The notion of visual arts can often be extremely confusing to us who don’t have the “special knowledge or experience”. How do people come to understand how the visual arts play a role in our 21st century world?

Often visual arts are described as an oil painting depicting things. These things could be ornamental objects, ordinary people, an historical scene, nature, beautiful people and the list goes on. But, what if the advertisements on the Shanghai subway at the speed in which we consume them were also some sort of form of art? 

Any art placed in any society will demonstrate a wide variety of quality, meaning and purpose. During the 17th century in Europe what the individual possessed denoted where they stood in society. This perhaps has not changed that much in most societies, but the notion of the star artist and those who understand the work has been somewhat displaced due the use of the advertising and the public image. Art may be considered to be divorced or absent from our modern lives, pushed away from the masses into a wealthy family homestead or into a major museum. This conditioning picked up from schools, parents and the media forced many to believe the arts were only for an elite group of people within our societies. 

Jan Davidsz de Heem, Still life with fruit, flowers, glasses and lobsters, 1660-1670

Instagram image

Advertisers mimic pieces of art using glamour, romance, symbols and objects of wealth and even signs of love to intoxicate viewers. Where the 17th Century European lord’s paintings reflected the prosperity of the individual and family, public imagery such as instagram, twitter, wechat and facebook reproduce similar ideas to publicly display the desires of those who look at these images. The traditions of the past still underpin many of our assumptions of what can be and what is art.

To receive notifications of new blog posts, please follow us.