Each property of Matter is a school for the

understanding – its solidity or resistance, its

inertia, its extension, its figure, its
divisibility. The understanding adds, divides,
combines, measures,
finds nutriment and room for activity…
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
MEDIUM
It is the way by which an artist communicates an
idea ;
It is the stuff out of which a work of art is created;
It is essential to art because there is no art
without medium;
Architecture makes use of wood, stone, brick,
concrete; Sculpture makes use of steel, marble,
bronze, wood; Painting makes use of colored
pigments on wood or canvas.
VISUAL and AUDITORY ARTS
Painting, sculpture, architecture, tapestry, and
glassware are examples of VISUAL ARTS.
Music and literature are AUDITORY

TIME and SPACE ARTS

Visual arts are space arts.
Auditory arts are time arts.
Theatre, opera and cinema are known as combined arts.
MAJOR and APPLIED ARTS
The five major arts are music, literature, painting,
sculpture, and architecture.
The applied or minor arts are metalwork, weaving,
ceramics, glass, furniture, photography, lettering,
bookmaking, and the like.
Major arts generally express an emotion or idea – or
both.
Applied or minor arts generally do not express
emotion or idea.
 “THE SICK ROSE”
O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
- William Blake, British poet and artist (1757-1827)
“When the Morning Stars Sang Together” (Job) by William Blake

water color engraving

 “The Knight, Death, and the “The Four Horsemen of the
Devil” (Engraving) by Albrecht Apocalypse” (Woodcut)
Durer by Durer

To show the variety of nature and To produce emotional and

man and to achieve high degree of dynamic effect
light & shadow
“Queen Nefertiti of Egypt” Outdoor sculpture
(wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, by Pablo Picasso
3,300 years ago)

Stone to ensure durability of Sheet metal for stylistic

bust evolution
Sculpture
To emphasize mass and weight
Its subjects are objects of definite form and solidity
The qualities we associate with metal – strength,
weight, durability – can heighten the effect the
sculptor desires
Painting
Whatever can be seen can be painted
Traditional painting has a much wider field than
sculpture
The artist can show the motion or gesture of the
person, although the scene presented is still.
“ Nude Descending a
Staircase” oil on canvas
by Marcel Duchamp Nude Descending a Staircase
(1887-1968) French painter
Toe upon toe, a snowing flesh
A gold of lemon, root and rind,
She shifts in sunlight down the stairs
With nothing on, nor on her mind.

We spy beneath the banister

A constant thresh of thigh on thigh –
Her lips imprint the swinging air
That parts to let her parts go by.

One-woman waterfall, she wears

Her slow descent like a long cape
And pausing, on the final stair
Collects her motions into shape.

- X.J. Kennedy
Literature
Painting allows a wider range of subjects than sculpture,
but literature allows a wider range than painting.
Literature can present anything that can be put into
words, it can describe a situation at any given moment
and can tell what happened before and after that time.

Music
Music can never portray any subject clearly
Music can only suggest the subject, any subject.
Vague ideas, half-formed opinions and emotions,
feelings that can never be given tangible form – all
these are found in music.
“Orpheus and Eurydice”
- sculpture in marble
- literature (story) by Ovid,
a Latin poet
- music (opera) by Gluck,
18th century German
composer
 I can do
With my pencil
what I know,
What I see,
What at bottom of
My heart
I wish for…
- Robert Browning, British poet (1812-1889)
TECHNIQUE
Technique is the ability to do what you want to
do, when you want to do it, in the way you want
to do it.
It is the artist’s control of the medium.
A musician’s technique is the ability to make the
music sound as he wants it to sound.
A sculptor’s technique is a way of handling chisel
and hammer to produce desired effect.
A piano which John Cage (1912- ) American
composer, prepared for producing special sounds in
pieces he composed for it. Spoons, nuts and bolts,
screws, and other small objects have been pressed
between and under the strings.
MEDIUMS OF VISUAL ARTS
ARCHITECTURE
In Greece, marble was easily available
In Rome, concrete was used because of great quantities of
an earth called “pozzuolana
Throughout Europe, limestone was easily available
In the United States, there were heavily wooded forests
and in some parts clay have been used
Indians built their houses of brick dried in the sun
( adobe)
The Eskimos built with blocks of hard snow
SCULPTURE
Stone – marble, limestone, granite
Metals – bronze, forged iron, welded steel, aluminum
Wood
Ivory
Terra Cotta (“baked earth”)
New mediums – cast lead and copper wire, wrought
iron, glass, steel, ice, etc.
PAINTING
Pigments – obtained from natural resources like
vegetables, shell fish, stones; or from chemical
formulas
Vehicles – usually a fluid or any object that is mixed
in the pigment; a vehicle can be oil, water, acrylic,
fresco (plaster), tempera (egg), encaustic (wax), pastel
(powders), illumination (gold & silver), mosaic or
stained glass (colored glass), tapestry (fabrics)
DRAWINGS
Pencil
Pen
Silverpoint
Charcoal
Ink
Bistre (burning wood)
Chalk
PRINTS and PHOTOGRAPHY
Woodcut
Engraving
Etching
Lithograph
Serigraph (silkscreen)
MUSIC
Strings
Woodwinds
Brasses
Percussion instruments
Keyboard instruments

LITERATURE
Language
COMBINED ARTS
DRAMA
DANCE
OPERA
FILM