![Chinese - Wine Pot - Walters 44569 - Side (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Chinese_-_Wine_Pot_-_Walters_44569_-_Side_%28cropped%29.jpg)
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The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the
design
A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...
and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and
interior design
Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordina ...
, but not usually
architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...
.
Ceramic art
Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take forms including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. As one of the plastic arts, ceramic art is one of the visual arts. Whi ...
,
metalwork
Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on every scale ...
,
furniture
Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Fu ...
,
jewellery
Jewellery ( UK) or jewelry (U.S.) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a wester ...
,
fashion
Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...
, various forms of the
textile arts
Textile arts are arts and crafts that use plant, animal, or synthetic fibers to construct practical or decorative objects.
Textiles have been a fundamental part of human life since the beginning of civilization. The methods and materials u ...
and glassware are major groupings.
Applied arts
The applied arts are all the arts that apply design and decoration to everyday and essentially practical objects in order to make them aesthetically pleasing."Applied art" in ''The Oxford Dictionary of Art''. Online edition. Oxford Univers ...
largely overlaps with decorative arts, and the modern making of applied art is usually called
design
A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...
. The decorative arts are often categorized in distinction to the "
fine arts
In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...
", namely
painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...
,
drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...
,
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...
, and large-scale
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
, which generally produce objects solely for their
aesthetic quality and capacity to stimulate the
intellect
In the study of the human mind, intellect refers to, describes, and identifies the ability of the human mind to reach correct conclusions about what is true and what is false in reality; and how to solve problems. Derived from the Ancient Gree ...
.
Distinction from the fine arts
![Surahi national Museum India](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Surahi_national_Museum_India.JPG)
The distinction between the decorative and fine arts essentially arose from the post-
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
art of the West, where the distinction is for the most part meaningful. This distinction is much less meaningful when considering the art of other cultures and periods, where the most valued works, or even all works, include those in decorative media. For example,
Islamic art
Islamic art is a part of Islamic culture and encompasses the visual arts produced since the 7th century CE by people who lived within territories inhabited or ruled by Muslim populations. Referring to characteristic traditions across a wide ra ...
in many periods and places consists entirely of the decorative arts, often using
geometric
Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ca ...
and
plant forms, as does the art of many traditional cultures.
The distinction between decorative and fine arts is not very useful for appreciating
Chinese art
Chinese art is visual art that originated in or is practiced in China, Greater China or by Chinese artists. Art created by Chinese residing outside of China can also be considered a part of Chinese art when it is based in or draws on Chinese ...
, and neither is it for understanding Early
Medieval art
The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at certain periods in Western Asia and Northern Africa. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional art, gen ...
in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. In that period in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, fine arts such as
manuscript illumination and
monumental sculpture existed, but the most prestigious works tended to be in
goldsmith
A goldsmith is a Metalworking, metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Nowadays they mainly specialize in jewelry-making but historically, goldsmiths have also made cutlery, silverware, platter (dishware), pl ...
work, in cast metals such as bronze, or in other techniques such as
ivory carving
Ivory carving is the carving of ivory, that is to say animal tooth or tusk, generally by using sharp cutting tools, either mechanically or manually. Objects carved in ivory are often called "ivories".
Humans have ornamentally carved ivory since ...
. Large-scale wall-paintings were much less regarded, crudely executed, and rarely mentioned in contemporary sources. They were probably seen as an inferior substitute for
mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
, which for the period must be considered a fine art, though in recent centuries mosaics have tended to be considered decorative. A similar fate has befallen
tapestry
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...
, which late medieval and Renaissance royalty regarded as the most magnificent artform, and was certainly the most expensive. The term "ars sacra" ("sacred arts") is sometimes used for medieval Christian art executed in metal, ivory, textiles, and other more valuable materials but not for rarer secular works from that period.
The view of decoration as a 'lesser art' was formally challenged in the 1970s by writers and art historians like Amy Goldin and Anne Swartz. The argument for a singular narrative in art had lost traction by the close of the 20th century through post-modernist irony and increasing curatorial interest in street art and in ethnic decorative traditions. The 'Pattern and Decoration Movement' in New York galleries in the 1980s, though short-lived, opened the way to a more inclusive evaluation of the value of art objects.
Influence of different materials
Modern understanding of the art of many cultures tends to be distorted by the modern privileging of fine Visual arts media over others, as well as the very different survival rates of works in different media. Works in metal, above all in precious metals, are liable to be "recycled" as soon as they fall from fashion, and were often used by owners as repositories of wealth, to be melted down when extra money was needed. Illuminated manuscripts have a much higher survival rate, especially in the hands of the church, as there was little value in the materials and they were easy to store.
Renaissance attitudes
The promotion of the fine arts over the decorative in European thought can largely be traced to the Renaissance, when Italian theorists such as
Vasari
Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work ''The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculpt ...
promoted artistic values, exemplified by the artists of the
High Renaissance
In art history, the High Renaissance was a short period of the most exceptional artistic production in the Italian states, particularly Rome, capital of the Papal States, and in Florence, during the Italian Renaissance. Most art historians stat ...
, that placed little value on the cost of materials or the amount of skilled work required to produce a work, but instead valued artistic imagination and the individual touch of the hand of a supremely gifted master such as
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was insp ...
,
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...
or
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
, reviving to some extent the approach of antiquity. Most European art during the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
had been produced under a very different set of values, where both expensive materials and virtuoso displays in difficult techniques had been highly valued. In China both approaches had co-existed for many centuries:
ink and wash painting
Ink wash painting ( zh, t=水墨畫, s=水墨画, p=shuǐmòhuà; ja, 水墨画, translit=suiboku-ga or ja, 墨絵, translit=sumi-e; ko, 수묵화, translit=sumukhwa) is a type of Chinese ink brush painting which uses black ink, such as tha ...
, mostly of
landscapes
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the p ...
, was to a large extent produced by and for the
scholar-bureaucrats
The scholar-officials, also known as literati, scholar-gentlemen or scholar-bureaucrats (), were government officials and prestigious scholars in Chinese society, forming a distinct social class.
Scholar-officials were politicians and governmen ...
or "literati", and was intended as an expression of the artist's imagination above all, while other major fields of art, including the very important
Chinese ceramics
Chinese ceramics show a continuous development since pre-dynastic times and are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. The first pottery was made during the Palaeolithic era. Chinese ceramics range from construc ...
produced in effectively industrial conditions, were produced according to a completely different set of artistic values.
Arts and Crafts movement
![Artichoke wallpaper Morris and Co J H Dearle no borders](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Artichoke_wallpaper_Morris_and_Co_J_H_Dearle_no_borders.jpg)
The lower status given to works of decorative art in contrast to fine art narrowed with the rise of the
Arts and Crafts movement. This aesthetic movement of the second half of the 19th century was born in England and inspired by the writings of
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy.
Born in Ecclefechan, Dum ...
,
John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...
and
William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...
. The movement represented the beginning of a greater appreciation of the decorative arts throughout Europe. The appeal of the Arts and Crafts movement to a new generation led the English architect and designer
Arthur H. Mackmurdo to organize the Century Guild for craftsmen in 1882, championing the idea that there was no meaningful difference between the fine and decorative arts. Many converts, both from professional artists' ranks and from among the intellectual class as a whole, helped spread the ideas of the movement.
The influence of the Arts and Crafts movement led to the decorative arts being given a greater appreciation and status in society and this was soon reflected by changes in the law. Until the enactment of the Copyright Act 1911 only works of fine art had been protected from unauthorised copying. The 1911 Act extended the definition of an "artistic work" to include works of "artistic craftsmanship".
Mass production and customization
![turtle_lamp](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Turtle_lamp.jpg)
In the context of
mass production
Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...
and
consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the supp ...
some individuals will attempt to create or maintain their
lifestyle
Lifestyle often refers to:
* Lifestyle (sociology), the way a person lives
* ''Otium'', ancient Roman concept of a lifestyle
* Style of life (german: Lebensstil, link=no), dealing with the dynamics of personality
Lifestyle may also refer to:
Bu ...
or to construct their identity when forced to accept mass-produced identical objects in their life. According to Campbell in his piece “The Craft Consumer”
,
[Campbell, Colin. "The Craft Consumer". Journal of Consumer Culture 5.1 (2005). Print.] this is done by selecting goods with specific intentions in mind to alter them. Instead of accepting a foreign object for what it is, the foreign object is incorporated and changed to fit one's lifestyle and choices, or
customized.
One way to achieve a customized look and feel to common objects is to change their external appearance by applying decorative techniques, as in
decoupage
''Decoupage'' or ''découpage'' (; ) is the art of decorating an object by gluing colored paper cutouts onto it in combination with special paint effects, gold leaf, and other decorative elements. Commonly, an object like a small box or an ...
,
art cars
An art car is a vehicle that has had its appearance modified as an act of personal artistic expression. Art cars are often driven and owned by their creators, who are sometimes referred to as "Cartists".
Most car artists are ordinary people with ...
,
truck art in South Asia
Truck art in South Asia is a popular form of regional decoration, with trucks featuring elaborate floral patterns and calligraphy. It is especially common in Pakistan and India.
During the War in Afghanistan, Pakistani decorated trucks that ran ...
and
IKEA
IKEA (; ) is a Dutch multinational conglomerate based in the Netherlands that designs and sells , kitchen appliances, decoration, home accessories, and various other goods and home services. Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA has been t ...
hacking.
See also
*
American craft
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
*
Art Nouveau in Milan
*
Art for art's sake
Art for art's sake—the usual English rendering of ''l'art pour l'art'' (), a French slogan from the latter part of the 19th century—is a phrase that expresses the philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only 'true' art, is divorce ...
*
Applied arts
The applied arts are all the arts that apply design and decoration to everyday and essentially practical objects in order to make them aesthetically pleasing."Applied art" in ''The Oxford Dictionary of Art''. Online edition. Oxford Univers ...
*
Design museum
The Design Museum in Kensington, London exhibits product, industrial, graphic, fashion, and architectural design. In 2018, the museum won the European Museum of the Year Award. The museum operates as a registered charity, and all funds generat ...
*
Faux painting
Faux painting or faux finishing are terms used to describe decorative paint finishes that replicate the appearance of materials such as marble, wood or stone. The term comes from the French word ''faux'', meaning false, as these techniques start ...
*
Fine arts
In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...
*
History of decorative arts
The Ancient World
* Ancient Furniture
* Pottery of Ancient Greece
* Arts of Caucasian Albania
The Byzantine Empire
*Macedonian art
The Antique and Medieval Asian World
*Chinese ceramics
*Japanese Pottery
*Korean Pottery
The Arts of Islam
* Isla ...
*
Industrial design
Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advan ...
*
Ornament (architecture)
An ornament is something used for decoration.
Ornament may also refer to:
Decoration
*Ornament (art), any purely decorative element in architecture and the decorative arts
*Biological ornament, a characteristic of animals that appear to serve on ...
References and sources
;References
;Sources
* Fiell, Charlotte and Peter, eds. ''Decorative Art Yearbook'' (one for each decade of the 20th century). Translated. Bonn:
Taschen
Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen.
History
The company began as Taschen Comics, pu ...
, 2000.
* Fleming, John and Hugh Honour. ''Dictionary of the Decorative Arts''. New York: Harper and Row, 1977.
* Frank, Isabelle. ''The Theory of Decorative Art: An Anthology of European and American Writings, 1750–1940''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
* Campbell, Gordon. ''The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts''. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
* Thornton, Peter. ''Authentic Decor: Domestic Interior, 1620–1920''. London: Seven Dials, 2000.
Further reading
*Dormer, Peter (ed.), ''The Culture of Craft'', 1997, Manchester University Press, , 9780719046186
google books
External links
Home Economics Archive: Tradition, Research, History (HEARTH) Cornell UniversityArgentine Decorative Art MuseumDigital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture- electronic resources
Metropolitan Museum of Art American decorative arts collectionNational Gallery of Art decorative arts collectionBagatti Valsecchi Museum, Milan, ItalyMobilier national, collection of French decorative arts (Paris)
{{Authority control
Visual arts genres
Visual arts media
Interior design
Architectural elements
Gardening aids
Design