Art History: Traditional and Contemporary

It all started when we were born and never really quite gave it a thought. We didn’t recognize the importance of our surroundings until someone pointed their significance and their influence on how we thought or act. We didn’t really understand, nor did we want to seek information about its existence, until an impulse or thought was introduced into our minds. Oh! the initial experience, the emotions that were awaken when our eyes were enlighten to our surroundings. When our keen senses, which had never been exercised until someone who became an influential motivator saw in us the potential for creating the medium called “Art”. Art was always all around us and when exposed to its essence, has always with-out failure demanded a response. The profound impact of art will leave the viewer with an impression on their emotions, which was caused by either visually seeing a masterpiece of a painting or in the carvings of a piece of wood they felt. Whatever the delivery method used to open up these new senses, it would cause our moods to change either positively or negatively towards the piece of work, and enable us to develop an opinion of the artist. This is what art and its influential nature does to us. Art comes in many different flavors or styles and only you could choose the one that appeals to your inner most sensory receptors. In the art world, this is made possible through visual or harmonic methods.

Today, society call many “works” produced by individuals and call themselves artist, but is it really art? If you were to try to determine a definition for the word: art, you would find it to be an elusive word. I recently observed a landscaper cut and shop a pine tree which had overgrown in size. Although, some would say the pin...

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...know it will go eventually the way of the west. Art is important to learn and to appreciate while we have the means to do so. Incorporating all of the elements which make for traditional or modernistic art is in the hands of this generations and like the mentors of yesterday, today we need to look around us for the next Rembrandt or Picasso.

Works Cited

Tomkins, Calvin. Time Life Library of Art: The World of Marcel Duchamp. New York: Time Incorporated, 1966. Print

Coughlan, Robert. Time Life Library of Art: The World of Michelangelo. New York: Time Incorporated, 1966. Print

Getlein, Mark. Living with Art. 10th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2011. Print

Lynton, Norbert. The Story of Modern Art. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2008. Print

Eimerl, Sarel. Time Life Library of Art: The World of Giotto. New York: Time Incorporated, 1966. Print