Art: the origin of art. Kinds of art

The comprehension of reality, the expression of thoughts and feelings in a symbolic form are all descriptions that can be characterized by art. The origin of art is hidden from the ages of mystery. If some activities can be traced through archaeological finds, the rest simply leave no trace.

Read on, and you will learn about where different kinds of art originated, and also get acquainted with the most popular theories of scientists.

Theories of origin

For many thousands of years people have been fascinated by art. The origin of art is taught in various educational institutions. The researchers develop hypotheses and try to confirm them.

To date, there are various theories of the origin of art. The most popular are the five options, which we'll talk about further.

So, the first will be a religious theory. According to her, beauty is one of the names and manifestations of the Lord on earth, in our world. Art is the material expression of this idea. Consequently, all the fruits of human creativity are due to their appearance to the Creator.

The following hypothesis speaks about the sensual nature of the phenomenon. The origin of primitive art, in particular, comes down to playing. It is this type of activity and recreation that appeared before labor. We can observe it in the representatives of the animal kingdom. Among the supporters of the version can be called Spencer, Schiller, Fritsche and Buecher.

The third theory sees in art the manifestation of eroticism. In particular, Freud, Lange and Nardau believe that this phenomenon appeared as a consequence of the needs of the sexes to attract each other. An example of the animal world may be mating games.

Ancient Greek thinkers believed that art by its appearance owes a human ability to imitate. Aristotle and Democritus say that, imitating nature and developing within the framework of society, people gradually could symbolically convey sensations.

The youngest is the Marxist theory. She speaks of art as a consequence of man's productive activity.

Next, we will consider the history of the birth of various forms of creative genius.

Theater

Theater as an art form was born long ago. Researchers believe that such a representation arose from shamanistic rituals. In the ancient world people strongly depended on nature, worshiped various phenomena, asked the spirits to help with hunting.

To do this, used a variety of masks and costumes, worked out plots, separately for each case.

However, those rituals can not be called a theatrical performance. It was just ceremonies. In order to attribute a certain game to the category of spectacular art, there must be, besides the actor, also a spectator.

Therefore, in fact the birth of the theater begins in the era of antiquity. Before that, different actions were inextricably linked - dance, music, singing, etc. Subsequently, there is a division, gradually formed three main directions: ballet, drama and opera.

Fans of the game theory of the origin of art argue that it appeared as fun, amusement. Basically, this statement is based on the ancient mysteries, where people changed into suits of satyrs, Bacchante girls. In this epoch several times a year masquerades, crowded and cheerful holidays were arranged.

Subsequently they begin to take shape in a separate direction - the theater. There are works of playwrights, for example, Euripides, Aeschylus, Sophocles. There are two genres - tragedy and comedy.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the art of the theater was forgotten. In fact, in Western Europe, it was born anew - again from public holidays and festivities.

Painting

The history of fine art goes back to ancient times. Until now, new patterns have been found on the walls of caves in different parts of the world. For example, in Altamira Cave in Spain, Niach Caves in Malaysia and others.

Typically, they mixed dyes with astringents, for example, coal or ocher with resin. The subjects did not differ in variety. Mostly these were images of animals, hunting scenes, palm prints. This art refers to the Paleolithic and Mesolithic.

Later, petroglyphs appear. In fact, this is the same rock art, but with a more dynamic plot. There are already silhouettes of people, the number of hunting scenes is increasing.

However, some researchers attribute the origin of fine art to the era of Ancient Egypt. It is in this state on the banks of the Nile appear strict canons of different genres. In particular, the fine arts here resulted in sculpture and monumental painting.

If we study the ancient drawings, we will see that this direction of creative thought emerged from the attempts of man to copy, to fix the surrounding reality.

Later the painting is represented by the monuments of the Crete-Mycenaean period and the ancient Greek vasopis. The development of this art begins to accelerate. Frescoes, icons, the first portraits. All this occurs during the first centuries BC.

If the frescoes were especially popular in antiquity, then in the Middle Ages most artists worked on the creation of the saints' faces. Only in the Renaissance, modern genres are gradually beginning to emerge.

So the Italian Renaissance gave impetus to the development of all Western European painting. Caravagism, for example, has significantly influenced Flemish artists. Later, baroque, classicism, sentimentalism and other genres develops.

Music

Music is no less ancient art. The origin of art is attributed to the first rituals of our ancestors, when the dance developed, the theater was born. At the same time, music appeared.

Researchers believe that even fifty thousand years ago in Africa, people transmitted their emotions through music. Confirmation of this serve as flutes, which are found by archaeologists next to sculptures in the area. The age of the figurines is about forty thousand years.

Hypotheses of the origin of art, among others, do not sweep away the divine influence on the first creative people. It is difficult to imagine that a bored shepherd or hunter creates a thoughtful system of holes on the tube to play a hilarious melody.

Nevertheless, even the first Cro-Magnon people used percussion and wind instruments in rituals.

Later comes the era of ancient music. The first recorded melody is dated to the 2000th year BC. A clay tablet with cuneiform text was found during excavations in Nippur. After deciphering, it became known that the music was recorded in thirds.

This kind of art is widely known in India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt. During this period, wind, percussion and plucked instruments are used.

Old music comes to replace. It is an art dating from the fall of the Roman Empire until the middle of the eighteenth century. During this period the church direction developed especially powerfully. The secular version is represented by the creativity of troubadours, buffoons and minstrels.

Literature

The history of art and culture becomes more understandable and reasoned when it comes to written sources. It is literature that allows the most complete transfer of information. If the other forms of art are oriented primarily toward the sensually-emotional sphere, then the latter operates also with categories of mind.

The most ancient texts were found in such countries as India, China, Persia, Egypt and Mesopotamia. Basically, they were carved on the walls of temples, stones, carved on clay tablets.

Among the genres of this period is worth mentioning hymns, funerary texts, letters, autobiographies. Later, there are narratives, teachings, prophecies.

However, ancient literature became more extensive and developed. Thinkers and playwrights, poets and prose writers of Ancient Greece and Rome left an inexhaustible treasure of wisdom to their descendants. Here the foundations of modern Western European and world literature were laid. In fact, the division into lyrics, epic and drama was suggested by Aristotle.

Then comes the era of the Middle Ages. The history of Russian art, particularly literature, begins precisely in this period. The first genres include copies of the Gospel, the Bible, selectors, teachings and others.

Dance

One of the most difficultly documented art forms. No one doubts the fact that the dance originated very long ago, but it is unlikely to be able to determine even an approximate framework.

The earliest images are found in the caves of India. There are painted human silhouettes in dancing poses. Judging by theories, the origin of art, in short, is the need for expressing emotions and attracting the opposite sex. It is the dance that most fully confirms this hypothesis.

Till now, dervishes use dances to enter into trance. We know the name of the most famous dancer in ancient Egypt. It was Salome, originally from Idoma (an ancient state in the north of the Sinai Peninsula).

Civilizations of the Far East still do not share the dance and theater. Both these kinds of art have always been paired. Pantomime, Japanese performances of actors, Indian dancers, Chinese carnivals and processions. All these are activities that allow expressing emotions and preserving tradition without using words.

Sculpture

It turns out that the history of fine art is inextricably linked with other manifestations of creativity. For example, the sculpture became a stopped instant of dance. Many of the statues of ancient Greek and Roman masters serve as a confirmation.

The problem of the origin of art is unclear. Sculpting, for example, on the one hand, emerged as an attempt to personalize the ancient gods. On the other hand, the masters managed to stop the moments of ordinary life.

It was sculpture that allowed artists to convey feelings, emotions, inner tension or, conversely, pacification in plastic. Frozen manifestations of man's spiritual world actually became an ancient photograph, which preserved for many millennia the ideas and appearance of people of that time.

Like many other arts, sculpture comes from ancient Egypt. Probably the most famous monument is the Sphinx. In the beginning, craftsmen created decorations exclusively for royal palaces and temples. Much later, in antiquity, the statues reach the people's level. By these words it is understood that from that era to decorate your house by sculpture could be any person who has enough money to order.

Thus, this kind of art ceases to be the prerogative of kings and temples.

Like many other manifestations of creativity, sculpture in the Middle Ages was in decline. Revival begins only with the advent of the Renaissance.

Today this type of art is moving to a new orbit. In combination with computer graphics, 3D printers make it easy to create 3D images.

Architecture

The art of architecture is probably the most practical kind of activity from all possible ways of manifesting creative thought. After all, architecture combines the organization of space for a comfortable life of man, the expression of ideas and thoughts, as well as the preservation of certain elements of the tradition.

Some elements of this art emerged when the division of society into layers and castes occurred. The desire of rulers and priests to decorate their homes, so that they stand out against the background of other buildings, later led to the emergence of the profession of an architect.

Man-made reality, orderly environment, walls - all this creates a sense of security. And the decor allows the artist to convey the mood and atmosphere that he invests in the construction.

Circus

The concept of "people of art" is rarely associated with the circus. This kind of spectacle is often perceived as entertainment. From time immemorial, its main place was fairs and other festivities.

The very word "circus" comes from the Latin term "round". An open building of this form served as a place for the amusement of the Romans. In fact, it was a racetrack. Later, after the collapse of the empire, Western Europe tried to continue the tradition, but such activities did not receive popularity. In the Middle Ages, the place of the circus was occupied by minstrels in the people and the mystery of the nobility.

At that time, people of art focused more on how to please rulers. The circus was perceived as a fair entertainment, that is, it was low-grade.

Only in the Renaissance there are first attempts to create the prototype of a modern circus. Unusual skills, people with birth defects, animal trainers, jugglers and clowns at that time amused the audience.

Not too the situation has changed today. This kind of art requires extraordinary endurance, the ability to improvise and the ability to "wandering" life.

Cinema

Scientists say that a person comprehends reality through science and art. The origin of art, judging by theories, is associated with the need for self-expression and interaction in society.

Gradually developed traditional forms of creative activity, visual and entertainment arts. However, with the progress of progress, a stage of absolutely unprecedented ways of conveying thoughts, emotions, and information has come.

There are new types of art. One of them was cinema.

For the first time, people managed to project a picture on the surface with the help of a "magic lantern". It was based on the principle of "camera obscura", over which Leonardo da Vinci worked. Later there are cameras. Only at the end of the nineteenth century the Lumiere brothers managed to invent a device that allowed the projection of moving images.

In the early twentieth century, they said that the theater as an art form had outlived itself. And with the advent of television, this was perceived as an indisputable fact. However, we see that every kind of creativity has its own admirers, just a redistribution of the audience.

Thus, we have figured out the theories of the origin of art, and also talked about various forms of creativity.