What Kinds Of Works Are Considered Both Painting And Sculpture?

Types of Art
Categories, Forms and Classification of Visual Craft.
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Nationale Nederlanden Building,
Prague."The Dancing House". An
iconic example of Deconstructivism,
a style of contemporary architecture
pioneered by Frank O. Gehry.

DEFINITION OF VISUAL Fine art
Ever since the controversial works of Marcel Duchamp, avant-garde artists accept been pushing the boundaries of their profession to breaking betoken. Installations, establish-objects, conceptual works, and flick, are just some of the media which have been employed to broaden the contemporary aesthetic. A flattened motor auto has been presented as an important work of assemblage art; a expressionless shark has been pickled and turned into an installation; a "human skull" has been 'recreated', studded with precious jewels and turned into a piece of gimmicky sculpture; and, to cap it all, an exhibition of contemporary fine art opened terminal year at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, consisting of 8 empty rooms.
Art Evaluation: How to Appreciate Art.

Basic Definitions of Art

• Art: Definition and Meaning
The meaning of beauty and art is explored in the co-operative of philosophy called aesthetics. For more than definitions, run across the following:
• Fine Art
Includes: drawing, painting, sculpture and printmaking.
• Visual Art
Includes: fine arts, certain gimmicky arts (eg. installation, functioning) and decorative arts.
• Decorative Art
Broadly synonymous with crafts. See too: Arts and Crafts Movement.
• Applied Art
Includes: architecture, industrial-design, style/effects-design, interior-design etc.
• Crafts
Broadly synonymous with decorative arts. See also: Feminist Fine art (1970s).
• Fine art Glossary
Explanation of all basic terms.

IMPORTANCE OF Drawing
E'er since the Rock Age, painters have been forced to move with the times. Prehistoric artists painted with lumpy pigment crayons and pads of moss, before upgrading to brushes made of vegetable fibre and creature hair. For colour pigments they used three varieties of clay ochre, (ruddy, yellow and dark-brown), and charcoal for black. By the fourth dimension of the Middle Ages, artists had developed both encaustic and egg-tempera painting methods, and were soon to explore the lustrous advantages of oils. New colour pigments came and went, as did a serial of pigment containers and colour charts. Lastly, during the 1940s - almost 32 Millennia since the first cave paintings - chemists devised fast-drying acrylic paints. Merely despite all these developments in the fine art of painting, painters nonetheless had to draw their ain images. Now, things are changing.

Digital and calculator art is upon us, which ways that anyone with any proficiency in software design programs can produce a drawing at the drop of a lid. And life drawing is now seen by many every bit an old-fashioned and unnecessary waste product of time. Unfortunately, when artists stop learning how to draw, figurative art flies out the window, and video fine art takes over.

NON-REPRESENTATIONAL Art
The ongoing debate nigh "What constitutes art?" is not a lilliputian squabble between dessicated academics. Information technology's an important cultural issue for huge numbers of people. For example, as more activities become accepted as "fine art", then these activities observe their way into the curricula of our best fine art schools, sometimes with unfortunate results. Last year, I visited a Graduate Evidence staged by ane of Ireland'southward elevation fine art colleges. Out of many hundred exhibits, I was impressed by the artistic merits of perhaps iii works - two of which were by the same artist! Most of the other works, which were virtually all abstract, seemed to me to exist sloppily executed, and lacking whatsoever creative impact - a fairly dire matter to say about such a major showcase of immature talent. Manifestly the show's organizers thought differently, so maybe my sense of aesthetic appreciation has deserted me. Either that, or else it's a sobering example of The Emperor's New Clothes.

HOW TO EVALUATE Fine art
Every attempt to define "good" art is doomed to frustration. Allowing the free market to make up one's mind may audio reasonable, except that auction prices identify Damien Hirst as the best always British artist, which sounds a bit dodgy. Besides, there are hundreds of night, uninteresting simply mega-valuable Sometime Principal paintings quietly deteriorating in museums around the world, whose budgetary value bears no relation to their "beauty". Every bit for the so-called "priceless" Greek sculptures in the Louvre - the 1-armed, one-legged, no-head variety, similar the Venus di Milo - would y'all desire any of them in your sitting room? I dubiousness it. The lesson? Expensive art isn't always good art. Okay, and so how else can we make up one's mind what constitutes a worthy artwork? How about letting the Arts Council decide? Err, no thanks. Nosotros practise that already, and it's a disaster. A commission of contained critics? Hmm, perhaps not: look what happened to the Turner prize. Is subject matter a guide? For instance, is representational or figurative art meliorate than abstraction? No. Some of the well-nigh cute decorative works are completely devoid of recognizable features, while a superrealist painting or sculpture can sometimes go out united states cold. The truth is, "adept" or "beautiful" art is practically indefinable. Arguably, its existence hinges on a magical combination of shape and colour, which cannot be pre-selected, otherwise Volkswagen would industry it.

Fine art HAS RARITY VALUE ONLY
Every so oft we hear that a painting or cartoon past some famous creative person has been bought at Sotheby's or Christie'south for $10 meg or maybe $50 million. A recent example was the $100 million paid for a screenprint (Eight Elvises) by Andy Warhol. Did the news make us asphyxiate over our breakfast? Probably not. After all, people exercise pay huge prices for rare objects. Still, it's very disruptive, because information technology gives the impression that a painting has an objective or intrinsic value, sometimes reaching into the millions. Simply the truth is, a painting has no intrinsic value - only rarity. Fifty-fifty its dazzler or aesthetic appeal can exist acquired by buying a print, at a fraction of the toll of the original. When it comes to a Monet, a Van Gogh or a Titian, none of this matters because the rarity value justifies a hefty price-tag, just when it comes to works of art by ordinary mortals, beware! - the $twenty,000 cost-tag for the work of an established minor artist can include a large "style" premium, that can disappear overnight. All this explains why the contemporary art market has nosedived, while demand for rare Old Masters and Moderns remains comparatively buoyant.

SEPARATION OF ARTS & CRAFTS
"Fine art", traditionally the premier form of visual creativity, is supposedy a drawing-based acivity, practised mainly for its aesthetic value ("fine art for art'due south sake") rather than its functionality. In dissimilarity, the second-class category, known as "decorative art" (the new give-and-take for crafts), refers to things like ceramics, tapestry, enamelling, metalwork, stained glass, textiles, and others, which are deemed to be ornamental or decorative, rather than intellectual or spiritual. And then to recap: arts are beautiful useless things that elevate the senses - example, the Mona Lisa; whereas crafts prettify functional objects - example, a tea cup with a handpainted design. I don't know which painter/sculptor or government ceremonious servant beginning proposed this absurd distinction, but it lingers on in all its ugly illogicality. Take architecture, for instance. This has e'er been regarded equally a fine art, despite being the ultimate example of utility - only inquire whatever architect. Advertising posters by the likes of (say) Toulouse Lautrec and Alphonse Mucha are also seen equally fine art, despite being the apotheosis of decorative functionalism. On the other hand, a beautiful tapestry or stained glass window is regarded as mere ornamentalism, irrespective of the caste of artistic designwork and craftsmanship involved. And if you think all this is pointless and confusing, look till you run into "applied art", a term which is at present used to describe a more than blueprint-oriented category of decorative art.

A-Z Types of Fine art

• Animation Fine art
Derived from the Latin pregnant "to exhale life into", animation is the visual art of creating a motility picture show from a series of still drawings. Among the great twentieth century animators are J. Stuart Blackton, George McManus, Max Fleischer, and Walt Disney.
• Architecture
All-time understood every bit the applied fine art of building design. Historically has exerted significant influence on the development of fine art, through architectural styles similar Gothic, Baroque and Neoclassical. For the origins of skyscraper design, come across: 19th Century Architecture; for its characteristics and evolution, encounter: Skyscraper Architecture (1850-present); for technical details, see: Chicago School of Architecture; for historical context, see: American Architecture (1600-present).
• Fine art Brut
Painting, cartoon, sculpture past artists on the margin of order, or in mental hospitals, or children. (English language category is Outsider art.)
• Assemblage Fine art
A gimmicky form of sculpture, comparable to collage, in which a work of art is congenital up or "assembled" from 3-D materials - typically "plant" objects.
• Trunk Art
One of the oldest (and newest) forms - includes body painting and face painting, as well every bit tattoos, mime, "living statues" and (almost recently) "performances" past artists like Marina Abramovic and Carole Schneemann.
• Calligraphy
This art, practised widely in the Far East and among Islamic artists, is regarded by the Chinese as the highest form of fine art.
• Ceramics
A type of plastic fine art, ceramics refers to items fabricated from clay and baked in a kiln. Run into aboriginal pottery from Communist china and Greece, beneath. Two of the foremost European ceramicists are the English creative person Bernard Howell Leach (1887-1979), and the Frenchman Camille Le Tallec (1908-91).
• Christian Art
This is mostly Biblical Art, or at to the lowest degree works derived from the Bible. It includes Protestant Reformation art and Catholic Counter-Reformation art, as well every bit Jewish themes. See also: Early Christian sculpture and also: Early Christian Art.
• Collage
Composition consisting of various materials like paper cuttings, cardboard, photos, fabrics and the like, pasted to a lath or canvass. May be combined with painting or drawings.
• Figurer Art
All calculator-generated forms of fine or practical art, including computer-controlled types. Also known as Digital, Cybernetic or Internet art.
• Conceptual Art
A contemporary art course that places primacy on the concept or thought behind a work of fine art, rather than the work itself. Leading conceptual artists include: Allan Kaprow (b.1927), and Joseph Beuys (1921-86) the erstwhile Professor of Awe-inspiring Sculpture at the Dusseldorf Academy, whose dedication earned him a retrospective at the Samuel R Guggenheim Museum (New York).
• Design (Artistic)
This refers to the plan involved in creating something co-ordinate to a fix of aesthetics. Examples of artistic design movements include: Art Nouveau, Art Deco, De Stijl, Bauhaus, Ulm Pattern School and Postmodernism.
• Drawing
A drawing can exist a complete piece of work, or a type of preparatory sketching for a painting or sculpture. A central issue in fine art concerns the relative importance of drawing (line) versus colour.
- chalk
- charcoal
- conte crayon
- pastel
- pen and ink
- pencil
For a selection of the greatest sketches past some of the finest draftsmen in history, please see: All-time Drawings of the Renaissance (1400-1550).
• Folk Fine art
More often than not crafts and commonsensical applied arts made by rural artisans.
• French Furniture
The greatest furniture was created during the 17th/18th centuries by French Designers at the Royal Courtroom, in the Louis Quatorze, Quinze and Seize styles. For a short guide, come across: French Decorative Arts (1640-1792).
• Graffiti Art
Contemporary form of street aerosol spray painting which emerged in East Coast American cities during the late 1960s/early 1970s. Famous graffiti artists include Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-88), Keith Haring (1958-ninety) and Banksy.
• Graphic Art
Types of visual expression defined more past line and tone (disegno), rather than color (colorito). Includes cartoon, cartoons, extravaganza art, comic strips, illustration, animation and calligraphy, equally well as all forms of traditional printmaking. Also includes postmodernist styles of word art (text-based graphics).
• Icons (Icon Painting)
Ranks alongside mosaic art as the about popular type of Eastern Orthodox religious art. Closely associated with Byzantine art, and afterwards, Russian icon painters.
• Illuminated Manuscripts
This principally refers to religious texts (Christian, Islamic, Jewish) embellished with figurative illustrations and/or abstract geometric designs, exemplified by Volume of Kells.
• Installation
A new category of contemporary art, which employs various 2-D and iii-D materials to create a particular space designed to make an touch on the viewer/company. Turner Prize Winner Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin are famous installation artists.
• Illustration
A form of painting, drawing or other graphic art which explains, clarifies, pictorializes or decorates written text.
• Jewellery Art
Practised past goldsmiths, also every bit other chief-craftsmen like silversmiths, gemologists, diamond cutters/setters and lapidaries.
• Junk Art
Artworks made from ordinary, everyday materials, or "constitute objects", of which Marcel Duchamp's "readymades" are a sub-category. Typically includes 3-D works like sculpture, assemblage, collage or installations.
• State Fine art
A relatively new category of contemporary art, besides chosen Earth fine art, digging, or Environmental art, it was led by Robert Smithson (1938-73), and emerged in America during the 1960s as a reaction confronting the commercial art world.
• Metalwork Art
Embraces goldsmithing, the fashioning of precious metals into objets d'fine art, as well equally enamelwork techniques like cloisonné, plique-a-jour, champlevé, and encrusted enamelling. Run into: Celtic Metalwork. For more modern works, see likewise: Fabergé Easter Eggs.
• Mosaic Art
An aboriginal art form, developed by Ancient Greek and Byzantine artists, which creates pictorial designs out of glass tesserae. For its high betoken during the Middle Ages, encounter: Ravenna Mosaics (c.400-600) and Christian Byzantine Art (c.400-1200).
• Outsider Fine art
Artworks by painters/sculptors outside mainstream civilization; may be mentally sick, or untutored and uneducated: (French equivalent is Art Brut).
• Painting
Since classical antiquity the highest form of Western art, painting has been dominated by Renaissance-style "Bookish Art". Until the invention of pre-mixed paints and the collapsible pigment tube in the mid-19th century, painters had to create their own colour pigments from natural plants and metallic compounds. Run into colour in painting. Famous painting movements or schools include: Early/HighRenaissance, Mannerism, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Post Impressionism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Op-Art, Pop Art, Minimalism, Photorealism, and others.
- acrylics
- encaustic painting
- fresco painting
- gouache
- ink and wash
- nail art
- oils
- miniature painting
- console painting
- tempera painting
- watercolours
- and more
• Performance Fine art (and Happenings)
A 20th century fine art form involving a live performance by the artist before an audience. The class was explored and developed by exponents of Futurism, Constructivism, Dada, Surrealism and afterward contemporary art movements.
• Photography
A 20th century medium by which the artist captures pictorial images on film as opposed to the traditional fine art supports of canvas, newspaper or board. New computer software graphics programs have created new opportunities for editing and prototype manipulation. See also: Is Photography Art? Foremost amongst exponents of photographic art is the American Ansel Adams, a fellow of the American University of Arts and Sciences, a Guggenheim swain and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, noted for his black-and-white photographs of the American Westward. The leading contemporary Irish lens-based artist is Victor Sloan (b.1945).
• Poster Art
Peaked during the French Belle Epoque and the Art Nouveau era.
• Archaic Art
Associated with Aboriginal, African, Oceanic and other tribal cultures; also embraces Outsider art.
• Printmaking
The process of making original prints by pressing an inked block or plate onto a receptive support surface, typically newspaper. Among great modern exponents of fine fine art printmaking (eg. woodcuts, engraving, carving, lithography and silkscreen) are the American artist James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), the French creative person Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), the Dutch graphic artist MC Escher (1898-1972), Willem de Kooning (1904-97) and Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008), besides equally silkscreen printers similar Andy Warhol (1928-87), all of whom infused the artform with groovy vitality.
- engraving
- etching
- giclee prints
- lithography
- screen-press
- woodcuts
- and more than
• Public Fine art
A vague category of art which encompasses all works paid for by public funds. A more narrow definition might restrict information technology to all works designed for a space accessible to the general public. Sadly, well-nigh public fine art ends upwards in stores or offices staffed by public servants!
• Religious Art
Typically architecture, or whatever fine or decorative arts with a religious theme: includes Christian or Islamic, Hindu, Buddhism or any of a hundred different sects. Run into for instance Chinese Buddhist sculpture (c.100 CE - nowadays).
• Rock Art
Traditionally encompasses primitive rock engravings (petroglyphs), relief sculptures, cave painting (pictographs) and megaliths of the Stone Age.
• Sand Fine art
Encompasses sand painting (Navajo Indians, Tibetan Buddhists), sand drawing (Vanuatu, formerly New Hebrides), sand sculpture and compages.
• Sculpture
Sculpture is a 3-dimensional work of plastic art created either by (1) Carving - in rock, marble, wood, ivory, os; (2) modelling - from wax or clay, afterwards which it may be cast in statuary; (3) an assemblage of "constitute objects". Annotation: Origami paper folding should also exist classed every bit a plastic art.
- statue
- relief sculpture
- bronze
- water ice sculpture
- ivory etching
- marble
- stone
- terracotta sculpture
- wood-carving
• Stained Glass Art
The supreme decorative art of the Gothic motility, stained glass reached its zenith during the 12th and 13th centuries when it was created for Christian cathedrals across Europe. Modern stained glass was made in America by John LaFarge and Louis Condolement Tiffany; and on the Continent at the Bauhaus design school.Sadly, the creators of the stained glass masterpieces in Chartres and other Gothic cathedrals remain anonymous, however their skills were kept alive by artists like Marc Chagall (1887-1985) and Joan Miro (1893-1983), and - in Republic of ireland - by such Irish artists every bit Harry Clarke (1889-1931), Sarah Purser (1848-43) and Evie Hone (1894-1955).
• Tapestry Art
An aboriginal type of textile art, tapestry-making flourished in Europe from the Middle Ages onwards, at the hands of French and (afterward) Flemish weavers. The most famous works were woven at the Gobelins tapestry and Beauvais tapestry factories in Paris, but come across besides the famous Bayeux Tapestry (c.1075) a Romanesque work stitched past Anglo-Saxon and French seamsters, depicting the Norman Conquest of 1066.
• Video Fine art
I of the nigh recent categories of contemporary expression, pioneered by Andy Warhol and others, video is oft used in installation fine art, also as equally a stand-lonely art form. Several Turner Prize Winners have been video artists. The leading video artist of the twentieth century is probably Bill Viola (b.1951), known for his technical and creative mastery of the genre.

Globe Arts

• Aboriginal Art (Australia)
Introduction to ancient cave painting and petroglyphs from Australasia.
- Australian Colonial Painting (c.1780-1880)
- Australian Impressionism (c.1886-1900)
- Australian Modern Painting (c.1900-threescore)
• Aegean Art (c.2600-1100 BCE)
Early Greek civilization: features Cycladic, Minoan and Mycenean cultures.
• African Fine art
Guide to rock paintings, classical African sculpture, art of the African kingdoms, religious and tribal artworks and more.
• American Art
History of painting and other fine arts in America, 1750-present.
• Pre-Columbian Art (Americas)
Architecture, art and crafts of the Americas up to 1535.
• American Indian Art
A largely arts and crafts-based culture, specializing in wood carving, cloth arts, beat out-engraving, basket-making and ceremonial masks.
• American Colonial Art
Eurocentric 17th/18th century portrait painting, miniatures and architecture.
• Asian Art
Arts and crafts from Nihon, Communist china, Korea, SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent.
• Byzantine Art
Principally architecture, panel painting, and mosaics created by artists inside the eastern Christian Byzantine empire centred on Constantinople.
• Celtic Art
Includes metalwork of the Hallstatt and La Tene culture, plus abstract geometric designwork.
• Chinese Art
Includes world famous Chinese lacquerware, bronzes, jade carving, terracotta sculpture, Chinese Porcelain, wash-painting and calligraphy. For more, see also Chinese Pottery and Chinese Painting. For a guide to the aesthetic principles behind Oriental arts and crafts, run into: Traditional Chinese Art: Characteristics.
• Egyptian Fine art
Embraces mainly tomb artworks - similar panel paintings, Egyptian Sculpture, murals, pottery, metalcraft and Egyptian Pyramids Architecture.
• Etruscan Fine art
Includes tomb paintings, domestic frescoes, bronze and terracotta sculpture, ornate sarcophagi, goldsmithery and jewellery.
• Flemish Painting
School of highly realistic oil painting - including artists similar January van Eyck, Roger van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes, Hans Memling, and others - that strongly influenced the Italian Renaissance.
• Franco-Cantabrian Cave Art
Prehistoric parietal works in southern France and northern Spain.
• French Painting
Follows the French School (1400-1900) from medieval volume painting to tardily 19th century Symbolism.
• German Expressionism
The nigh famous style of art from Germany. But run into as well our articles on German Medieval Art (c.800-1250), the German Renaissance (1430-1580) and the German Baroque (c.1550-1750).
• Greek Fine art
Highly innovative, technically accomplished, Greek artists set the standard in all forms of fine, applied and decorative art, notably painting, sculpture, architecture and drinking glass mosaic.
• Greek Pottery
Includes a range of ceramic designs from unlike areas of ancient Hellenic republic, such as Geometric style, Oriental Style, Black-Figure Way and Reddish-Figure Fashion.
• Greek Sculpture
Includes sculptural masterpieces like Discobolus by Myron; Wounded Amazon by Polykleitos; Apollo Dais past Leochares; Laocoon past Hagesandrus, Athenodoros & Polydorus; Aphrodite of Melos (Venus de Milo) by Andros of Antioch.
• Bharat: Painting & Sculpture
Includes prehistoric cupules and petroglyphs, ivory and bronze figurines, Buddhist frescoes, miniature paintings, and supreme works of Moghal architecture, like the Taj Mahal (1632-54).
• Irish Art
Includes (painting): portraiture, topographical mural, 19th century history paintings and 20th century genre-works and still lifes; (sculpture): Rock and bronzework by traditional, Gaelic, modern and contemporary Irish sculptors.
• Islamic Art
Embraces many categories of creativity including, mosque-architecture, ceramics, faience mosaics, lustre-ware, relief sculpture, wood and ivory carving, friezes, drawing, painting, calligraphy, book-gilding, lacquer-painted bookbinding, textile design, goldsmithery, gemstone carving, and others.
• Renaissance Art in Italy
Beginning in Florence, information technology spread to Rome and Venice before being taken up past painters and sculptors across Europe.
• Japanese Art
Brief guide to four of the primary visual arts in Japan, including: Buddhist Temple fine art, Zen ink-painting, Yamato-east, and Ukiyo-e woodblock prints.
• Jewish Art
A await at Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Oriental Jewish art, crafts and archeological artifacts. Run across likewise Holocaust Art, principally Jewish fine art of the Shoah.
• Korean Art
Initially influenced past prehistoric Siberian culture, then past Chinese arts and crafts, Korea in turn influenced the development of several artforms in Japan.
• Mesopotamian Art
A cursory guide to Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian culture in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates. For more details about certain national styles, see: "Sumerian fine art" (c.4500-2270 BCE), "Assyrian fine art" (c.1500-612 BCE), "Hittite art" (c.1600-1180 BCE). See too: Mesopotamian Sculpture.
• Minoan Fine art
Covers sculpture, fresco painting, pottery, stone carvings (notably seal stones), jewellery and the palace architecture of Knossos, Phaestus, Akrotiri, Kato Zakros and Mallia.
• Mycenean Art
Embraces Tholos tomb architecture, precious metalwork, and early Greek plastic arts.
• Oceanic Art
This umbrella term refers to arts and crafts produced by indigenous native peoples within the Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia zones of the Pacific Sea.
• Western farsi Art
Encompasses monumental rock sculptures, bas-reliefs, ceramics, mosaics, metalwork, frescoes, illuminated manuscripts, calligraphy, carpet-making, silk-weaving and architectural designs.
• Roman Art
Noted for its historical relief sculptures (eg. Trajan's Column) and its practical architecture (bridges, aquaducts, roads), ancient Rome was as well responsible for producing unique copies of many original Greek sculptures, without which many Hellenic treasures would accept been lost forever.
• Russian Art
Prehistoric sculpture and the history of painting thirty,000 BCE to 1920.
• Spanish Painting
Follows Iberian art (1500-1970), from El Greco to Antoni Tapies.
• Tribal Art
Curt guide to the traditional art of tribal societies in Bharat, Africa, the South Pacific, Australasia, Alaska and the Americas. Also known every bit Primitive Native Art, the category is sometimes extended to include certain early European artworks (eg. Celtic La Tene). It primarily consists of stoneworks (sculpture, temples), digging, and petroglyphs.
• Viking Art
Norse art mainly consists of portable artworks, like busy body armour, drinking horns, pagan icons, paddles, and pocket-size carvings in bister, jet, os, walrus ivory and woods.

Styles and Genres

• Abstract Fine art
Strictly speaking, abstract artworks derive from not-natural subjects such as geometric shapes, although wider definitions comprehend all non-representational works. Types of geometric abstraction are also chosen concrete fine art, or more confusingly non-objective art. Both these terms hateful the aforementioned.
• Representational Art
This describes images that are clearly recognizable for what they purport to exist. By contrast, abstract fine art consists of pictures that lack whatsoever clear identity, and must therefore be interpreted by the viewer.
• Figure Drawing and Effigy Painting
Including representational drawing from life.
• History Painting
Derived from the Italian discussion "istoria" (meaning, "narrative"), history painting - exemplified past Leonardo Davinci's work The Concluding Supper - tells noble stories or carries uplifting messages, and was considered to exist No 1 in the Hierarchy of Painting Genres.
• Portrait Art
Embracing individual, group or self-portraits, this genre - exemplified past Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-69) - was considered to be No two in the Hierarchy of Painting Genres.
• Genre Painting
Championed past 17th century Dutch Realists, such as January Vermeer (1632-75), this category of "everyday scenes" was seen as No 3 in the Hierarchy of Painting Genres.
• Landscape Painting
Comprising scenic views in which nature takes primacy over human being figures, this was rated No 4 in the Hierarchy of Painting Genres.
• Still Life Painting
This genre - exemplified by Frans Snyders (1579-1657) - typically comprised an arrangement of objects (flowers, kitchen utensils etc.) laid out on a tabular array. For moralistic still lifes, see: Vanitas Painting (17th century Holland) past Dutch artists similar Harmen van Steenwyck (1612-56), January Davidsz de Heem (1606-83), Willem Kalf (1622-93) and Willem Claesz Heda (1594-1681). Because they were devoid of man representation, still lifes were regarded equally the least important type of painting.