Art, also called (to distinguish it from other art forms) visual art, a visual object or experience

consciously created through an expression of skill or imagination. The term art encompasses diverse
media such as painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, decorative arts, photography, and installation.

The various visual arts exist within a continuum that ranges from purely aesthetic purposes at one end
to purely utilitarian purposes at the other. Such a polarity of purpose is reflected in the commonly used
terms artist and artisan, the latter understood as one who gives considerable attention to the utilitarian.
This should by no means be taken as a rigid scheme, however. Even within one form of art, motives may
vary widely; thus a potter or a weaver may create a highly functional work that is at the same time
beautiful—a salad bowl, for example, or a blanket—or may create works that have no purpose beyond
being admired. In cultures such as those of Africa and Oceania, a definition of art that encompasses this
continuum has existed for centuries. In the West, however, by the mid-18th century the development of
academies for painting and sculpture established a sense that these media were “art” and therefore
separate from more utilitarian media. This separation of art forms continued among art institutions until
the late 20th century, when such rigid distinctions began to be questioned.

Particularly in the 20th century, a different sort of debate arose over the definition of art. A seminal
moment in this discussion occurred in 1917, when Dada artist Marcel Duchamp submitted a porcelain
urinal entitled Fountain to a public exhibition in New York City. Through this act, Duchamp put forth a
new definition of what constitutes a work of art: he implied that it is enough for an artist to deem
something “art” and put it in a publicly accepted venue. Implicit within this gesture was a challenge to
the established art institutions—such as museums, exhibiting groups, and galleries—that have the
power to determine what is and is not considered art. Such intellectual experimentation continued
throughout the 20th century in movements such as conceptual art and minimalism. By the turn of the
21st century, a variety of new media (e.g., video art) further challenged traditional definitions of art.

Art is treated in a number of articles. For general discussions of the foundations, principles, practice, and
character of art, see aesthetics. See also art conservation and restoration.

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For the technical and theoretical aspects of traditional categories of art, see drawing; painting;
printmaking; sculpture. For technical and historical discussions of decorative arts and furnishings, see
basketry; enamelwork; floral decoration; furniture; glassware; interior design; lacquerwork; metalwork;
mosaic; pottery; rug and carpet; stained glass; tapestry. See photography for a complete history of that
medium.

For treatments of the various arts as practiced by specific peoples and cultures, see, for example, African
art; Central Asian arts; Egyptian art and architecture; Islamic arts; Oceanic art and architecture; South
Asian arts.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn, Managing Editor, Reference
Content.

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Stuart Rosenberg, (born August 11, 1927, New York City, New York, U.S.—died March 15, 2007, Beverly
Hills, California), American television and film director who was best known for the 1967 classic Cool
Hand Luke.

Early work

Rosenberg studied Irish literature at New York University before working in television as an editor. In
1957 he helmed episodes of Decoy, and he subsequently became a sought-after TV director, working on
such notable series as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Untouchables, Naked City, Twilight Zone, and The
Defenders. During that time he made his first feature film, Murder, Inc. (1960), though it was completed
by producer Burt Balaban when an actors’ strike interrupted filming for several months. The drama,
which starred Stuart Whitman and Peter Falk, was a taut account of a real-life gang of killers for hire that
flourished in the 1930s. After the low-budget West German production Question 7 (1961), Rosenberg
returned to television. In addition to his work on episodic shows, he directed the TV movies Fame Is the
Name of the Game and A Small Rebellion (both 1966).

Rosenberg returned to the big screen in impressive fashion with Cool Hand Luke (1967), an enormously
popular updating of the rebel-within-a-prison formula. Paul Newman gave one of his most charismatic
performances as the antihero Luke, an irrepressible, indomitable convict who gives new hope to his
chain-gang compatriots; Strother Martin was the warden who tries but fails to break him. The film
received four Academy Award nominations, and George Kennedy won an Oscar for his work as Dragline,
a fellow inmate who becomes allies with Luke. Rosenberg had less success with The April Fools (1969), a
flat romantic comedy that offered the unlikely pairing of Jack Lemmon and Catherine Deneuve as illicit
lovers who intend to run away together; the notable supporting cast included Charles Boyer and Myrna
Loy.

Films of the 1970s

Rosenberg began the decade with Move (1970), an irreverent black comedy starring Elliott Gould as a
failed playwright who writes pornographic novels for a living. Somewhat better was WUSA (1970), a
political drama starring Newman as Rheinhardt, a drifter who becomes an announcer at a right-wing
radio station, which he discovers has an alarming agenda. Although didactic, the film had an exceptional
cast that included Joanne Woodward, Anthony Perkins, Laurence Harvey, and Cloris Leachman. The
slight comedy Pocket Money (1972) had Newman again, now as a modern-day cowboy who, desperate
for money, agrees to drive cattle from Mexico to the United States, though things do not go as planned;
Lee Marvin was cast as a friend who joins him. The Laughing Policeman (1973) was a police procedural
with Walter Matthau and Bruce Dern as partners investigating a mass slaying on a bus. Rosenberg
reteamed with Newman on The Drowning Pool (1975), a sequel to the hit crime drama Harper (1966).
Newman reprised the role of private detective Lew Harper, and Woodward was cast as a former
girlfriend.

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Voyage of the Damned (1976) was more ambitious, a dramatization of the 1939 voyage of the ocean
liner St. Louis, which transported German Jewish refugees who hoped to land in Havana; when
permission to dock was denied there and elsewhere, the ship had to return to Germany. The
international cast included Max von Sydow, Faye Dunaway, James Mason, Oskar Werner, Maria Schell,
Ben Gazzara, and Julie Harris. Rosenberg took on less-serious fare with Love and Bullets (1979), a
Charles Bronson action film.

After more than a decade without a major hit, Rosenberg found box-office success with The Amityville
Horror (1979). The thriller was based on Jay Anson’s nonfiction book about a Long Island house that was
allegedly possessed by demons. James Brolin and Margot Kidder starred as the homeowners, and Rod
Steiger was the priest who tries to exorcize the forces of darkness. Although widely panned by critics,
The Amityville Horror was one of the year’s top-grossing films.

Last films

Rosenberg replaced Bob Rafelson on the prison exposé Brubaker (1980), which starred Robert Redford
as the new warden of a corrupt and abusive prison. He poses as a convict in order to experience the
manifold horrors firsthand and later encounters resistance when he tries to implement much-needed
reforms. The unrelenting fact-based drama was a critical and commercial success. Also popular was The
Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), a crime comedy based on Vincent Patrick’s novel set in Little Italy.
Mickey Rourke gave a strong performance as a small-timer who aspires to greater things, and Eric
Roberts was typically over-the-top as his hopelessly ill-fated cousin.

Brubaker

Brubaker

A scene from Brubaker (1980), directed by Stuart Rosenberg.

© 1980 Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Let’s Get Harry (1986) was a little-seen action film about a soldier of fortune (Robert Duvall) hired to
rescue a man kidnapped in South America. Unhappy with changes made by the studio, Rosenberg had
his name removed from the film; the directorial credit is given to “Alan Smithee.” In 1991 Rosenberg
made his last film, My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys, a serviceable take on the aging-rodeo-star
tale, with Scott Glenn as a bone-weary circuit veteran and Ben Johnson as his ailing father.

After retiring from filmmaking, Rosenberg taught at the American Film Institute. Among his students
were Darren Aronofsky and Todd Field.