Portal:Arts

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The Arts Portal

Art, in its broadest meaning, is the expression of creativity or imagination. The word art comes from the Latin word ars, which, loosely translated, means "arrangement". Art is commonly understood as the act of making works (or artworks) which use the human creative impulse and which have meaning beyond simple description. While art is often distinguished from crafts and recreational hobby activities, this boundary can at times be hard to define. The term creative arts denotes a collection of disciplines whose principal purpose is the output of material for the viewer or audience to interpret. As such, art may be taken to include forms ranging from literary forms (prose writing and poetry); performance-based forms (dance, acting, drama, and music); visual and "plastic arts" (painting ,sculpture, photography, illustration); to forms that also have a functional role, such as architecture and fashion design. Art may also be understood as relating to creativity, æsthetics and the generation of emotion.

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Featured article

Samuel Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer, dramatist and poet.

Beckett's work is stark and fundamentally minimalist. As a follower of James Joyce, Beckett is considered by many one of the last modernists; as an inspiration to many later writers, he is considered one of the first postmodernists. He is also considered one of the key writers in what Martin Esslin called "Theatre of the Absurd".

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969 "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation". Beckett was elected Saoi of Aosdána in 1984. He died in Paris of respiratory problems.

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Featured Picture

Rye Fields (1878), by Ivan Shishkin (1832-98).

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Did you know...

...that English book collector Sir Thomas Phillipps acquired some 40,000 printed books and 60,000 manuscripts over the course of his lifetime?

...that the image of Benjamin Franklin on the U.S. hundred dollar bill (pictured) is based on a painting by the French artist Joseph Duplessis?

...that 1971's Out of the Darkness was the first Thai science fiction film?

...that Blackadder II, the second series of the BBC sitcom Blackadder, contains many tongue-in-cheek references to the plays of William Shakespeare?

...that Ken Richmond, the last gongman of the Rank Organisation, was a 1952 Summer Olympics wrestling medalist and actor in Jules Dassin's Night and the City?

...that in 1661, Lisle's Tennis Court in Lincoln's Inn Fields, London became the first public theatre in England to feature moveable scenery on sliding wings?

...that voice artists who made Gavrilov translations of foreign movies in Russia were once thought to have used a noseclip to conceal their identity?

...that the artist Sigrid Hjertén, a crucial figure in Swedish modernism, tragically died following an awkwardly performed lobotomy?

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Selected quotes

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"'There has to be something there of your own. You have to struggle to find your own way to give it expression. If it's a fresh thought then it's likely the form will be fresh too. It all comes down to what the artist has to say. It's no good spending your whole life splashing around with paint if you have nothing to splash around about.".

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Sybil Andrews

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