Art

Art is the process of deliberately arranging symbolic elements in a way that influences and affects the senses, emotions, and intellect. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations and modes of expression. The meaning of art is explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics and even disciplines such as history and psychoanalysis analyze its relationship with humans and generations. The term art was used to refer to any skill or mastery. This conception changed during the Romantic period, when art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science". Generally, art is made with the intention of stimulating thoughts and emotions.


The second and more recent sense of the word art is as an abbreviation for creative art or fine art. Fine art means that a skill is being used to express the artist's creativity or to engage the audience's aesthetic sensibilities. Often, if the skill is being used in a common or practical way people will consider it a craft instead of art. Likewise, if the skill is being used in a commercial or industrial way, it will be considered Commercial art instead of fine art. The purpose of works of art may be to communicate ideas, such as in politically, spiritually or philosophically motivated art to create a sense of beauty to explore the nature of perception for pleasure or to generate strong emotions.

Art can describe several things: a study of creative skill, a process of using the creative skill, a product of the creative skill or the audience's experience with the creative skill. Artworks can be defined by purposeful, creative interpretations of limitless concepts or ideas in order to communicate something to another person. It is also an expression of an idea and it can take many different forms and serve many different purposes. Although the application of scientific knowledge to derive a new scientific theory involves skill and results in the "creation" of something new, this represents science only and is not categorized as art. The creative arts are often divided into more specific categories that are related to their technique or medium, such as decorative arts, plastic arts, performing arts, or literature. Unlike scientific fields, art is one of the few subjects that are academically organized according to technique. An art form is the specific shape or quality an artistic expression takes. The media used often influences the form.