- What are the Plastic Arts?
- History of the plastic arts
- Types of plastic arts
- Characteristics of the plastic arts
- examples of plastic arts
We explain what they are and what types of plastic arts exist. In addition: history, characteristics and examples of plastic arts.
What are the Plastic Arts?
When we speak of plastic arts, we refer to the techniques of elaboration of artworks in which materials and elements that can be molded, modified or transformed by the artist are used. These elements are therefore considered resources. plastics, since they serve the artist raw material to express their perspective, imagination or vision specific to reality.
This term is used in Fine arts to differentiate the visual arts, which must be perceived by the viewer's sight, which also involve the sense of hearing (music, text recited), such as performing arts. Thus, painting, sculpture, drawing, architecture, engraving, ceramics, goldsmithing, crafts and mural painting are considered plastic arts.
It is very common for plastic artists, especially in the early exploration of their talent, to engage in various plastic disciplines at the same time, since the plastic arts start from principles and aspects that are common to each other, such as form, texture, the color or even the movement.
Plastic arts currently occupy one of the main artistic areas of museums, and are, together with the performing arts, the literature, the cinema, the music and the Photography, the greatest contemporary expressions of art.
History of the plastic arts
The notion of plastic arts arose during the 19th century, as has already been said, to distinguish them from the performing arts.However, during the 20th century the notion of art came into conflict and reformulation so many times that the plastic arts incorporated expressive proposals such as the graffiti Y urban art (street art) or the ready made heritage of pop art.
This last type of artistic objects, above all, that did not receive major intervention from the artist, but were transferred by him to the museum and extracted from their context, forced the use of the term "visual arts" instead of "plastic arts" , to accommodate them in this category. Video, photography and digital art, in this way, also had a place in it.
Types of plastic arts
The plastic arts are ordinarily classified into:
- Paint. The most classic of all, together with the sculpture, this discipline uses substances chromatics obtained through various mechanisms to apply color on a smooth, white surface, known as a canvas, to create with these colors a realistic or abstract representation of the reality.
- Sculpture. This discipline uses the artist's hands, as well as various tools, to mold, cut, polish and, finally, give a certain shape to durable elements, such as stones of various kinds, or moldable materials that later harden, such as plaster.
- Goldsmith. It is about the elaboration of artistic pieces through the manipulation and melting of the metals, in particular precious metals such as gold or silver.
- He drew. The technique It consists of representing the perspectives of what is visible to the naked eye or the imaginary by means of lines on paper that are made with pencil, charcoal, ink or some other material that leaves marks.
- Recorded. In a similar way to He drew, the engraving prints gestures, letters or other symbols on a surface, but in this case a hard and resistant one like laminated metals.
- Ceramics. Similar to sculpture, it imprints shape (and eventually color) on a mass of a moldable or malleable element, in order to later extract the component from it naturally or in a furnace. Water and, when drying, harden it and make it rigid and shiny.
- Craft. This is the name given to the technique of producing simple objects or containers, for everyday use, using flexible materials and simple tools, often the hand of the artist.
Characteristics of the plastic arts
As said before, the plastic arts share certain basic concepts that determine their particular way of expressing their content, and that are:
- Color. Colors are given to works of art through pigments and materials that, when impacted by the light white, they absorb all the shades of the rainbow except one. This reflected color is what our retinas perceive.
- Form. The form has to do with the geometry of things, with their regularity or irregularity, with their limits perceptible to the naked eye.
- Texture. Texture is appreciable by touch or sight, and has to do with the surface of objects: their roughness or smoothness, their sharpness or the sensations transmitted by their outer layer.
- Movement. In some cases, plastic works can have movement, as is the case of artists such as the Argentine Julio LeParc, whose sculptures could be activated by electricity to convey to the viewer hypnotic shapes and colors.
examples of plastic arts
Below are examples of each of the plastic disciplines:
- Paint. The Guernica by Pablo Picasso (20th century).
- Sculpture. The Thinker by Auguste Rodin (20th century).
- Ceramics. The ceramic vases of Théodore Deck (19th century).
- Goldsmith. The altar of Saint Ambrose of Milan, made by Vuolvinus (c. 850).
- He drew. The sketches of dancers by Edgar Degas (20th century).
- Recorded. Goya's series of engravings baptized “The Caprices” (20th century).