Careers in Focus: Visual Arts, Third Edition

Description

Ferguson's Careers in Focus books are a valuable career exploration tool for libraries and career centers. Written in an easy-to-understand yet informative style, this series surveys a wide array of commonly held jobs and is arranged into volumes organized by specific industries and interests. Each of these informative books is loaded with up-to-date career information presented in a featured industry article and a selection of detailed professions articles. The information here has been researched, vetted, and analyzed by Ferguson's editors, drawing from government and industry sources, professional groups, news reports, career and job-search resources, and a variety of other sources. For readers making career choices, these books offer a wealth of helpful information and resources.

Sujets

• Careers
• Employabilité, métiers et formations
• Los ambiciosos
• Professional
• Career
• Education
• Economics
• Business
• Art
• Employment
• Job
• Carrière
• Carrière & Mobilité

Informations

• Publié par: Infobase Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781646934027
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Careers in Focus: Visual Arts, Third Edition
Copyright © 2022 by Infobase
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For more information, contact:
Ferguson An imprint of Infobase 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001
ISBN 978-1-64693-402-7
You can find Ferguson on the World Wide Web at http://www.infobase.com
Contents Visual Arts Entries Art Directors Art Teachers Artists Cartoonists Digital Designers Exhibit Designers Fashion Designers Fashion Illustrators Fashion Photographers Fashion Stylists Film and Television Directors Furniture Designers Gallery Owners and Directors Graphic Designers Greeting Card Designers and Writers Illustrators Interior Designers and Decorators Jewelers and Jewelry Repairers Makeup Artists Medical Illustrators and Photographers Multimedia Artists and Animators Non-Fungible Token Artists Photographers Production Designers and Art Directors Publicity Photographers Video Game Art Directors Index
Visual Arts
Overview

Artists use spray paint to create an outdoor mural.
Source: Pavel L Photo and Video. Shutterstock.
The visual arts are works of art that have been created in any number of styles with various tools and in different media. Art consists of painting, drawing, sculpture, illustration, photography, filmmaking, computer animation, crafts such as needlework, and more. The visual arts are meant to be seen, with each person experiencing the artwork differently. Some artwork expresses ideas and comments on political or social issues, while other artwork depicts moments from everyday life, or explores shapes, colors, sizes, and/or textures. Some visual arts are meant to be functional objects, such as jewelry and pottery.
Art has early roots. For as long as mankind has existed, so too has the desire to share experiences or tell stories through artwork. The tools and materials used to create art in the beginning were what nature made available, such as rocks, twigs, leaves, berries, insects, animals, even blood. Pictures of hunting scenes painted on cave walls in southwestern France and northern Spain are believed to be 20,000 years old. Countless sculptures of animals and fertility figures that have been unearthed in archaeological digs date back to prehistoric times. Egyptians honored their pharaohs by painting mythological figures and scenes on their tombs. The Greeks, and later the Romans, surrounded themselves with artwork by creating mosaics on their floors and painting landscapes and various scenes on their walls and ceilings.
The visual arts have evolved over the centuries to encompass four main categories, which are commercial art, fine art, craft, and multimedia art. Commercial art is art that is used for business purposes such as to attract consumers and promote products and services. It usually combines text with artwork. Commercial artists include illustrators, graphic designers, art directors, and photographers, and these artists may also work in the fine arts. Other types of illustrators include medical illustrators, comic book artists, and caricaturists. With fine art, the artist usually comes up with the idea for the piece, for the purpose of self-expression. Clients may also commission a fine artist to create a piece for a specific place, such as a painting for a business office or a sculpture for a park. Fine artists include painters, calligraphers, ceramic artists, printmakers, and sculptors, among many others. There are also mixed media artists, who combine different materials in their work. Craft includes needle arts, jewelry making, mosaic, basketry, and wood carving. Multimedia artists use computers and digital and electronic tools in their artwork. They develop storyboards for key scenes, and create two- and three-dimensional models, animation, and special effects for film, television, and video. 
Many visual artists work on a freelance basis or operate their own studio and manage staff. They may work on jobs that clients have assigned them or on projects based on their own ideas. Those that are employed full time may work for advertising, publishing, public relations, or other related businesses, or in nonprofit arts organizations. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of May 2018, approximately 217,810 graphic designers, 49,560 photographers, 28,560 multimedia artists and animators, 90,990 artists and related workers, including illustrators, painters, sculptors, as well as 40,210 art directors, were employed in the United States.
Background
Georgia O'Keeffe's painting Black Iris, Michelangelo's sculpture David, and Robert Mapplethorpe's photograph Fish all express the diversity of the visual arts. Today, visual arts include not only the traditional fields of painting, drawing, and sculpture, but also illustration, photography, filmmaking, computer animation, needlework, as well as many other art fields. Works of art are wonderful to look at, and they enhance our lives and help us understand ourselves and our societies. They inspire us, comfort us, touch us. They reflect our imagination and excite our vision.
Many of the visual arts have their origins in prehistoric times, and we know by looking at artifacts that the visual arts have been important in virtually every human society. World cultures offer an abundance of styles and media in the visual arts.
The earliest examples of Western painting are found not on the walls of elegant museums but on the walls of caves in southern Europe. Famous ancient cave art is found at Lascaux in southwestern France and Altamira in northern Spain. It is believed that some 20,000 years ago, humans painted pictures of animals, such as bison, horses, and deer, on cave walls as part of magic rituals to benefit their hunting trips. Scientists have determined that their paint was made of various minerals mixed with animal fat, egg whites, plant juices, fish glue, or blood, and the first paintbrushes were made of twigs and reeds. Prehistoric sculpture is represented by small animal figures and fertility statuettes, such as the Venus of Willendorf. These are found from Eastern Europe to Siberia but mainly in Austria, the Czech Republic, and Hungary.
Egyptians around 3000 B.C . used visual art to honor their pharaohs. They painted the walls of their tombs with mythological figures and depictions of everyday activities, such as hunting, fishing, and banquets. Minoans (ancestors of the Greeks) of the 1500s B.C . left paintings on the walls of palaces in Crete and on pottery. The Romans adopted many Greek artistic techniques, decorating their floors with mosaics and creating wall frescoes that portrayed rituals, myths, landscapes, and scenes of daily life.
In the thousands of years since the ancient Romans and Greeks, some aspects of the visual arts have remained constant while others have changed. In wealthy societies certain classes of people are able to pay professional artists, as Sumerian priests and Renaissance princes did, and as art collectors and corporations do today.
The physical resources of a society have always affected the medium in which an artist works. In Mesopotamia, Sumerian architects built with brick because stone was not available. Nomadic Asian herders wove wool from their flocks into rugs. Medieval European painters worked on wood panels, plaster walls, and stained-glass windows, and calligraphers drew letters on parchment in an era before paper was known in the West. Because of mass production and world trade, modern artists have an enormous range of materials from which to choose. Today, anything goes—artists create works not only with paint and paper but with metals, glass, fabric, and even household appliances.
Local tradition also affects art styles. Pottery design in one area and period may be geometric; in another, naturalistic. Because of Indian traditions, artists depicted the Buddha with tightly curled hair. Western tradition decreed that the Madonna be shown with a blue robe. Eastern artists seem to have disregarded scientific perspective, which was a major concern of painters in the European Renaissance. In ancient Egyptian culture, which was dominated by the state and religion, painting, sculpture, and architecture glorified the pharaoh and life after death. In pious medieval Europe, most visual arts had Christian themes. In 20th-century totalitarian countries, art served the state. In most Western countries, artists have great freedom to choose the subjects that they desire to explore and express. In the 21st century, the Internet, mass media, and social media have contributed to greater interconnectivity among people around the world. Today's artists have more information than ever before about social and political issues in other countries, and they can also quickly and easily share their work and ideas, and create dialogues, with a global audience.
Art movements, or schools of thought, are numerous: impressionism, postimpressionism, expressionism, surrealism, cubism, Dadaism, fauvism, futurism, abstract expressionism, and minimalism, to name a few. These movements change with time and space, but visual art continues to be a power that confronts us, challenges us, and allows us to comment on life in expressive ways.
Structure
The visual arts can roughly be divided into four categories: commercial art, fine art, craft, and multimedia art.
Commercial art is art used by advertising, publishing, public relations, and other business enterprises to attract attention, sell products and services, illustrate concepts, convey messages, and document events. Commercial artists include illustrators, graphic designers, art directors , and photographers . Some commercial art, particularly some illustration and photography, is also considered by some