Concept in Definition ABC

Art is the set of disciplines that are oriented to an expressive and aesthetic purpose. While it is true that a large number of human activities are related to the ability to expression and aesthetics, only in art these characteristics are presented as meaning and reason for being. It is also true that the concept of aesthetics has been widely debated, but was never definitively eliminated.

Although the concept of art is usually associated with that of a developed culture, the truth is that since the beginnings of humanity artistic expressions can be found, which is why we suppose that the vocation expressive is innate to the human race. Continuing with this idea, it is possible to find cave paintings that prehistoric men used and that tell us in their own way the vicissitudes of their daily lives. This form of expression that today we call rock art, is one of the first recorded of our passage through the world. Thus, these cave paintings would be the most primitive antecedent of everything that we would consider today art: they not only amount to ancient forms of painting, but are also part of the narrative,

graph in this case, of stories that involve other people or even animals.

Now, according to more modern criteria, it is possible segment the art sphere in particular disciplines. Thus, art would be composed of various activities, among which the architecture, which is dedicated to building of buildings; dance, which consists of the execution of movements of the body to the sound of a rhythm; the sculpture, which is oriented to molding and carving various figures; the music, which organizes sounds and silences harmoniously; painting, which is the graphic representation by means of pigments; and finally, the literature, which uses the use of the word. There are those who also attach great importance to cinematography and photography.

In the case of architecture, and sculpture, they were the two that first developed magnificently. Consider the Egyptian, Greek or Roman palaces, to name just a few examples of the great empires in the history of mankind. Or, for example, in the Vatican itself, the Holy See of the Catholic religion. Then, the painting enjoyed a great heyday during the Renaissance period, and at the dawn of the Middle Ages. The great painters that we recognize today as the masters of this branch of art, created their magnificent works during this time. Da Vinci, Boticcelli, Michelangelo, are just some of them, and they also had the arduous task of making paintings on church domes, cathedrals, and religious frescoes on their walls.

The literature it clearly benefited from Johannes Gutenberg's invention: the movable type printing press. From that moment, literature would then have a greater scope, perhaps not massive, but to a great extent. scale, since the books could be reproduced in a much more limited time.

Of all the branches of art previously exposed, perhaps literature and music (cinematography also in the case that it is considered within the “art”), they are those that have had a much more massive diffusion than the other How is this massiveness measured? Both are produced by the market and are part of what we call “cultural industries”: books or CDs are they manufacture, they are produced on a large scale, and without differentiating one from another, in the same way that stairs are produced, sets of sheets or chairs. They are no longer the products of an author, unique and original, but rather mass-produced for the general public. In addition, the market indicates them as successes or failures, and everything in relation to the sale, to the number of copies of that work that have been sold. Examples of this are the best seller lists, in the case of books; and in the case of music, there are the musical rankings of radio stations.

Despite these limited approximations, it must be taken into account that the concept art is far from closed, being able to find other variants and reflections around it. The truth is that beyond all discrepancies, the works that countless artists bequeathed to us make our existence more enjoyable.

Themes in Artist