Unit I. The arts.

All art is an imitation of nature.

Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)

The arts

SECTION I

Reading

TEXT

The arts are a vast subdivision of culture, composed of many creative endeavors and disciplines. It is a broader term than "art," which as a description of a field usually means only the visual arts. The arts encompass visual arts, literary arts and the performing arts - music, theatre, dance and film, among others. This list is by no means comprehensive, but only meant to introduce the concept of the arts. Things that generally come under the heading of “THE ARTS” are:

LITERATURE: drama, novels, short stories, biographies, poetry

PERFORMING ARTS: dance, cinema, theatre, ballet, opera, concerts (classical/rock/country)

FINE ARTS: painting, sculpture

We often also include architecture and ceramics within the arts.

The arts (plural) cover everything in the network. Art (singular, uncountable) usually means fine art, but can also refer to technique and creativity.

e.g. Have you read the arts page in The Times today? [That part of the paper

that deals with all the things in the network].

She's a great art lover, [loves painting and sculpture]

Shakespeare was skilled in the art of poetry, [creative ability]

Dance usually refers to modern artistic dance forms; ballet usually has a more traditional feel, unless we say modern ballet.

Remember: a novel is a long story, e.g. 200-300 pages; a short prose fiction, e.g. 10 pages, is a short story.

Use of the definite article

When we refer to a performing art in general, we can leave out the article.

e.g Are you interested in (the) cinema/ballet/opera/theatre?

Would you like to come to the cinema/ballet/opera/theatre with

us next week [particular performance].

Definition

A good definition of the arts is given by the Free Dictionary as "imaginative, creative, and nonscientific branches of knowledge considered collectively, esp. as studied academically”. The singular term art is defined by the Art Encyclopedia as follows: "Art is created when an artist creates a beautiful object, or produces a stimulating experience that is considered by his audience to have artistic merit." So, one could conclude that art is the process that leads to a product (the artwork or piece of art), which is then examined and analyzed by experts in the field of the arts or simply enjoyed by those who appreciate the arts. The same source states:

Art is a global activity which encompasses a host of disciplines, as evidenced by the range of words and phrases which have been invented to describe its various forms. Examples of such phraseology include: Fine Arts, Liberal Arts, Visual Arts, Decorative Arts, Applied Arts, Design, Crafts, Performing Arts, and so on.

The term art commonly refers to the "Visual Arts," as an abbreviation of creative art or fine art. For example, the History of art is described as "the history of the visual arts of painting, sculpture and architecture. It is the history of one of the fine arts, others of which are the performing arts and literature. It is also one of the humanities. The term sometimes encompasses theory of the visual arts, including aesthetics." In the article for Fine art, we read:

“Confusion often occurs when people mistakenly refer to the Fine Arts but mean the Performing Arts (Music, Dance, Drama). However, there is some disagreement here: e.g., at York University (Toronto, Canada) Fine Arts is a faculty that includes the [visual arts], design and the "Performing Arts".” Furthermore, creative writing is frequently considered a fine art as well.

More work will be required to standardize the use of the terms "art" and "fine art," but for the purpose of this article the definition of "the arts" is not problematic, because it includes all the arts. One artist has even suggested that "[it] would really simplify matters if we could all just stick with visual, auditory, performance or literary - when we speak of The Arts - and eliminate "Fine" altogether."