What is Art: Definition and 182 Discussions

Art is a diverse range of (products of) human activities involving creative imagination to express technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.There is no generally agreed definition of what constitutes art, and ideas have changed over time. The three classical branches of visual art are painting, sculpture, and architecture. Theatre, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature, music, film and other media such as interactive media, are included in a broader definition of the arts. Until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences. In modern usage after the 17th century, where aesthetic considerations are paramount, the fine arts are separated and distinguished from acquired skills in general, such as the decorative or applied arts.
The nature of art and related concepts, such as creativity and interpretation, are explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics. The resulting artworks are studied in the professional fields of art criticism and the history of art.

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  1. MasterOgon

    Art Exploring Science and Technology Through Sci-Fi Space Art

    Hi everyone! I love science, am constantly interested in news in various fields, and have even done my own amateur research in physics and psychology, but I am an artist. And that’s why I most like to popularize scientific and technological progress, as well as highlight related issues through...
  2. S

    Art Chladni-like art from the 19th Century

    Welsh singer Margaret Watts Hughes, in the 1880s, invented something like a Chladni pattern generator driven by the human voice. https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/picturing-a-voice-margaret-watts-hughes-and-the-eidophone/ She also managed to add a sort of time dimension to the acoustic figures:
  3. H

    Is Lovebites the Ultimate Form of Entertainment?

    Lovebites I dunno that this great art, but it shure is entertaining.
  4. rcgldr

    Image of a 1973 multi-mini computer database server

    This was an advanced system at the time (1973), my first programming job. Multiple HP 2100 mini-computers (1 is HP 2116), each computer mult-tasking, a database server for 160 users at the time I left the company. Underneath each mini-computers is a 10 MB hard drive used to queue messages...
  5. H

    AI Art Source - Recommendations Needed

    I once got an AI to give me some really nice looking art but don't remember how or where. Anyone have any recommendations?
  6. shivajikobardan

    JavaScript Create Devanagari ASCII Art: C++, JS, Nepali

    This is an example of Nepali sentence. Nepali is based on Devanagari Script. यो फोरम मलाई एकदम मन पर्छ| https://nepalilanguage.org/alphabet/#:~:text=Each%20of%20the%20following%2033,%2F%2C%20%E0%A4%AB%20%2Fp%CA%B0a%2F%2C These are the vowels and consonants in Nepali. A Nepali consonant can...
  7. fresh_42

    Insights Can You Solve the Mathematical Mystery Behind the Art of Integration?

    This article cannot replace the 1220 pages of the almanac Gradshteyn-Ryzhik but it tries on 1% of the pages to summarize the main techniques. Continue reading...
  8. G

    History Perspective Art of the Ancients

    How is it that the early Greeks and Romans had such well-sculpted statues of human figures, but not so well-drawn people on canvas or other 2D surfaces?
  9. Borek

    Or when you look for a clip art of a prism

    splitting white light, and turns out refraction is... complicated
  10. H

    Physicists Doing Art With Birefringent Materials

    https://physics.aps.org/articles/v15/147 That looks pretty cool. If more artists find out about it it might catch on.
  11. N

    ART algorithm - Image Reconstruction

    My answer: The ART algorithm is a row-action algorithm. I tried to draw it, but I am not sure whether it will answer the question
  12. D

    Ideas in physics used for creating art

    Summary:: I'm looking for physical models/phenomena that can be replicated in the art of creating sound/music. Hey everyone, I'm an experimental music composer/researcher who just got addicted to watching Youtube videos on quantum physics. The entire field absolutely fascinates me now. The...
  13. BadgerBadger92

    Art Do You Think Photography is an Art?

    I am an artistic photographer and am wondering if others think it is an art or not and why
  14. dlgoff

    Art Exploring the Art of Kansas-based Artist: A 30-Year Retrospective

    I meet this artist when he and I attended a lamaze birth training class over thirty years ago. I just thought about him and thought I would post his website. Being from Kansas, I was able to see a lot of his works. Here's a small sample:
  15. E

    Here is a 3D model of 13th century French cathedral that I made

    It's the Saint-Etienne cathedral in Auxerre France. Created using Blender 2.92, rendered in cycles render.
  16. bagasme

    Art I suck at practical art tests, but am excellent at theoretical art exams

    Hi everyone, I was quite excellent at STEM subjects at school, but struggled (bad) at art classes. Here's why: At grade 9 of middle school, one of the job (assignment) that I had to perform in weeks was singing Amayadori by Mayumi Itsuwa. I and other students were given photocopies of music...
  17. E

    This is a 3D model I made of the Edmund Fitzgerald great lakes ship

    These are images of a 3D model I made of the legendary Edmund Fitzgerald, a great lakes bulk carrier ship, which famously sank in lake superior in 1975.
  18. X

    How will light react in this situation....

    Dear Physics Forum, I need help with this problem. In the diagrams above I try to show my difficulty. My main problem is working out how shadow will fall on a completely flat surface with the light source at more or less a 0 or 180 degree angle (depending on how you want to look at it) ...
  19. X

    Exploring the Intersection of Art and Science: A Scientist's Perspective

    Hi Physics Forum, I will be the annoying art guy who needs help with how things might work and try his luck on here. :)
  20. G

    L. Ron Hubbard - the art, not the man

    L. Ron Hubbard was a con man, abuser, liar, cheat, megalomaniac, pathetic excuse for a human being. Everyone, myself included, knows that. But that was the man. When it comes to his art, I'll bet at least 1% of his work can be called decent, to say the least. What do you guys say? Yay or nay?
  21. jedishrfu

    B Can Dropping Stuff Challenge Einstein's Relativity Theory?

    An article on the Extreme Art of Dropping Things looking for cracks in Einstein's Relativity theory: https://www.wired.com/story/how-the-extreme-art-of-dropping-stuff-could-upend-physics/ So far satellite experiments have shown objects fall at the same rate in agreement with Einstein.
  22. T

    Electrical Create a Moving Sun Sculpture: DIY Art Project Help and Advice

    Hello! I am an aspiring artist and have a terrible expertise in tech, but I have this idea in mind and strong desire to make it come to life, so I was hoping I could get some help here. The idea is to create a moving sculpture which is going to refer to the sun. What you see in the sketch 2 as...
  23. Wrichik Basu

    Perfect Floating Ball Illusion (inspired by Jeff Koons' Art)

    Recently I chanced upon a video from the Royal Institution. The host has tried to replicate a piece of art by Jeff Koons (snapshot from video): At Ri, they have tried to produce the same thing by balancing the ball filled with water, in a tank containing saturated saline water at the bottom...
  24. ChinoSupay

    Exploring the Cosmos: A Chilean Astrophysicist's Journey in Magnetic Research

    I am a chilean astrophysicist that works currently in magnetic issues in the Earth, planets, star and cosmos in general. I'm also interested in graphic desing, art-science relationship and dance. Thank you!
  25. E

    New metal gear 3D model in Blender

    Hi, it's been a long time since I've been on these forums, but here is a new 3D blender model that I spent four weeks of daily work to finish. I'm glad it's done, it wasn't easy. This is metal gear RAY, a 70-foot tall robot from the popular video game franchise metal gear solid.
  26. Borek

    Best Art Direction - translation?

    So it all starts with the fact that the game Return of the Obra Dinn (I love it, just in case you wonder) won Best Art Direction during The Game Awards 2018. We discussed it here with a friend of mine and turned out we understood the name of the category differently. In Polish direction and...
  27. R

    Can Art Enhance Scientific Understanding?

    I am a retired architect with a big interest in physics and cosmology. I am living in Flanders (Belgium) and stumbled into this forum via a link on Bloomberg News. My background is philosophycal and technical, I have no degree in physics but several grades in other disciplines. I firmly believe...
  28. anorlunda

    The Amazing Art of Double Talk: The Turboencabulator Joke & Beyond

    The turboencabulator joke has been making engineers giggle since 1944. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turboencabulator I think every year in my career, it resurfaced in one form or another. This video is a modern rendition. The tip-off was the term "crapalloy marvelvanes" which carries over...
  29. A

    Music Which music do you dislike the most?

    If you were able to vote for a certain type of music that you dislike, which would it be? This poll is inspired by the fact that I never got back to sleep after being disturbed by yet another obnoxious person playing hip-hop in his car. I am happy to start the voting.
  30. Deacon James

    Art Bridge Art -- Sundial Bridge at Reading, California

    Be sure the visit the Sundial Bridge at Redding, California.
  31. BillTre

    Art Santiago Ramón y Cajal Art Exhibit in NYC

    Here is a NY Times review of the drawings of one of my favorite neurobiologists, Santiago Ramón y Cajal. If I lived nearby New York, I would go and see it. My favorite line from the review: "The drawings will elicit stupefied awe from art enthusiasts, who use their brains without knowing how...
  32. D

    Physics Leaving physics to become.... an artist?

    My story is that I finished my theoretical physics PhD about two years ago and immediately got a postdoc position in another university. Towards the end of my PhD and certainly during my postdoc years I've felt more and more that physics is, after all, not for me. Probably because of this...
  33. mister mishka

    Art My Video Art (fractals, video feedback loops, etc)

    Hey, I just thought I would share some of my video art. They are meant to be visuals going alongside Techno / House music in the nightclubs of Berlin. However I got a lot of ideas from reading up on physics, like diffraction patterns, fractals, polarization of light / materials, lenses, video...
  34. Greg Bernhardt

    Art Contest: Equations as Art 2017

    The goal is to create the most beautiful or interesting equation aesthetically (pleasing to the eye). This is not about it's mathematical significance. Get your inner designer on! Each member is allowed to post one equation The equation can be completely made up Must use LaTeX Be creative...
  35. Y

    How would you design your art planet?

    You've finished with your garden planet and vacation planet, now you want to do something creative.
  36. 1oldman2

    Art Geometry as Art and Vice versa

    I came across this paper on the Geometry of M.C. Eschers work, thought I'd share the link. :smile: http://www.math.cornell.edu/~mec/Winter2009/Mihai/section1.html
  37. Waxfrage

    Wax that never burns -- Is that possible?

    Dear all, I am an artist and I am making a sculpture in wax that melts using an electric system. I know that wax ignites fire in a temperature of 200°, but, because it is an exhibition with public, I wanted to be completely sure that it does not take fire, in any temperature. Do you know if I...
  38. DennisN

    Surreal paintings by Rob Gonsalves

    I like his creativity. I've posted about him before in "Random Thoughts", and here is a page with many examples: http://brightside.me/article/the-artist-who-deceives-your-eyes-8255/']The[/PLAIN] [Broken] Artist Who Deceives Your Eyes (Bright Side) An example with Einstein, "Chalkboard Universe":
  39. S

    Explanation of how spin art machine works

    I've got to explain how spin art works to some 5th graders tomorrow. Basic setup: Paper is attached to center of a horizontal disk. Paint droplets are placed at different places on the paper. Disk is spun which causes paint to produce a pattern flowing away from the center of the disk/paper...
  40. BillTre

    Art Math Inspired 3D Printer Art

    Here are several 3D printer art creations by Henry Segerman I came across on the Shapeways site. I found them interesting. I especially liked the ones that projected interesting shadows when illuminated from within (like a lamp).
  41. G

    MHB Geometry in the Art of Dorothea Rockburne

    Hello All, I am an artist who is just beginning to learn how to think mathematically. Have studied the basics "The Golden Standard", Da Vinci, MC Esher. Given my interest, I was introduced to the work of the Dorothea Rockburne and given this work to critique. While I can do the all the art and...
  42. farolero

    Art Are art and science bad friends?

    i love to do creative things that's why i love science i love to ask myself questions and try to answer i also love to paint and sculpt, i love to try to capture thos microexprexions that render the soul of a person, here some of my work, what do you think?
  43. P

    Signal Rectifier Circuit -- clarification questions from The Art of Electroics

    I am studying The Art of Electronics and am confused about this particular part about a signal rectifier. In the first picture above, the first cap and resistor function differentiate the signal, and the signal passes the diode if the voltage is > .6V. The second circuit improves this by...
  44. jtbell

    News Will life imitate art in Moldova?

    Pro-Moscow figure Igor Dodon claims Moldova presidency (BBC News) When I saw this, I thought immediately of Rimsky-Korsakov's 1907 opera The Golden Cockerel (Le coq d'or) in which Tsar Dodon is pecked to death by the eponymous cockerel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Cockerel
  45. parshyaa

    Intro Math "The art of problem solving" textbook series

    I am a 12th grade student. I am new to this series and i know that these are great books. i am going to buy 3 books. the basics , introduction to algebra, introduction to geometry is it necessary to buy solution manual. is it ok to buy these three books for the beginners what about concept...
  46. UchihaClan13

    Are You on AoPS and Have You Tried the Physics Marathon?

    How many of you guys are on AoPS? And if you are, have you guys attempted the physics marathon?UchihaClan13:smile::smile:
  47. Dotini

    History The Spread of Agriculture in the Ancient World

    The following are, at the top, photos of certain artifacts repatriated from a western museum to Iran, originally excavated from Jiroft, Iran. They are said to date from the 3rd millennium BC. Essentially identical objects are found dating to 12,000 BC at Gobekli Tepe, Turkey, 3rd millennium BC...
  48. J

    A What is the state of the art in solving polynomial equations?

    Hi folks, I know the work from Galois showing it is not possible to solve certain equations using only a certain type of numbers. But that was more than 100 years ago, I suppose lots of progress has been made on this topic. So my question is, What has been discovered to solve polynomial...
  49. DigitalPanda213

    Studying A changing focus from Art to Engineering

    Alrighty, here we go. I'm currently a junior in high school (going into my senior year this fall), and my plan was always to become an artist as i thought it the way i could make a change in the world; however, I've begun to think pursuing engineering (particularly electrical) will enable me to...
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