Defining art types with reliable sources and citations

¶ … Art

"Any brief definition of art would oversimplify the matter, but we can say that all the definitions offered over the centuries include some notion of human agency, whether through manual skills (as in the art of sailing or painting or photography), intellectual manipulation (as in the art of politics), or public or personal expression (as in the art of conversation). Recall that the word is etymologically related to artificial -- i.e., produced by human beings. Since this embraces many types of production that are not conventionally deemed to be art, perhaps a better term for them would be visual culture. This would explain why certain preindustrial cultures produce objects which Eurocentric interests characterize as art, even though the producing culture has no linguistic term to differentiate these objects from utilitarian artifacts. Having said that, we are still left with a class of objects, ideas and activities that are held to be separate or special in some way. Even those things which become art even though they are not altered in any material way -- e.g., readymades -- are accorded some special status in a describable way. Because of this complexity, writers have developed a variety of ways to characterize the art impulse."

-- Dr. Robert J. Belton, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, University of British Columbia

"All art is of value when involving self-expression, logic, and imagination."

-- Nicholas Lukowlak, TED Talks

Painting: Seurat, G. (1884, 1884-86). A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. [Oil on canvas]. The Art

Institute of Chicago. Retrieved from http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/27992

The painting is Seurat's largest and best-known. It is remarkable because it makes use of a technique called "pointillism." It is a "highly scientific and scientific technique" (The Art Institute of Chicago) that uses small horizontal brushstrokes and dots. The eye blends the colors when viewed from a distance. It is thus self-expression, with both logical and imaginative applications of paint.

Sculpture: Moore, H. (1966). Late Large Forms. [Bronze]. Gagosian Gallery, London.

Retrieved from http://www.henry-moore.org/pg/exhibitions/henry-moore-late-large-forms.

The sculpture consists of two enormous, separate bronze pieces that are smooth and organic in shape. Although they are not connected, the pieces relate to one another, although one cannot say for certain what they represent; even the title does not give a clue. Their size gives them great presence, illustrating the skill and imagination of the sculptor.

Architecture: Wright, F.L. (1939) S.C. Johnson Administration Building, Great Workroom,

Racine, WI. Retrieved from http://www.franklloydwright.org/

The genius of Frank Lloyd Wright is that his designs still look fresh and modern, even though the architect died more than fifty years ago and some of his work is nearly a century old. The Great Workroom has a space-age quality to it, with its flyer-saucer-shaped discs high above the room on columns. There is also an organic quality to the design because the discs and columns look somewhat like tall toadstools. The room is a beautiful example of Wright's skill and imagination.