Monday, July 14, 2014

Some Information About Figurative And Genre Art

By Coleen Torres


In the world of art, there are actually two categories that one may see namely abstract styles and figurative styles. Abstract styles are the types that would produce works that have random shapes and generally have no clear meaning. The figurative and genre art on the other hand, is the type of art that would clearly depict a certain object that would come from real life.

Now though this type of artwork actually depicts things that would come from real life, it would never become an exact replica. What artists would want to do here is to simply try to create what he thinks that object looks like but in a very clear manner. In short, it would be a replica with some twists from the artist.

Now when one would try making artworks that are in this category, he would usually choose between either humans or animals. Now even though these two are the most common subjects to be used for this type of artwork, many artists would actually use objects from nature like trees or mountains. Sometimes they would even use architecture as their subjects like castles or buildings.

The earliest artwork that would fall under this category would be the a statue of a woman that was discovered somewhere in Southern Germany. The statue is roughly thirty five thousand years old and was curved by the tusk of a mammoth. The oldest of figurative paintings on the other hand, would come from France and depicts different kinds of animals. This cave painting is at least sixteen thousand years old.

Of course if one is an artist of this category of artworks, he will always have to take note of certain elements in the process. Now since the end products are somewhat replicas of the real things, then one would have to pay close attention to certain elements. Elements such as the shapes, the colors, the lighting, the angles, and the texture.

Now if one is an artist, he has to make sure that he really pays attention to the detailing because this is very important in this category. Even though a lot of people would say that they do not notice the small details like the little lines, these details actually make a lot of difference. It is for this reason that one would really need to have a quick eye to see the small things.

Now before this type of art reached the popularity that it has today, it first started out in ancient Greece wherein the Greeks believed that art is all about precision and accuracy in copying the subject. The Egyptians, on the other hand believed that it was more on remembering what the subject looked like in the mind then translating it in art form. Of course over time, these two methods were fused and artists would sometimes switch between them.

So from the Greeks to the Egyptians even up until the Renaissance artists, this category of art really grew. Of course other sub branches stemmed out because of this like surrealism and others. Up until today this type of art is still very much evolving as artists have created more techniques and methods to do their work.




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