Art and Culture

Art and culture have always formed a part of our civilisation through the past centuries. Art appeared in prehistoric era for the first time. From these epoch cave paintings are maintained. Art is an important part of the culture. The main purpose of art is to conserve ideas of different civilisations, nations and periods of our history. Other functions are expressions of imagination, religious reasons or symbolic functions.

Division:

Art is developed in many fields – painting, sculpture, architecture and many others. The four most important parts of culture are: art, music, theatre and cinema

I like art and culture although I am not any specialist neither so interested in this area. I like going to the theatre, cinema, concerts and exhibitions.

My favourite area is painting because I think everyone can find his own favourite painter through the history. Art is nowadays so free in opinions that everyone can create his own movement. We can say that everything can be art!

As I said, paintings started their development in the prehistoric era with cave paintings. Since that moment there was a huge expansion to other parts of the world.

I consider painting very strange but fascinating – people can express themselves with absolute freedom, they can express their feelings and opinions.

Painting experienced many movements in its history.

The most famous art styles of the 19 century are:

  • romanticism – Goya
  • realism – Breton
  • impressionism – Cézanne, Manet, Monet, Degas
  • symbolism – Kandinsky,
  • Secession Groups

From the 20th century I would mention:

  • cubism (1906–1919) – Picasso, Gris, very important is Czech cubism
  • expressionism (c. 1890s–1930s) – Munch, Van Gogh
  • fauvism (c. 1900–1910)
  • futurism (c. 1909–1916)
  • modernism – Matisse
  • art deco
  • surrealism ( c. 1920s–1960s)

The most famous and well-known painters are: Leonardo da Vinci, El Greco or Salvador Dalí.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519)

Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanis, and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of „unquenchable curiosity“ and „feverishly inventive imagination“.

His journals and notes are also very famous because they represent the human body absolutely incredibly with high precision and details. His experiments and inventions are very valuable as well as scientific studies with wonderful drafts of invented machines. He was good at engineering as well.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is widely known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped to develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

I like Picasso´s paintings for its colourful and lively atmosphere they create. Sometimes I can not see the aim of the picture, I am not able to see the name of the painting inside but usually it is not the most important thing because the most important aim is to capture the message the painting gives to us.

My favourite galleries

Although I am not interested in art too much, I like visiting galleries in foreign countries, during my stay in foreign cities.

I have visited a lot of galleries already, but the most impressive ones were: the National Gallery in London, Museo del Prado and Reina Sofía in Madrid where I had a wonderful possibility to see the highlights of Spanish painting, National Gallery in Edinburgh and others. I find very interesting being so close to some picture which was painted by someone else so many centuries ago. I can see the signature of the painter and imagine him during his work in the past.

Some people says that contemporary art is not the true art to appreciate but I think everyone can create art and if society likes it, the author can be considered as an real artist. The amount of galleries and museums all over the world offer us an unbelievable huge variety of art. The aim of the museums and galleries should be mainly the preservation and exposition of the art to the public.