Portal:The arts

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T H E A R T S P O R T A L

Self-Portrait by
Rembrandt

The arts or creative arts are a wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling, and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing, and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both dynamic and a characteristically constant feature of human life, they have developed into innovative, stylized, and sometimes intricate forms. This is often achieved through sustained and deliberate study, training, and/or theorizing within a particular tradition, across generations, and even between civilizations. The arts are a vehicle through which human beings cultivate distinct social, cultural, and individual identities while transmitting values, impressions, judgements, ideas, visions, spiritual meanings, patterns of life, and experiences across time and space.

Prominent examples of the arts include:

visual arts (including architecture, ceramics, drawing, filmmaking, painting, photography, and sculpting)
literary arts (including fiction, drama, poetry, and prose)
performing arts (including dance, music, and theatre)

They can employ skill and imagination to produce objects and performances, convey insights and experiences, and construct new environments and spaces.

The arts can refer to common, popular, or everyday practices as well as more sophisticated, systematic, or institutionalized ones. They can be discrete and self-contained or combine and interweave with other art forms, such as the combination of artwork with the written word in comics. They can also develop or contribute to some particular aspect of a more complex art form, as in cinematography. By definition, the arts themselves are open to being continually redefined. The practice of modern art, for example, is a testament to the shifting boundaries, improvisation and experimentation, reflexive nature, and self-criticism or questioning that art and its conditions of production, reception, and possibility can undergo.

As both a means of developing capacities of attention and sensitivity and as ends in themselves, the arts can simultaneously be a form of response to the world and a way that our responses and what we deem worthwhile goals or pursuits are transformed. From prehistoric cave paintings to ancient and contemporary forms of ritual to modern-day films, art has served to register, embody, and preserve our ever-shifting relationships to each other and to the world. (Full article...)

Outline of performing arts
Outline of the visual arts

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Little Tich in 1893

Harry Relph (21 July 1867 – 10 February 1928), professionally known as Little Tich, was a 4-foot-6-inch-tall (137 cm) English music hall comedian and dancer during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was best known for his acrobatic and comedic "Big-Boot Dance", which he performed in Europe and for which he wore boots with soles 28 inches (71 cm) long. Aside from his music hall appearances, he was also a popular performer in Christmas pantomimes and appeared in them annually at theatres throughout the English provinces. He repeated this success in London, where he appeared in three pantomimes at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, between 1891 and 1893 alongside Dan Leno and Marie Lloyd.

Born in Cudham, Kent, Little Tich began performing aged ten when he developed a dance and tin-whistle act which he showcased at public houses in Sevenoaks. In the early 1880s he formed a blackface act and gained popularity with performances at the nearby Rosherville Pleasure Gardens and Barnard's Music Hall in Chatham. He travelled to London and appeared at the Forester's Music Hall in 1884. Later that year, he adopted the stage name "Little Tich", which he based on his childhood nickname of "Tichborne", acquired through his portly stature and physical likeness to the suspected Tichborne Claimant Arthur Orton. The terms "titchy" or "titch" were later derived from "Little Tich" and are used to describe things that are small. (Full article...)
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Resident Evil 2 is a 1998 survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom for the PlayStation. The player controls rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy and college student Claire Redfield, who must escape Raccoon City after its citizens are transformed into zombies by a biological weapon two months after the events of the original Resident Evil. The gameplay focuses on exploration, puzzles, and combat; the main difference from its predecessor are the branching paths, with each player character having unique storylines, partners and obstacles.

Resident Evil 2 was produced by Resident Evil director Shinji Mikami, directed by Hideki Kamiya, and developed by a team of approximately 50 across 21 months. The initial version, commonly referred to as Resident Evil 1.5, differs drastically; it was canceled at approximately two thirds completion because Mikami decided it was inadequate. The final design introduced a more cinematic presentation. (Full article...)
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Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian cannibal film directed by Ruggero Deodato and written by Gianfranco Clerici. It stars Robert Kerman as Harold Monroe, an anthropologist who leads a rescue team into the Amazon rainforest to locate a crew of filmmakers that have gone missing while filming a documentary on local cannibal tribes.

Produced as part of the contemporary cannibal trend of Italian exploitation cinema, Cannibal Holocaust was inspired by Italian media coverage of Red Brigades terrorism. Deodato believed the news reports to be staged, an idea which became an integral aspect of the film's story. Additional story elements were also influenced by the Mondo documentaries of Gualtiero Jacopetti, particularly the presentation of the documentary crew's lost footage, which constitutes approximately half of the film. The treatment of this footage, which is noted for its visual realism, innovated the found footage style of filmmaking that was later popularized in American cinema by The Blair Witch Project. Cannibal Holocaust was filmed primarily on location in the Amazon rainforest of Colombia with a cast of indigenous tribes interacting with mostly inexperienced American and Italian actors recruited in New York City. (Full article...)
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David Suzuki: The Autobiography is the 2006 autobiography of Canadian science writer and broadcaster David Suzuki. The book focuses mostly on his life since the 1987 publication of his first autobiography, Metamorphosis: Stages in a Life. It begins with a chronological account of his childhood, academic years, and broadcasting career. In later chapters, Suzuki adopts a memoir style, writing about themes such as his relationship with Australia, his experiences in Brazil and Papua New Guinea, the founding of the David Suzuki Foundation, and his thoughts on climate change, celebrity status, technology, and death. Throughout, Suzuki highlights the continuing impact of events from his childhood.

This is Suzuki's forty-third book and, he says, his last. Critics have called the book candid, sincere, and charming, with insightful commentary if occasionally flat stories. Suzuki's scientific background is reflected in the writing's rational and analytic style. (Full article...)
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Horrible Histories is a British children's live-action historical and musical sketch comedy television series, based on the bestselling book series of the same name by Terry Deary. The show was produced for CBBC by Lion Television with Citrus Television and ran from 2009 to 2014 for five series of thirteen half-hour episodes, with additional one-off seasonal and Olympic specials.

The TV show carries over the graphic style and much of the content of the Horrible Histories book series. It maintains the franchise's overall irreverent but accurate focus on the dark, gruesome or scatological aspects of British and other Western world history, spanning predominantly from the Stone Age to the post-World War II era. Individual historical eras or civilisations are defined and named as in the books, with sketches from several different time periods combined within a single episode. Live-action sketches—which often parody other UK media or celebrities—and music videos are intercut with animations and quizzes. The starring troupe are Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, Ben Willbond and Sarah Hadland, alongside a large supporting cast headed by Katy Wix, Lawry Lewin, Alice Lowe and Dominique Moore. The black rat puppet "host", Rattus Rattus, appears in short bridging segments, explaining the factual basis for each sketch and helping children understand the facts. (Full article...)
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Laborintus II is an album by the Belgian orchestra Ictus Ensemble, the vocal group Nederlands Kamerkoor, and the American vocalist Mike Patton, which was recorded live at the 2010 Holland Festival. It was released on July 10, 2012, by Ipecac Recordings, and debuted at number 23 on the American Billboard Classical Albums Chart. It was not well received by critics.

The album is a recording of the 1965 work of the same name by Italian composer Luciano Berio, whose composition employs elements of jazz and electronic music. The libretto by Edoardo Sanguineti borrows ideas from the works of Dante Alighieri, T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, and his own 1956 poem "Laborintus". Berio named "memory, death and usury" as the work's main concerns, believing these themes to be present in Dante's work. (Full article...)
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Rokeby Venus, c. 1647–1651. 122 cm × 177 cm (48 in × 70 in). National Gallery, London.

The Rokeby Venus (/ˈroʊkbi/ ROHK-bee; also known as The Toilet of Venus, Venus at her Mirror, Venus and Cupid; Whose original title was "The Mirror's Venus" Spanish: La Venus del espejo) is a painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age. Completed between 1647 and 1651, and probably painted during the artist's visit to Italy, the work depicts the goddess Venus in a sensual pose, lying on a bed with her back facing the viewer, and looking into a mirror held by the Roman god of physical love, her son Cupid. The painting is in the National Gallery, London.

Numerous works, from the ancient to the baroque, have been cited as sources of inspiration for Velázquez. The nude Venuses of the Italian painters, such as Giorgione's Sleeping Venus (c. 1510) and Titian's Venus of Urbino (1538), were the main precedents. In this work, Velázquez combined two established poses for Venus: recumbent on a couch or a bed, and gazing at a mirror. She is often described as looking at herself in the mirror, although this is physically impossible since viewers can see her face reflected in their direction. This phenomenon is known as the Venus effect. In a number of ways the painting represents a pictorial departure, through its central use of a mirror, and because it shows the body of Venus turned away from the observer of the painting. (Full article...)
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Here Is Mariah Carey, also known as Mariah Carey or This Is Mariah Carey, is the third video album by American singer Mariah Carey. It presents Carey performing live at Proctor's Theatre in Schenectady, New York, in July 1993, and also includes non-concert footage. Carey performs ten songs during the video; four are from her third studio album Music Box (1993), which Columbia Records commissioned Here Is Mariah Carey to promote. She is sporadically accompanied by a band, choir, dancers, and string musicians. In creating the stage for the performance, production designers sought inspiration from works by Boris Aronson and Josep Maria Jujol. Lawrence Jordan, who collaborated with Carey on previous occasions, directed the hour-long video.

Approximately 4,500 people attended tapings at Proctor's Theater, and 19 million watched it on television network NBC during its original broadcast on November 25, 1993. Columbia Music Video released it on VHS five days later to generally positive reviews from critics. Although they complimented Carey's voice, many felt the non-concert scenes were redundant. Here Is Mariah Carey peaked at number four on the United States video album chart published by Billboard. Earning a Platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America, it was one of the best-selling video albums of 1994 and 1995 in that country. The video also spent six weeks at number one on the Official Charts Company's music videos chart in the United Kingdom. (Full article...)
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In Rainbows is the seventh studio album by the English rock band Radiohead. It was self-released on 10 October 2007 as a pay-what-you-want download, followed by a physical release internationally through XL Recordings on 3 December 2007 and in North America through TBD Records on 1 January 2008. It was Radiohead's first release after their recording contract with EMI ended with their album Hail to the Thief (2003).

Radiohead began work on In Rainbows in early 2005. In 2006, after their sessions with the producer Spike Stent proved fruitless, they re-enlisted their longtime producer, Nigel Godrich. Radiohead recorded in the country houses Halswell House and Tottenham House, the Hospital Club in London, and their studio in Oxfordshire, using conventional rock instrumentation plus electronic instruments, strings, piano and the ondes Martenot. The lyrics are less political and more personal than previous Radiohead albums. (Full article...)
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"Lisa the Skeptic" is the eighth episode of the ninth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 23, 1997. On an archaeological dig with her class, Lisa discovers a skeleton that resembles an angel. All of the townspeople believe that the skeleton actually came from an angel, but skeptical Lisa attempts to persuade them that there must be a rational scientific explanation. The episode's writer, David X. Cohen, developed the idea after visiting the American Museum of Natural History, and decided to loosely parallel themes from the Scopes Monkey Trial. The episode also makes allusions to actual hoaxes, such as the Cardiff Giant.

It has been discussed in the context of ontology, existentialism, and skepticism; it has also been used in Christian religious education classes to initiate discussion about angels, science, and faith. (Full article...)
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Saline Valley salt tram summit, 1989

The Saline Valley salt tram is located in Inyo County, California, United States. The electric aerial tramway was constructed from 1911 to 1913 to carry salt from the Saline Valley over the Inyo Mountains and into the Owens Valley. Covering a distance of 13.4 mi (21.6 km), it operated sporadically from 1913 to 1935 for four different companies. During its operation, it was the steepest tram in the United States.

The tram was built for the Saline Valley Salt Company (SVSC) by the Trenton Iron Company, but the costs of its construction and operation were ruinously expensive for the SVSC. The salt mining operation and tram were leased in 1915 to the Owens Valley Salt Company until it went bankrupt in 1918. In 1920, the tram was taken over by the Trenton Iron Company, which sold it to the Sierra Salt Company in 1928. The Sierra Salt Company put it back into service until the company went bankrupt in 1935. The tram was included in the National Register of Historic Places on December 31, 1974. (Full article...)
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Sutton Hoo Helmet outside the Sutton Hoo visitor centre

Sutton Hoo Helmet is a 2002 sculpture by the English artist Rick Kirby. A representation of the Anglo-Saxon helmet by the same name found in the Sutton Hoo ship-burial, it was commissioned by the National Trust to suspend outside an exhibition hall at the Sutton Hoo visitor centre. At the opening of the centre, the sculpture was unveiled by the Literature Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney on 13 March 2002. It remained in place, dominating the entrance of the exhibition hall, until 2019, when it was moved to the entrance to the Sutton Hoo site.

The sculpture is 1.8 m (5.9 ft) high, 1.2 m (3.9 ft) wide, 1.6 m (5.2 ft) deep, and weighs 900 kg (2,000 lb). It is made of mild steel plates that are coloured red. Designed to have a "fierce presence", it is inspired by the fragmentary appearance of the reconstructed helmet rather than the glistening replica made by the Royal Armouries. Steel is Kirby's favoured medium, allowing the sense of scale and dramatic impact found in Sutton Hoo Helmet. The sculpture is illustrative of Kirby's largely figural body of work, and its mask-like quality has been repeated in subsequent pieces. (Full article...)
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Tomb of Philippe Pot with life-sized hooded pleurants, c. 1477–80, now in the Louvre, Paris

Funerary art is any work of art forming, or placed in, a repository for the remains of the dead. The term encompasses a wide variety of forms, including cenotaphs ("empty tombs"), tomb-like monuments which do not contain human remains, and communal memorials to the dead, such as war memorials, which may or may not contain remains, and a range of prehistoric megalithic constructs. Funerary art may serve many cultural functions. It can play a role in burial rites, serve as an article for use by the dead in the afterlife, and celebrate the life and accomplishments of the dead, whether as part of kinship-centred practices of ancestor veneration or as a publicly directed dynastic display. It can also function as a reminder of the mortality of humankind, as an expression of cultural values and roles, and help to propitiate the spirits of the dead, maintaining their benevolence and preventing their unwelcome intrusion into the lives of the living.

The deposit of objects with an apparent aesthetic intention is found in almost all cultures – Hindu culture, which has little, is a notable exception. Many of the best-known artistic creations of past cultures – from the Egyptian pyramids and the Tutankhamun treasure, to the Terracotta Army surrounding the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Sutton Hoo ship burial and the Taj Mahal – are tombs or objects found in and around them. In most instances, specialized funeral art was produced for the powerful and wealthy, although the burials of ordinary people might include simple monuments and grave goods, usually from their possessions. (Full article...)
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Political Animals and Animal Politics is a 2014 edited collection published by Palgrave Macmillan and edited by the green political theorists Marcel Wissenburg and David Schlosberg. The work addresses the emergence of academic animal ethics informed by political philosophy as opposed to moral philosophy. It was the first edited collection to be published on the topic, and the first book-length attempt to explore the breadth and boundaries of the literature. As well as a substantial introduction by the editors, it features ten sole-authored chapters split over three parts, respectively concerning institutional change for animals, the relationship between animal ethics and ecologism, and real-world laws made for the benefit of animals. The book's contributors were Wissenburg, Schlosberg, Manuel Arias-Maldonado, Chad Flanders, Christie Smith, Clemens Driessen, Simon Otjes, Kurtis Boyer, Per-Anders Svärd, and Mihnea Tanasescu. The focus of their individual chapters varies, but recurring features include discussions of human exceptionalism, exploration of ways that animal issues are or could be present in political discourse, and reflections on the relationship between theory and practice in politics.

In part, Political Animals and Animal Politics arose from a workshop that Wissenburg and Schlosberg organised at the 2012 European Consortium for Political Research Joint Sessions conference, though not all attendees contributed to the volume and not all contributors presented at the workshop. Footage of the workshop appeared in De Haas in de Marathon (The Pacer in the Marathon), a 2012 documentary about the Dutch Party for the Animals. Political Animals and Animal Politics was published as part of the Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series, edited by Andrew Linzey and Priscilla Cohn. (Full article...)
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Brettingham in a portrait by John Theodore Heins, 1749

Matthew Brettingham (1699 – 19 August 1769), sometimes called Matthew Brettingham the Elder, was an 18th-century Englishman who rose from modest origins to supervise the construction of Holkham Hall, and become one of the best-known architects of his generation. Much of his principal work has since been demolished, particularly his work in London, where he revolutionised the design of the grand townhouse. As a result, he is often overlooked today, remembered principally for his Palladian remodelling of numerous country houses, many of them situated in the East Anglia area of Britain. As Brettingham neared the pinnacle of his career, Palladianism began to fall out of fashion and neoclassicism was introduced, championed by the young Robert Adam.

Born in Norwich, into a family of craftsmen, Brettingham worked initially as a surveyor, gaining experience through jobs for the city's civic authorities. Work included restorations at Norwich Cathedral, at the castle, at the local prison and the shire hall. His professional ascent began in 1743 with his appointment to the post of Clerk of Works at Holkham. The succeeding decades saw many aristocratic commissions, predominantly in East Anglia, but including work at Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire. (Full article...)

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Qianlong Emperor

Credit: Giuseppe Castiglione

The Qianlong Emperor was the sixth emperor of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China. The fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor, his reign officially began 11 October 1735, lasting for 60 years. Named Hongli, he chose the era name Qianlong, meaning "heavenly prosperity". Although his early years saw the continuation of an era of prosperity and great military success in China, his final years saw troubles at home and abroad converge on the Qing Empire. Qianlong abdicated the throne at the age of 85, to his son, the Jiaqing Emperor, fulfilling his promise not to reign longer than his grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor.

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Did you know...

... that the conical step pyramids (reconstruction pictured) and circular public architecture of ancient Mexico's Teuchitlan tradition were unique in Mesoamerica?
... that in Korean cuisine, dishes made by steaming vegetables stuffed with seasoned fillings are called Seon?
... that the SC Johnson & Son-produced film To Be Alive! was the first non-theatrical production to receive an award from the New York Film Critics Circle?

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In this month

5 May 1726 – Handel's opera Alessandro premieres at the King's Theatre in London with Italian castrato singer Senesino in the title role
12 May 1926 – Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1, which he composed at the age of 19 while a student at Leningrad Conservatory, receives its first performance
22 May 1844 – Impressionst painter and printmaker Mary Cassatt (self-portrait pictured) is born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania
26 May 1897 – Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, which later became the subject of numerous theatrical, film and television interpretations, is published by Constable & Co.
29 May 1913 – Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring premieres in Paris and causes a riot in the audience between supporters and opponents of the work

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Featured biography

Bronwyn Bancroft (born 1958) is an Indigenous Australian artist, notable for being the first Australian fashion designer invited to show her work in Paris. Born in Tenterfield, New South Wales and trained in Canberra and Sydney, Bancroft worked as a fashion designer and is an artist, illustrator, and arts administrator. In 1985 Bancroft established a shop called Designer Aboriginals, selling fabrics made by Indigenous artists, including herself. She was a founding member of Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative. Artwork by Bancroft is held by the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Art Gallery of Western Australia. She has provided artwork for over 20 children's books, including Stradbroke Dreamtime by writer and activist Oodgeroo Noonuccal and books by artist and writer Sally Morgan. She has also received design commissions, including one for the exterior of a sports centre in Sydney. With a long history of involvement in community activism and arts administration, Bancroft has served as a board member for the National Gallery of Australia. Her painting Prevention of AIDS (1992) was used in a campaign to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS in Australia. As of 2010, Bancroft sits on the boards of copyright collection agency Viscopy and Tranby Aboriginal College, as well as being on the Artists Board at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. (Full article...)