Reality Through the Arts

Book excerpt: This introductory exploration of basic artistic concepts and terms applies them to a skeletal multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural history of artistic styles. It treats all the arts–painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, music, theatre, dance, film, architecture, literature–uniformly, and uses a common outline to reinforce the relationship of terms and concepts to the perceptual process. The book also ties both artistic media and history to the theme of art as a reflection of human realityThis examination focuses on the media of the arts, pictures, sculpture, music, theatre, cinema, dance, architecture, literature, the styles of the arts, ancient approaches, artistic reflections in the pre-modern world, as well as artistic styles in the emerging modern world and, the beginnings of modernism, pluralism in a post-modern age.For art enthusiasts and others interested exploring how artists express themselves.