Plastic Arts
Plastic arts are art forms which involve physical manipulation of a ''plastic medium'', such as clay, wax, paint or even plastic in the modern sense of the word (a ductile polymer) to create works of art. The term is used more generally to refer to the visual arts (such as painting, sculpture, ceramics, architecture, film and photography), rather than literature and music. Materials for use in the plastic arts, in the narrower definition, include those that can be carved or shaped, such as stone or wood, concrete, glass, or metal. History The word ''plastic'' draws from the Ancient Greek (''plastikós''), which means 'to mold' or 'to shape'. It has long preceded its dominant modern meaning as a synthetic material. The term ''plastic arts'' has been used historically to denote visual art forms (painting, sculpture, and ceramics) as opposed to literature or music. The related terms ''plasticity'' and ''plasticism'' became more widely used in the early 20th century by cri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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August Wilhelm Schlegel
August Wilhelm von Schlegel (Schlegel until 1812; ; ; 8 September 176712 May 1845) was a German Indologist, poet, translator and critic. With his brother Friedrich Schlegel, he was a leading influence within Jena Romanticism. His translations of Shakespeare turned the English dramatist's works into German classics. Schlegel was also the professor of Sanskrit in Continental Europe and produced a translation of the ''Bhagavad Gita''. Childhood and education Schlegel was born in Hanover, where his father, Johann Adolf Schlegel, was a Lutheran pastor. He was educated at the Hanover gymnasium and at the University of Göttingen. Initially studying theology, he received a thorough philological training under Heyne and became an admirer and friend of Bürger, with whom he was engaged in an ardent study of Dante Alighieri, Petrarch and William Shakespeare. Schlegel met with Caroline Schelling and Wilhelm von Humboldt. In 1790 his brother Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel came to G� ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal ( ; ; ) is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal Empire, Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal; it also houses the tomb of Shah Jahan himself. The tomb is the centrepiece of a complex, which includes a mosque and a guest house, and is set in formal gardens bounded on three sides by a crenellated wall. Construction of the mausoleum was completed in 1648, but work continued on other phases of the project for another five years. The first ceremony held at the mausoleum was an observance by Shah Jahan, on 6 February 1643, of the 12th anniversary of the death of Mumtaz Mahal. The Taj Mahal complex is believed to have been completed in its entirety in 1653 at a cost estimated at the time to be around 32 million, which in 2015 would be approximately 52.8 billion (827 million). The building complex incorporates ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sheila Hicks
Sheila Hicks (born 1934) is an American artist. She is known for her innovative and experimental weavings and sculptural textile art that incorporate distinctive colors, natural materials, and personal narratives. Since 1964, she has lived and worked in Paris, France. Prior to that, she lived and worked in Guerrero, Guerrero, Mexico from 1959 to 1963. Early life and education Sheila Hicks was born in Hastings, Nebraska in 1934. She attended the Yale School of Art in Connecticut from 1954 to 1959, where she studied with Josef Albers, Rico Lebrun, Bernard Chaet, George Kubler, George Heard Hamilton, Vincent Scully, Jose de Riviera, Herbert Matter, Norman Ives, and Gabor Peterdi. Her thesis on Periodization of pre-Columbian Peru, pre-Incaic textiles was supervised by archaeologist Junius Bird of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. She received her BFA in 1957 . Born during the Great Depression in Hastings, Nebraska, Sheila Hicks spent much of her early life on the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Glass Art
Glass art refers to individual works of art that are substantially or wholly made of glass. It ranges in size from monumental works and installation pieces to wall hangings and windows, to works of art made in studios and factories, including glass jewelry and tableware. As a decorative and functional medium, glass was extensively developed in Ancient Egypt, Egypt and Assyria. Glassblowing was perhaps invented in the 1st century BC, and featured heavily in Roman glass, which was highly developed with forms such as the cage cup for a luxury market. Islamic glass was the most sophisticated of the early Middle Ages. Then the builders of the great Norman architecture, Norman and Gothic architecture, Gothic cathedrals of Europe took the art of glass to new heights with the use of stained glass windows as a major architectural and decorative element. Glass from Murano, in the Venetian Lagoon, (also known as Venetian glass) is the result of hundreds of years of refinement and inventi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aristide Maillol
Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol (; December 8, 1861 – September 27, 1944) was a French sculptor, painter, and printmaking, printmaker.Le Normand-Romain, Antoinette . "Maillol, Aristide". ''Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online''. Oxford University Press. Web. He began his career as a painter and developed an early interest in the decorative arts. He became primarily interested in sculpture from his early 40s. Maillol was one of the most famous sculptors of his time. His work inspired artists such as Pablo Picasso, Picasso, Henri Matisse and Henry Moore. Biography Maillol was born in Banyuls-sur-Mer, Roussillon. He decided at an early age to become a painter, and moved to Paris in 1881 to study art. After several applications and several years of living in poverty, his enrollment in the École des Beaux-Arts was accepted in 1885, and he studied there under Jean-Léon Gérôme and Alexandre Cabanel. His early paintings show the influence of his contemporaries Pierre Puvis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Terracotta
Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based non-vitreous ceramic OED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used for earthenware objects of certain types, as set out below. Usage and definitions of the term vary, such as: *In art, pottery, applied art, and craft, "terracotta" is a term often used for red-coloured earthenware sculptures or functional articles such as flower pots, water and waste water pipes, and tableware. *In archaeology and art history, "terracotta" is often used to describe objects such as figurines and loom weights not made on a potter's wheel, with vessels and other objects made on a wheel from the same material referred to as earthenware; the choice of term depends on the type of object rather than the material or shaping technique. *Terracotta is also used to refer to the natural brownish-orange color of most terracotta. *In architecture, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Basket Weaving
Basket weaving (also basketry or basket making) is the process of weaving or sewing pliable materials into three-dimensional artifacts, such as baskets, mats, mesh bags or even furniture. Craftspeople and artists specialized in making baskets may be known as basket makers and basket weavers. Basket weaving is also a rural craft. Basketry is made from a variety of fibrous or pliable materials—anything that will bend and form a shape. Examples include pine, straw, willow (esp. osier), oak, wisteria, forsythia, vines, stems, fur, hide, grasses, thread, and fine wooden splints. There are many applications for basketry, from simple mats to hot air balloon gondolas. Many Indigenous peoples are renowned for their basket-weaving techniques. History While basket weaving is one of the widest spread crafts in the history of any human civilization, it is hard to say just how old the craft is, because natural materials like wood, grass, and animal remains decay naturally and con ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rapa Nui People
The Rapa Nui (Rapa Nui: , Spanish: ) are the Indigenous Polynesian peoples of Easter Island. The easternmost Polynesian culture, the descendants of the original people of Easter Island make up about 60% of the current Easter Island population and have a significant portion of their population residing in mainland Chile. They speak both the traditional Rapa Nui language and the primary language of Chile, Spanish. At the 2017 census there were 7,750 island inhabitants—almost all living in the village of Hanga Roa on the sheltered west coast. As of 2011, Rapa Nui's main source of income derived from tourism, which focuses on the giant sculptures called moai. Over the past decade, Rapa Nui activists have been fighting for self-determination and sovereignty over their lands. Protests in 2010 and 2011 by the Indigenous Rapa Nui on Easter Island, objecting to the creation of a marine park and reserve, have led to clashes with Chilean police. History Pre-European contact (300 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Moai
Moai or moʻai ( ; ; ) are monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Easter Island, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in eastern Polynesia between the years 1250 and 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms called Ahu (Easter Island), ahu around the island's perimeter. Almost all moai have overly large heads, which account for three-eighths of the size of the whole statue. They also have no legs. The moai are chiefly the living faces (''aringa ora'') of deified ancestors (''aringa ora ata tepuna''). The statues still gazed inland across their clan lands History of Easter Island#European contacts, when Europeans first visited the island in 1722, but all of them had fallen by the latter part of the 19th century. The moai were toppled in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, possibly as a result of European contact or endemic warfare, internecine tribal wars. The production and tr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mammoth Ivory
Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals is the same, regardless of the species of origin, but ivory contains structures of mineralised collagen. The trade in certain teeth and tusks other than elephant is well established and widespread; therefore, "ivory" can correctly be used to describe any mammalian teeth or tusks of commercial interest which are large enough to be carved or scrimshawed. Besides natural ivory, ivory can also be produced synthetically, hence (unlike natural ivory) not requiring the retrieval of the material from animals. Tagua nuts can also be carved like ivory. The trade of finished goods of ivory products has its origins in the Indus Valley. Ivory is a main product that is seen in abundance and was used for trading in Harappan civilization. Finished ivory pr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Venus De Brassempouy
The Venus of Brassempouy (French: ''la Dame de Brassempouy'', , meaning "Lady of Brassempouy", or ''Dame à la Capuche'', "Lady with the Hood") is a fragmentary ivory figurine from the Upper Palaeolithic, apparently broken from a larger figure at some time unknown. It was discovered in a cave at Brassempouy, France in 1894. About 25,000 years old, it is one of the earliest known realistic representations of a human face. Discovery Brassempouy is a small village in the ''département'' of Landes in southwest France. Two caves near the village, 100 metres from each other, were among the first Paleolithic sites to be explored in France. They are known as the ''Galerie des Hyènes'' (Gallery of the Hyenas) and the ''Grotte du Pape'' (the "Grotto of the Pope"). The Venus of Brassempouy was discovered in the Grotto of the Pope in 1894, accompanied by at least eight other human figures. These may be an example of unfinished work, as if the artist or artists carved several figurines at ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |