The oldest public art museum in the world, how many do you know?

Since ancient times, many of the finest art has represented a deliberate display of wealth or power, often achieved through the use of large-scale and expensive materials. Much of the art was commissioned by political rulers or religious institutions, and only the wealthiest in society could obtain a more austere version. [93]

Nevertheless, in many periods, in terms of ownership, very high-quality art was available in most parts of society, especially in cheap media such as pottery, which still existed underground, as well as in perishable media such as textiles and wood. In many different cultures, ceramics of indigenous peoples in the Americas have been found in such widespread graves that they are clearly not limited to the social elite,[94] although other forms of art may have existed. Breeding methods such as molds made mass production easier and were used to bring high-quality ancient Roman pottery and Greek Tanagra statues to a very broad market. Cylinder seals are both artistic and practical, and in the ancient Near East could be widely used by people roughly referred to as the middle class. [95] Once coins were widely used, they also became an art form that reached the widest possible social reach. [96]

Another important innovation emerged in Europe in the 15th century, when prints began with small woodcuts, mostly religious, often very small and hand-colored, which even farmers could afford, gluing them to the walls of their homes. Printed books were initially very expensive, but prices steadily declined until the 19th century, when even the poorest could afford some printed illustrations. [97] Over the centuries, many different kinds of popular prints have decorated homes and other places. [98]

The Kunstmuseum Basel (Switzerland) is the oldest public art museum in the world.

In 1661, the Swiss city of Basel opened the world's first public art museum, the Kunstmuseum Basel. Today, its collection is known for its impressively wide historical span, from the early 15th century to the present day. Its various focus areas make it one of the most important of its kind. These include paintings and drawings by artists active in the Ober-Rhine region between 1400 and 1600, as well as art from the 19th to 21st centuries. [99]

Public buildings and monuments, whether secular or religious, by their very nature, are usually oriented to society as a whole and to visitors as spectators, while showing them to the public has long been an important factor in their design. Typical of Egyptian temples is that the largest and most extravagant decorations are placed in parts that are visible to the public, rather than areas that only priests can see. [100] Many areas of the royal palaces, castles, and residences of the social elite were generally accessible, and most of the art collections of these people could often be seen by anyone, or by those who could pay a small fee, or by those who dressed correctly, whoever they were, such as at Versailles, and could rent appropriate extra accessories (silver shoe buckles and swords) from shops outside. [101]

Special arrangements allow the public to see many royal or private collections placed in the gallery, just as the Orleans Collection is mainly located on a wing of the Royal Palace in Paris and can be visited for most of the 18th century. [102] In Italy, grand tour art tourism became a major industry from the Renaissance onwards, and the government and cities worked to make their main works easily accessible. The Royal Collection of Britain is still distinctive, but large donations such as the Old Royal Library were donated from it to the British Museum, founded in 1753. The Uffizi Gallery in Florence opened completely as a gallery in 1765, although this function had gradually taken over the building from the original civil service office for a long time.

[103] The building now occupied by the Prado in Madrid was built before the French Revolution to publicly display parts of the royal art collection, and similar royal galleries were open to the public and existed in Vienna, Munich, and other capitals. The opening of the Louvre Museum during the French Revolution (1793) as a public museum for many former French royal collections undoubtedly marked an important stage in the development of public exposure to art, transferring ownership to the Republican house, but this was a continuation of the established trend. [104]

Most modern public museums and art education programs for school children can be traced back to this impulse to make art accessible to everyone. However, as the study found, museums not only provided usability for art, but also influenced the way the viewer perceived art. [105] Thus, the museum itself is not only a blunt object for displaying art, but also plays an active and important role in the overall perception of art in modern society.

Museums in the United States are often gifts from the rich to the masses. (For example, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City was created by railroad director John Taylor Johnston, whose personal art collection provided seeds for the museum.) But despite this, at least for one of the important functions of art in the 21st century, it remains a sign of wealth and social status. [106]

Artists have tried to create works of art that the rich could not buy as objects of status. One of the main original drivers of much art in the late 1960s and 1970s was the creation of unbletched art. Joseph Beuys, a major post-war German artist, said that "it is necessary to display more than just objects" [107]. This period witnessed the rise of things like performance art, video art, and conceptual art. The idea is that if a work of art is a performance that leaves nothing behind, or just an idea, it can't be bought and sold. "The democratic idea around the idea that a work of art is a commodity drove aesthetic innovations that sprouted in the mid-1960s and harvested throughout the 1970s. Artists are widely recognized under the title of conceptual art ... Alternative performances and publishing activities because of the material and materialistic concerns involving the form of painting or sculpture ... [Has] worked hard to destroy the artwork as an object. ” [108]

Palace of Versailles: Louis Le Vau opened up the inner courtyard, creating a vast entrance cour d'honneur, which was later copied throughout Europe.

In the decades since, as the art market has learned to sell limited-edition DVDs of video works, these ideas have been somewhat lost,[109] invitations to exclusive performance artworks, and objects left over from conceptual works. Many of these performance-created works can only be understood by the educated elite, and why an idea or video or a piece of apparent rubbish can be considered art. The sign of status became to understand the work rather than having to own it, and the work of art remained an activity of high society. "With the widespread use of DVD burning technology in the early 2000s, artists and gallery systems that profit from art sales gained an important means of controlling the sale of limited-edition video and computer art to collectors." [110]

controversy

Raft of Medusa in Théodore Géricault, circa 1820

Art has long been controversial, that is, some audiences dislike art for a variety of reasons, although most premodern controversies are vaguely documented or completely confused by modern perspectives. Idol destruction is the destruction of art, and for various reasons, including religious reasons, people don't like it. Aniconism is a general aversion to all figurative images, or often just religious images, and has been the main thread of many major religions. It has been a key factor in the history of Islamic art, in which the depiction of Muhammad remains particularly controversial. Much art is unpopular purely because it depicts or represents unpopular rulers, political parties, or other groups. Art conventions are generally conservative and are valued by art critics, although the wider public is generally less valued.

The pictorial content of the art may be controversial, as in the new theme of the Fainting of the Virgin mary depicted in scenes of the Crucifixion of Jesus in the late Middle Ages. Michelangelo's The Last Judgment is controversial for a variety of reasons, including the violation of etiquette due to nudity and Apollo-style Christian postures. [111] [112]

Historically, the content of much of the formal art was decided by patrons or commissioners, not just artists, but with the advent of Romanticism, and economic changes in artistic production, the artist's vision became the usual determinant of the content of his works. Art, increasing the incidence of controversy, although often reducing their importance. The strong incentive to perceive originality and publicity also encourages artists to spark controversy. Part of Théodore Géricault's Raft of Medusa (circa 1820) is a political commentary on recent events. Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (1863) by Edouard Manet was considered shameful not because of a, but because she sat next to a man, dressed in the clothes of the time, rather than in the robes of the antique world.

[113] [114] John Singer Sargent's Pierre Gautro (Mrs. X) (1884) sparked a controversy over the use of a reddish pink for female earlobes, which was considered too suggestive and said to damage the reputation of high-society models. [115] [116] In the 19th and 20th centuries, the gradual abandonment of naturalism and the depiction of realistic representations of the subject's visual appearance led to a rolling controversy that lasted for more than a century.

Performance by Joseph Beuys, 1978: Everyone is an Artist – Towards a Liberal Form of Social Organism.

In the 20th century, Pablo Picasso's Guernica (1937) used striking Cubist techniques and distinctive monochrome oil paintings to depict the tragic consequences of the contemporary bombardment of an ancient Basque town. Leon Golub's Interrogation III (1981) depicts a tied to a chair, a hooded detainee with her legs open to expose her sexual organs, surrounded by two torturers dressed in everyday clothing. Andres Serrano's Piss Christ (1989) is a photograph of the cross that is sacred to Christianity, representing Christ's sacrifice and final suffering, drowning in the artist's own urine. The resulting uproar led the U.S. Senate to comment on public arts funding. [117] [118]

theory

Main article: Aesthetics

Before modernism, aesthetics in Western art was very concerned with striking the right balance between realism or the different aspects of truth over nature and ideals; over the centuries the idea of what was the right balance had shifted back and forth. This concern is largely absent in other artistic traditions. Aesthetic theorist John Ruskin championed what he saw as J. Kelly. M. W. Turner's naturalism, he believed that the role of art was to convey fundamental truths that could only be found in nature through technique. [119]

Since the 20th century, the definition and evaluation of art has been particularly problematic. Richard Wohlheim distinguishes between three ways of assessing the aesthetic value of art: realism, i.e., aesthetic quality is an absolute value independent of any human point of view; Objectivism, therefore it is also an absolute value, but depends on human experience in general; and relativism, i.e., it is not an absolute value, but depends on and changes with the human experience of different human beings. [120]

The advent of modernism

Piet Mondrian (Netherlands, 1872–1944) Red, Blue and Yellow (1930).

The arrival of modernism in the late 19th century led to a radical breakthrough in the concept of artistic function,[121] and then reappeared in the late 20th century with the advent of postmodernism. Clement Greenberg's 1960 essay Modernist Painting defined modern art as "a critique of the discipline itself using a characteristic approach of a discipline." [122] Greenberg initially applied this idea to the Abstract Expressionist movement and used it as a way to understand and prove flat (non-illusion) abstract painting:

Realistic, naturalistic art disguises the medium and uses art to cover up art; modernism uses art to arouse people's attention to art. The limitations that make up the medium of painting—the plane, the shape of the support, the characteristics of the pigment—are seen by the ancient masters as negative factors, which can only be implicitly or indirectly acknowledged. Under modernism, these same restrictions were seen as positive and publicly acknowledged. [122]

After Greenberg, several important art theorists emerged, such as Michael Fried, T.J. Clarke, Rosa Lind Claus, Linda Norcklin, and Griselda Pollock. Although originally only as a way to understand a particular artist, Greenberg's definition of modern art was important for many artistic ideas in various art movements of the 20th and early 21st centuries. [123] [124]

Pop artists like Andy Warhol have become compelling and influential by including and possibly criticizing the work of popular culture and the art world. Artists in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s extended this technique of self-criticism from high art to all cultural image making, including fashion images, comics, billboards and pornography. [125] [126]

Duchamp once proposed that art is any activity of any kind—everything. However, the way in which only certain activities are classified as art today is a social construct. [127] There is evidence that this may have some authenticity. In The Invention of Art: A Cultural History, Larry Chana examines the construction of the modern art system, namely the fine arts. He found evidence that the old art system before our modern system (fine arts) considered art to be any skilled human activity; for example, ancient Greek society did not have the word art, but technology. Techne cannot be understood neither as art nor craft, because the distinction between art and craft is a historical product that later appeared in human history. Techne includes painting, sculpture, and music, but also includes cooking, medicine, equestrianism, geometry, carpentry, prophecy, and agriculture.

New Criticism and "Deliberate Fallacy"

After Duchamp in the first half of the 20th century, there was a major shift towards general aesthetic theory, attempting to apply aesthetic theory between various art forms, including literary art and visual art. This led to the rise of new critical schools and debates about deliberate fallacies. The focus of the debate is whether the aesthetic intent of the artist in creating the work of art, regardless of its specific form, should be linked to the criticism and evaluation of the final product of the work of art, or if the work of art should be evaluated independently of the artist's intentions, according to its own merits. [129] [130]

In 1946, William M. William K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley publish a classic and controversial new critical essay titled "The Intentional Fallacy," in which they strongly object to the relevance of authors' intentions, or "intentional meanings" in the analysis of literary works. For Wimsatt and Beardsley, words on paper are the most important. Entering meaning from outside the text is considered irrelevant and can be distracting. [131] [132]

In another essay, as the "emotional fallacy" of the companion article to the "deliberate fallacy," Wimsatt and Beardsley also see the reader's personal/emotional response to the literary work as an effective means of analyzing the text. This fallacy was later refuted by theorists from the Reader's Reaction School of Literary Theory. Ironically, one of the school's leading theorists, Stanley Fish, himself trained as a new critic. Fish criticized Wimsat and Beardsley in his 1970 essay "Literature among Readers." [133] [134]

As Gault and Livingston conclude in their essay The Creation of Art: "Structuralist and post-structuralist theorists and critics have made sharp criticisms of many aspects of new criticism, beginning with an emphasis on aesthetic appreciation and so-called artistic autonomy. But they reiterate an attack on biographical criticism that assumes that the artist's activities and experiences are a privileged subject of criticism. [135] These authors argue: "Anti-intentists, such as formalists, consider the intentions involved in artistic creation to be irrelevant or secondary to the correct interpretation of art." Thus, the details of the act of creating a work, although it may be interesting in itself, have nothing to do with the correct interpretation of the work. ” [136]

Gaut and Livingston define intentionalists as distinct from formalists, noting that "unlike formalists, intentionalists believe that a reference to intent is essential to determining the correct interpretation of a work." They quote Richard Wolfheim as saying, "The task of criticism is to reconstruct the creative process, which in turn must be considered not to stop at the work itself, but at the work itself." ” [136]

The "turn of language" and its controversies

The end of the 20th century sparked a widespread debate called the language turn controversy, or the "innocent eye debate" in the philosophy of art. This debate discusses how the encounter of a work of art is determined by the degree of encounter with the concept of a work of art relative to the perceptual encounter with a work of art. [137]

What determined the language of art history and the humanities to turn to debate was the work of another tradition, namely the structuralism of Ferdinand de Saussure and the consequent post-structuralist movement. In 1981, artist Mark Tancy created a work of art called The Eye of innocence to criticize the atmosphere of divisiveness that prevailed in the philosophy of art in the last decades of the 20th century. Influential theorists included Judith Butler, Luce Irigaré, Julia Christeva, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Hayden White explores the power of language in art history and historical discourse, and more specifically, the power of certain rhetorical techniques.

The fact that language is not a transparent medium of thought has been emphasized by a very different form of philosophy of language, which originated in the works of Johann Georg Hamann and Wilhelm von Humboldt. [138] Ernst Gombrich and Nelson Goodman, in their book The Language of Art: Methods of Symbolic Theory, began to argue that in the 1960s and 1970s, conceptual contact with works of art completely outweighed perceptual and visual contact with works of art. [139] He was challenged to build on research by Nobel laureate psychologist Roger Sperry, which insisted that human visual encounters were not limited to concepts expressed only in language (linguistic turning), and that other forms of mentally characterized works of art could equally justify and prove. Sperry's views eventually prevailed at the end of the 20th century, and aesthetic philosophers such as Nick Zangwill strongly defended a return to moderate aesthetic formalism and other alternatives. [140]

Classification disputes

Main article: Classification controversy over art

Marcel Duchamp's original fountain, photographed in 1917 by Alfred Stieglitz in 291 after the Society of Independent Artists exhibition in 1917. Stiglitz used Marsden Hartley's Warrior background to shoot urinals. The exhibition entrance label is clearly visible. [141]

The controversy over whether to classify something as a work of art is called a classification controversy over art. Classification controversies in the 20th century included Cubist and Impressionist paintings, Duchamp Fountains, films, the finest imitations of banknotes, conceptual art, and video games. [142] According to the philosopher David Nowitz, disagreements about the definition of art are rarely at the heart of the problem. Rather, "the enthusiastic attention and interest of human beings in social life" is "part of all categorical debates about art." [143] According to Nowitz, classification controversies are more about social values and where society is trying to go than about the theory itself.

For example, when the Daily Mail criticized the work of Hearst and Emin, they argued that "art has been one of our great civilizational forces for a thousand years." Today, pickled sheep and dirty beds threaten us all to be barbarians." Propose definitions or theories about art, but question the value of Hearst and Emin's work. [144] In 1998, Arthur Danto, proposed a thought experiment showing that "the status of artefacts as works of art arises from the idea that culture applies to it, rather than by its inherent physical or perceptible qualities." Thus, cultural interpretation (some sort of art theory) constitutes the artistry of an object. ” [145] [146]

Anti-art is an artistic label that deliberately challenges the established parameters and values of art;[147] a term associated with Dadaism and attributed to Marcel Duchamp before World War I,[147] when he made artwork from discovered objects. [147] One of them, the Fountain (1917), an ordinary urinal, achieved considerable influence and influence in art. [147] Anti-art was a feature of the work of the Staticist International [148] low-fidelity mail art movement and young British artists[147] although it was a form still rejected by the Stuckists,[147] who described themselves as anti-art. [149] [150]

Architecture is often listed as one of the visual arts; however, like decorative arts or advertising, it involves the creation of objects in which practical considerations of use are essential, for example, they are usually not in painting. [151]

value judgment

Aboriginal hollow log burials. National Gallery of Canberra, Australia.

To some extent, the term art is also used to apply value judgments, such as expressions such as "that meal is a work of art" (the chef is an artist), [152] or "the art of deception". (Praising the crooks for their high level of skill). It is this use of the word as a measure of high quality and high value that gives the word a taste of subjectivity. Making value judgments requires a basis for criticism. At the simplest level, one way to determine whether an object's effect on the senses meets the criteria for being considered art is whether it is considered attractive or repulsive. Although perception is always influenced by experience and is necessarily subjective, it is generally accepted that what does not satisfy aesthetic requirements to some extent cannot be art. However, "good" art does not always or even often appeal to most audiences aesthetically. In other words, the artist's main motivation is not necessarily the pursuit of aesthetics. In addition, art often depicts scary images made for social, moral, or thought-provoking reasons.

For example, Francisco Goya's painting of the May 3, 1808 Spanish shooting, depicts an execution team executing several pleading civilians. At the same time, however, these horrific images demonstrate Goya's keen artistic ability to compose and execute, and provoke appropriate social and political outrage. As a result, debate continues about what model of aesthetic satisfaction, if any, is needed to define "art." [153] [154]

Assumptions of new values or rebellions against accepted notions of aesthetic superiority do not necessarily coincide with a complete abandonment of the pursuit of aesthetic attractiveness. In fact, the opposite is often true, and modifications to things that are generally considered aesthetically attractive can rekindle aesthetic sensitivity and a new appreciation of the standards of art itself. Countless genres have proposed their own ways of defining quality, but they all seem to agree on at least one point: once their aesthetic choices are accepted, the value of the work of art depends on its ability to transcend the limitations of the chosen medium through the rare techniques of the artist or in the so-called zeitgeist.

Art is often designed to engage and connect with human emotions. It can evoke aesthetic or moral emotions and can be understood as a way of conveying those emotions. Artists express something so that their audience is awakened in some way, but they don't have to do it consciously. Art can be thought of as an exploration of the human condition; that is, what it is to be human. [155] By extension, Emily M. Emily L. Spratt argues that the development of AI, especially in its use with images, requires a re-evaluation of aesthetic theories in art history today and a rethinking of ai's limitations. Human creativity. [156] [157]