, red was made by using iron oxide from the rocks and also manganese dioxide, by using the simplest technology they stil managed to create works of art that can be understood and appreciated by people today.

The technologies advanced far past this first art , to create new pieces of art by using the technology of watercolours,oil paintings,sculpture. The Greeks used many different types of materials in their sculptures including stone, marble and limestone as these were abundant in Greece. Other materials such as clay were also used but due to their brittle nature very few have survived. Greek sculptures are very important as the vast majority of them tell us a story about Gods, Heroes, Events, Mythical Creatures and Greek culture in general.[2] Art of around these era’s including medieval art and the renaissance , used art as a form to show the culture of that particular time, it was also for the very rich such as kings and governors who were depicted heavily in art of this time.

 [3]                  [4]

Since then art has become more mainstream and also available for all types of people not just the rich, but the rich still most only own the art.Modern art still perceives the culture of the times and the processes used for sculpture , paintings still seem most unchanged, just new techniques are created and the technologies advanced.The first of these is the rise of the camera/photography, artists used to draw/paint the portraits of people of the time , but that is no longer the case as camera’s can take a picture in less than 1 second, which takes an artist weeks to complete,this made portrait art out of date and so they created new styles of art such as Abstract art, to do what the camera could not.With in mind , the use of computers in art using programs, such as Adobe Photoshop or Coreal Painter has made abstraction out of date, but with this matter, you can paint whole portraits within these programs much in the way of classical art but without picking up a paintbrush, or spending money on canvas’s , does that make Photoshop creations not count as art? As it is not real infront of you , but then you can print them off and hang them in frames similar to classic art, but the art world seems to think these are false.Is it because of the fact of the “One Off” of classic art, but this could also be applied to digital art, deleting the file after the piece has been printed for the canvas.
Digital art in all forms uses the same fundamentals as classic art,colour theory,composition and techniques, sculpture programs use the same process as classical statues, adding basic shape and then add details to create the final piece.Perhaps it’s the way that by using the technologie of a computer that makes it seem void as art, because its easily editable, that mistakes can be taken away easily.To me digital art is the new media to use for art , its just a technological advancement much to how the media’s and supplies used to create classical art has changed over the centuries to what it is now.

[1] Caveman Painting.[2006][Online Image].
Avaliable from: http://www.salamiran.org/content/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=166&Itemid=252
[Accessed January 6th 2010]
[2] Author Unknown [n.d]Greek Sculpture[Internet], Available from:< http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/Art/> [Accessed January 6th 2010]
[3] Hans The Younger Holbein.[1540] Portrait of Henry VIII[Oil Painting on Panel].Held at Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome.
[4] Phidias [Circa 432 BC] Statue of Zeus at Olympia [Ivory and Gold-Plated Bronze] Held at Temple of Zeus,Olympia,Greece.