MEDIA In art the term media refers to the materials an artist uses to create a piece The oldest human art forms were carved from stone shaped from clay or painted on rock walls Humans later sculpted works of art from marble wood ivory and other materials Today’s sculptors use a wide variety of media from plastics to steel Prehistoric peoples used animal plant and mineral materials to make their paints Painters today use oil paint acrylics and watercolors New modern media also include digital photography video and computer-generated art Must a work be created by an artist to be considered art If so what makes someone an artist For a long time after the invention of the camera photographers were not considered artists Photos were not seen as a form of art but rather as a mechanical process Today few people would say photography is not art Likewise for thousands of years women were not considered artists in the male-dominated world Those women who did participate in the arts were often not taken seriously Others had their work attributed to male artists or simply left their work unsigned In the Western world of today however the artistic abilities of women are considered every bit as worthwhile as those of their male counterparts French-American artist Marcel Duchamp’s work in the early twentieth century is famous for raising questions about what art is and what it means to be an 8
artist One of his most famous works is an embellished recreation of Leonardo da Vinci’s well-known Mona Lisa painting Duchamp’s piece is a fraction of the size of the original and includes a mustache and beard on the figure Duchamp intended to ridicule the world’s fascination with Mona Lisa and reverence for oil paintings His piece suggests anything can be art so long as it is seen as such American pop artist Andy Warhol also addressed the question of what art is He suggested art is not about skill or beauty at all Instead it is about communicating an idea He believed art is a visual language Therefore the quality of a work should be judged not on the technical ability used to create the piece Instead it should be judged on the power of the message it broadcasts Looking at Art One does not need to be an art historian or even an artist to look at and enjoy art In museums people are attracted to certain pieces for many different reasons Perhaps one of the best ways to think about art is to consider one’s personal response to a piece and why it may or may not be attractive or interesting Viewers might also think about the title of the work the artist’s life and the time period in which the piece was created Viewers can also consider how a work of art is composed the lines and shapes it presents and its patterns textures and colors 9
Context Ultimately art is subjective both for the creator and the audience When artists create their work they are interpreting the world as they see it or portraying their feelings or the unconscious Those who view art are likewise seeing it from their own perspective Our own personal histories and experiences shape what we see Thus in order to understand the message a work of art is trying to share one must be aware of an artist’s background and his or her place in history In 1999 for example the Brooklyn Museum showed an exhibition that included a piece titled The Holy Virgin Mary by British artist Chris Ofili Far from the religious oil paintings of the Middle Ages Ofili’s piece depicted a black Virgin Mary using several different media including paint glitter and collage The picture was not hung on the wall but sat on two mounds of dried elephant dung The work was met with both admiration and outrage To many the piece was offensive However the artist meant the picture to portray the holiness of the Virgin Further the elephant dung which angered so many people is actually sacred in Zimbabwe 10
Chris Ofili’s painting The Holy Virgin Mary sparked controversy when it was first displayed yet many of its critics misunderstood the context of the author’s message Likewise what is considered art is always in flux It varies from culture to culture and time period to time period Even within a single culture at the same time people disagree about what should be considered art When Claude Monet first exhibited Impression Sunrise 1872 at a show in 1874 critics hated it Monet’s piece was so different from the naturalistic work of Western artists of the time people did not consider it a true work of art Yet today critics consider Monet one of the 11
