We explain what fine arts are and how they are classified. Also, its history and main characteristics.
What are fine arts?
The fine arts are the disciplines with which the Western academic tradition has defined its main forms of artistic achievement or aesthetic representation. They are considered “pure” forms of art because they pursue beauty as an end in itself, without a utilitarian purpose.
The modern meaning of the term fine arts It appeared during the Renaissance, with the notion of the artist and the recognition of creative expression as an individual fact.
Throughout history, various methods of classifying arts have been used. Towards the 19th century, Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) recognized five forms of fine arts: architecture, sculpture, painting, music and poetry. Some authors later expanded poetry to all literature and added dance.
In the 20th century, cinema (the seventh art) was incorporated and later the media arts (radio and television), graphic narrative or sequential art (comics and cartoons) and, more recently, digital or electronic arts. Each of them in turn includes various practices, styles and trends.
The fine arts have been considered transcendental and elevated forms of human creation and central fundamentals for the call high culturewhich distinguishes between elite art and popular or mass art. In this sense, the concept of fine arts is culturally exclusive. Furthermore, being linked to European notions of art history, it privileges the Western vision over the aesthetics produced by other cultures.
Contemporary art has questioned this concept and today art is seen from more plural and diverse perspectives. Currently the notion of fine arts is considered Eurocentric or limited and has fallen into disuse outside of specific academic fields.
Characteristics of fine arts
Fine arts have a set of common characteristics:
- Aspiration to beauty. Through very diverse techniques and materials, they seek to communicate a specific experience of the beautiful, the harmonious, the transcendental and the profound.
- Universality. In the universalist conception that gave rise to the notion of fine arts, works of art had to be appreciated by all of humanity. This idea did not take into account cultural particularities or contexts other than Europe.
- Durability. In the aesthetic notion of fine arts, works should last over time and be able to communicate their content to future generations. They are understood as documents or testimonies of their time and symbols of a specific conception of the world and humanity.
What are the fine arts?
The classical division of fine arts is established from the materials used and the way in which they are used, as follows:
Architecture
Architecture is the design and construction of homes, buildings and urban spaces sensorially pleasant, functional and habitable at the same time, through the harmonious combination of various materials.
It coordinates functional elements with aesthetic criteria to conceive environments that harmoniously adapt to human needs and activities.
Dance
The dance consists of movement of the human body in a rhythmic manner usually to the rhythm of music. Use rhythm as a form of artistic expression.
There are different types of dances performed by one or more dancers, such as classical ballet, contemporary dance or folk dances.
Sculpture
The sculpture is creating three-dimensional shapes from the action on materials such as stone, clay, wood, metal, resin, plastic or other solid elements.
The sculptures are created using various techniques such as casting, assembly, modeling, welding, carving and, more recently, computer printing.
Paint
Painting is a discipline that consists of using pigments obtained from various natural and artificial sources (paints) to create images on surfaces of any type through color, texture and shape.
The most common surfaces are paper, walls and canvas (cotton, linen or hemp fabrics).
Music
music is the art of combining sounds emitted by natural means (such as the human voice) or musical instruments constructed from materials such as wood, leather, and metals. It seeks to achieve beauty through rhythms, melodies and harmonically orchestrated sounds.
Literature
Literature is a art that aesthetically uses the word. Use rhetorical figures, rhythm and meaning to compose stories, novels, chronicles, poems, essays or plays.
It is one of the great human expressions and its origin predates writing, since the first literary compositions were transmitted orally.
Cinema
It is an art form that uses complex technical instruments to capture moving images that is: light, sound and time in sequences of simulated or real events that make up a story or audiovisual discourse.
The word “cinema” is an abbreviated form of cinematography, which comes from the Greek kiné, movement and graphs, writing. Cinema is the most recent of the fine arts, since the technical means that allowed its appearance were developed in the last years of the 19th century.
Origin of the concept “fine arts”
The ancient Greeks distinguished between techne and poiesis. Techne referred to the technical or practical knowledge of a trade, while poiesis was related to the creative act. Centuries later, the distinction between both activities decanted into a differentiation between “art” and “craft”.
In the 17th century, the term fine arts appeared to refer to artistic practices that were different and more valued than the trades artisanal. While artists cultivated beauty for the love of the beautiful, artisans made objects for utilitarian purposes. The appearance of museums coincided with the rise of economic elites who sought to equate their cultural consumption with that of ancient aristocracies, and the notion of fine arts then began to include music and literature.
Historically, the fine arts were those that differed from:
- the arts aimed at making objects of practical use (such as cabinetmaking, goldsmithing or pottery)
- the arts liberals
- the trivium (“the three paths” related to verbal language): grammar, dialectic and rhetoric
- the quadrivium (“the four paths” concerning the mathematizable): arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy.
References
- Hegel, G.W.F. (1989). Lessons on aesthetics. Akal.
- Colvin, Sidney (1911). «Fine Arts». Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
