Art Practice in the Past and Present

Art Practice in the Past and Present

Art practice

A skill or mastery that stimulates the process of thought, amusement, and emotions is called an art. It is also defined as a special quality used by many people to express their feelings, approach and position. Dating back to 50,000 years ago, art has various forms that ground itself from sculptures, rock paintings, wall craving to modern paintings. Countries like Egypt, Persia, India, Europe and America have great foundations of ancient civilizations that developed their own way of expressing their work and teaching it to their future generations. These teachings started with simple body signs for expressing there need to using brushes, knifes and other tools to explain there work. As a result of these teachings, the art present today expresses an urbanized form of historic art.

Similarities and difference of past and present art

Artists today are very similar in their ways to the artists in the Renaissance period but the difference is that art students today attend a school or professional college instead of internship in an artist's workshop called artesian. In a younger age, the parents used to send their children to work as an apprentice in the artisan. Mostly at that time it would be a boy rather than a girl and if the child is lucky, than the child will learn and get a chance to work in the master's workshop and serve the artist for many years. However, students today start their journey of becoming an artist from the beginning of a school and then pursue it further in art schools and universities. Professors and teachers in the art schools themselves usually professional artists. In today's art schools, students are offered the facility to choose a program of their interest that may range from painting and photography to sculpture and architecture (Gaiger, 2011)

However, in the past an artist's work would start with modest tasks like cleaning, operating errand and maintaining the wooden panels for painting and grinding pigments. As he learns more, he begins to study from his teacher and start sketching, copying paintings, making sculptures and helping the master in simple tasks. There were less instruction and more practice in the workshop. Once the student is mastered in this technique; they are promoted to sketch paintings. Handling the colors and balancing the light and shadow are the most important projects considered for this type of work. This is similar to modern days that students would start with drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpturing and digital. However, as mentioned earlier, students can chose their major and area of study. Most colleges even offer two subjects in the art major (Bolin, 2009).

Patronage, past and present

In past unlike today, artists were very proficient and served as professionals to build certain techniques yet they still served as patrons in the business. Patrons were the customers during the Renaissance period who were basically seen as the true maker of an art piece. Everything created by artist at that time was instructed by the patron who hired the artist and was considered as the artist's master work specifically for the master (Keizer, 2011). The patron would explain the kind of art produced to the artist which then artist will then make it accordingly. Thereby, the patron would fund the artist's work. At the beginning of the renaissance period, artists were mainly asked to work on religious issues. However, this trend later thrived into political, cultural and organization art. The patron would pay a good amount to the artist workshop to paint portraits, buildings, abstract and scenarios from the history. The main aim usually is the glorification of the patron's homeland, government, religion and sometimes to flatter and praise his wife. With such boundaries and limitations that were imposed into an artist in the past, the artists did not have the freedom to express their feelings which are almost non-existing these days. Today's artist is more free and ready to explore more with greater diversity in the work. This freedom of present days has made the artists to develop amazing sky-scrappers, eye-catching bridges and dams, astonishing abstracts and astonishing photographs. However the financing of the art pieces is one of the main problems most artists are having in present days unlike the old days. There is great difference in teaching and practicing art in past and present (Sasportes, 2009). For example, in the modern class rooms; the art projects are self-funded by the students which enforces a great deal of pressure on the students in the means of financial crises.

Art techniques used in the past and present