photo.graph.art.design

 Sometimes the most powerful revolutions begin with the smallest steps. In 1960, a six-year-old girl named Ruby Bridges took such steps—walking through a screaming mob to attend her first day of school. Her courage was so profound that it moved a nation and inspired one of America's greatest artists to capture her story in a painting that would hang in the White House decades later. Ruby Bridges was born on September 8, 1954—the same year the Supreme Court declared school segregation unconstitutional. Yet six years later, when a federal judge ordered New Orleans schools to integrate, Ruby found herself walking alone into history. She was one of only six Black children who passed the tests to attend the previously all-white William Frantz Elementary School. While other families chose different paths, Ruby's mother made a decision that would echo through generations: "This is important—not just for Ruby, but for all the children who will come after her." On November 14,...

 Tonight’s art becomes inadequate
and useless when the sun rises in
the morning. The mistake lies not in creating art for tonight, but in assuming tonight’s answers will serve tomorrow’s questions. Louise Bourgeois, a French American artist, reflected, “art is a guaranty of sanity;” but that guarantee must be renewed with each dawn, each cultural shift, and
each evolution of human consciousness. If some art endures through generations, it
is only because of its capacity to speak, its ability to demand fresh interpretations that test and challenge the new. To guarantee sanity in the coming year, 2025 must create
its own art. Why create art? Why watch art? Why read literature? True art, in the words of Sunil P Ilayidam, shakes that which is rigid and unchangeable. Art serves as humanity’s persistent earthquake, destabilising comfortable certainties and creating space
for new ways of seeing, thinking, and being
in the world. An artist’s duty is to reflect the times, and we see this in...

 The journey of human artistic expression spans millennia, evolving from primitive cave paintings to today's digital creations and conceptual installations. This evolution reflects not just changing techniques and materials, but also the transforming human consciousness, societal values, and technological capabilities across different eras. Study the PDF below (for academic use only) Evolution of Art PDF Prehistoric Era (Before 8th Century BCE): The dawn of human artistic expression began in prehistoric times, characterised by raw, primal representations of daily life, hunting scenes, and spiritual beliefs. Cave paintings and rock art served as humanity's first canvas, using natural pigments to capture the essence of their existence. These early artists laid the foundation for all future artistic expression, demonstrating humanity's inherent need to create and communicate through visual means. Classical Period (8th Century BCE - 5th Century CE) : The Classical period, domi...

 Today is Sunday. I began my day with my usual Catholic Sunday service; standing in the middle of a church, filled with faith filled, convinced, and uncomplicated people, praying, singing, sharing, and celebrating. There was energy, there was vibe, there was devotion, and nothing lacked from the usual Sunday services. But from people walking into the church, to the entrance hymn, to the recessional hymn to people walking back home; everything looked and felt like being in an automated mode. Nothing unexpected happened, and nothing unexpected was even expected. Nothing unanticipated was heard, no one was expected to listen to anything that is unanticipated. It was a ritual performed and participated in the most ritualistic manner as possible. It was a kind of implosion into once own faith, certainties, and, age-old practices. Nothing is neither further clarified nor challenged. Later in the day I was at Chitra Shante (Art Fair) by Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath , which had artworks...

  Though art is endlessly changing, its ability to make worlds meet is constant: the worlds of the artist and the art consumers break into conversation, the subjects in a piece of art and the audience pause to converse. Initiating conversations is perhaps the greatest modern virtue. Our world, in this era of alternative facts, propaganda, thought control, and post-truth, is more polarised and divided than ever before. Most are stuck in their own petite filter bubbles and echo chambers. We are diametrically opposed to each other on virtually every issue that matters -climate, citizenship, refugees, racism, caste, gender –you name it. Exclusive black and white, left and right, for and against is the new mantra for political success. The rest of the population, in between the poles, is ignorantly comfortable and indifferent. To be in a state of being talkable, or people to be in a position to converse is made tougher by people getting offended by the slightest of disapproval. Of cours...

  Art is never finished, only abandoned is a famous saying of Leonardo da Vinci. His life and work bear witness to this fact. His great Mona Lisa took 16 years to become what we see as Mona Lisa today. He was never satisfied, he kept drawing over it time and again. Finally he in fact died without completing it; or it may be more right to say, many times completed it but without finishing or perfecting it. Apparently the renaissance masterpiece Mona Lisa was commissioned by a businessman to paint the picture of his wife. Perhaps the businessman was never satisfied by what was painted. Whether Mona Lisa was a real woman is still a mystery by itself. Mona Lisa When most secular women in paintings had a stiff appearance, Mona Lisa has a relaxed appearance. Mona Lisa has a triangle composition to bring the gaze of the audience directly to her face. And I guess Da Vinci had reason for it. He wanted us to see her face and its features. Most women up to then in secular paintings never loo...

 Though the world knows Leonardo da Vinci as one of the greatest artist, he had not considered himself as an artist. Considering his stature today, he did not many art-works to his credit. In a letter to the duke of Milan da Vinci wrote a letter to consider him for a job. In that he explained his skills in engineering, building bridges, and military equipment, etc. Only at the end in the 11 th paragraph of the letter did he say that he also could paint. Leonardo's Notebook What reveals Leonardo to us is his famous notebook. He had a habit of writing and sketching his ideas on a notebook. Even the great work Vitruvian Man is an image from his notebook. His notebook writings and scribbles had around 13000 pages. On his notebooks he wrote in mirror script. Nobody could easily read it, unless a mirror is placed against it. He did it that way perhaps to hide his initial thoughts from others because most of them were from his fertile imagination, and were not tried and proved. But today...

 There is no precise definition of the term Modern Art: it remains an elastic term, which can accommodate a variety of meanings. Art historically, Modern Art means works produced during the approximate period 1870-1970.  A s per artistic style, traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation . A tendency away from the narrative (which was characteristic for the traditional arts).  Inclination towards abstraction is characteristic of much modern art. Study the PDFs below (only for academic purpose) Art Movements: Modern Art to Contemporary Art Part I PDF Art Movements: Modern Art to Contemporary Art Part II PDF Impressionism  Originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence. Eventually became the world's most famous painting movement. Paved the way for the wholly non-naturalist abstract art of the 20th century. Impressionism focused on the almost impossible task of captur...

 Prior to Renaissance there were more of art era than art movements. We arrive at renaissance after Byzantine and Medieval art.  Study the PDFs below (only for educational purpose) Art Movements: Renaissance to Realism Part I Art Movements: Renaissance to Realism Part II Renaissance was the golden era of Classical Art.  Between 1400 and 1600, Europe witnessed an astonishing revival of drawing, fine art painting, sculpture and architecture centered on Italy, which we now refer to as the Renaissance(French for 'rebirth'). There was gradual move from grand high art to art that is more human and down to earth. The major art movements were                1. Renaissance In very simple terms, the Italian Renaissance re-established Western art according to the principles of classical Greek art, especially Greek sculpture and painting, which remained unchallenged until Pablo Picasso and Cubism, broadly, modern art. ...

 We have examined successive attempts to define Art: the representational theory,  the expression theory, formalism, the aesthetic theories. All attempted to provide comprehensive definitions of all art, but each of them appears inadequate in some way to identify all and every art. On the one hand, people grew familiar with arts of other cultures . On the other hand there have been the diverse creations of the avant-garde,   which with their radical departures from conventional practice consistently challenged settled ideas of art. Study the PDF below (only for academic purposes) Art: Further Debates PDF Art is an Open Concept . Morris Weitz believed that the central error of preceding philosophers of art was that, by assuming that art could be defined, they treated art as a closed concept rather than as an open concept . It is an argument that any attempt to define/fix art must fail necessarily. Morris Weitz’s   Art as Open Concept argument . Art is expansive....

 Art raises the viewers/audience/readers to an Aesthetic Experience. Art is in pursuit of beauty and elevation of taste. Study the PDF below  (only for academic use) Art as Aesthetics PDF What is an Aesthetic Experience? Is it to do with beauty standards? Is it making art look pretty or soothing? Aesthetics < aesthesia (gk) Means the ability to experience sensation, perception, or sensitivity. The opposite is anesthesia -the loss of sensation, a state of non-feeling. Aesthetics is the way in which art addresses spectators . What capacity does a work have to open up viewers’ senses ? Here the emphasis is primarily on the experiencing subject rather than the object that gives rise to the experience.Art raises one to a contemplative state. This contemplative state is called Aesthetic Experience. Audience seek out art works for aesthetic experience. Going for performances, cinema, or reading a book. Through creativity and originality artists strive towards providing aesthet...

 There are two ways to understand. First the plain understanding, What determines whether or not a work is art is its possession of significant form. That is, a painting is art if and only if it has a salient design/form. Secondly, in more formalistic manner, an art must possesses a form that is of its own, not seen before. Art must not imitate anything else. Art is celebration of forms, new forms. A painting is "a coloured surface, in which the various tones and various degrees of light are placed with a certain choice; that is its intimate being.” - Hippolyte Taine, The Philosophy of Art (1865). Study the PDF below (to be used for academic purposes only) Art as Form PDF L’art pour l’art , meaning, Art for art’s sake. The intrinsic value of art, and the only 'true' art, is divorced from any didactic, moral, political, or utilitarian function. Art is autotelic (complete in itself). Art is "inner-directed" or "self-motivated”. Victor Cousin (used this phrase ...

 For centuries, representation was taken to be the central, defining feature of art. The emphasis of Representation theories of art was on the outward aspects of things. In a loose sense of the word, art was primarily concerned with the objective features of the “ external ” world. By the mid 19 th century, artists began to turn inward ; they explored their own subjective experiences. Even while depicting landscapes (external realities) they attempted to register their reactions - the way they felt - about the landscapes. (they were not just mirroring nature) Artists were becoming more attentive to the subjective or “inner” world of experience . That gives birth to a new art theory, “Art as Expression”. Study the PDF below (to be used for educational purposes only) Art as Expression PDF Impressionism, though its an independent art movement, expressed more of the impressions of the passing moment and qualities of light as seen by subjective artists. We can see the begin...

The concept of "art as representation" has been a cornerstone of aesthetic/art theory since antiquity, evolving significantly from its initial formulation as mere imitation to a more nuanced understanding of "aboutness." The historical development of this theory, primarily drawing upon the insights of Plato and Aristotle, and extend to the contemporary "neo-representational" theory, which seeks to encompass a broader spectrum of artistic expression. Study the PDF below (for academic use only) Art as Representation PDF The earliest and arguably most enduring theory of art in Western philosophy is the Mimetic Theory of Art, championed by Plato and his student Aristotle. Derived from the Greek word mimesis , meaning "imitation" or "mimicry," this theory posits that art is fundamentally a reflection of nature. For Plato and Aristotle, an artwork must necessarily be an imitation of something—be it a person, place, object, action, or event. T...

  What is art? How do we find ‘ necessary conditions’ and ‘sufficient conditions’ for the truth of the statement that an item is an ‘art work ’? Art-work Vs. Mere real thing Study the PDF below. (to be used for educational purposes only) Art PDF In Indian Epistemology, when its complicated to name or define a thing or force, we don't say what it is. We instead say what it is not.  Its expressed as neti neti (not this, not this). Here too we look around us and see everything that exists. Everything that exists is broadly categorised into two. 1. Nature : those that are already there. They came about through the big bang or creation or evolution whichever. In other words they are naturally there. That which is nature is not ART. Thus rivers, trees, pets, wild animals, human beings etc. etc. fall out of the umbrella of art. 2. Culture : Those that have come into being through human creation or intervention. Art is part of culture. though everything in culture is not ar...

There's something profound about two sketches that I was forced into making, and in both cases, I was unable to finish; but they have given me confidence to tread through the magnificent world of art and design, at least in a minimal way.  My first meaningful artistic moment came in the fourth grade. School kalotsavams (festival of art and culture) are big in Kerela; they happen in intra-school level to state level where districts compete for the prestigious prizes. It was school kalotsavam time. The St. Sebastian Lower Primary School, Nellikampoil, where I studied till fifth standard, was gearing towards picking the best talent to send out for inter school competitions. I was completely unaware of anything such as these. I am not sure why, I remember one of my teachers, Seema, almost carrying me to a classroom where the intra-school qualifying competition was happening from where they pick the best to go for competing with other schools.  When I reached the classroom, other...

Wall murals and relief work designs represent some of humanity's most enduring and democratic forms of artistic expression, transforming ordinary architectural surfaces into captivating visual narratives that speak to both personal and collective experiences. These large-scale works consistently serve as powerful vehicles for cultural storytelling, social commentary, and aesthetic innovation. The interplay between two-dimensional murals and three-dimensional relief work creates particularly fascinating dynamics, where shadows and textures interact with colour and form to produce artworks that literally emerge from their architectural canvas. These public art forms continue to democratise creativity, turning city walls into galleries that are accessible to all, while simultaneously challenging our perceptions of where art belongs and how it can transform the spaces we inhabit. Opening a book is like opening a door. Large relief work depicting the power of education that transforms t...