Category Archives: Psychology

Visionary art

Visionary art is art that purports to transcend the physical world and portray a wider vision of awareness including spiritual or mystical themes, or is based in such experiences. History The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, first established in 1946, is considered to be an important technical and philosophical catalyst in its strong influence upon contemporary visionary art. Its artists included Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner and Arik Brauer among others. Several artists who would later work in visionary art trained under Fuchs, including Mati Klarwein, Robert Venosa, Philip Rubinov Jacobson and De Es Schwertberger. Definition Visionary art often carries themes of spiritual, mystical or inner awareness. Despite this broad definition, there does seem to be emerging some definition to what constitutes the contemporary visionary art ‘scene’ and which artists can be considered especially influential. Symbolism, Cubism, Surrealism and Psychedelic art are also direct precursors to contemporary visionary art. Notable visionary…

Transgressive art

Transgressive art is art that aims to transgress; i.e. to outrage or violate basic morals and sensibilities. The term transgressive was first used in this sense by American filmmaker Nick Zedd and his Cinema of Transgression in 1985. Zedd used it to describe his legacy with underground film-makers like Paul Morrissey, John Waters, and Kenneth Anger, and the relationship they shared with Zedd and his New York City peers in the early 1980s. Definition From an academic perspective, many traces of transgression can be found in any art which by some is considered offensive because of its shock value; from the French Salon des Refusés artists to Dada and Surrealism. Philosophers Mikhail Bakhtin and Georges Bataille have published works on the nature of transgression. Probably the most thorough book on the early transgressive movement is Deathtripping: The Cinema of Transgression by Jack Sargeant. Transgressional works share some themes with art…

Yellow color in history and art

Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of visible light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 570–590 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In the RGB color model, used to create colors on television and computer screens, yellow is a secondary color made by combining red and green at equal intensity. Carotenoids give the characteristic yellow color to autumn leaves, corn, canaries, daffodils, and lemons, as well as egg yolks, buttercups, and bananas. They absorb light energy and protect plants from photodamage. Sunlight has a slight yellowish hue, due to the surface temperature of the sun. Because it was widely available, yellow ochre pigment was one of the first colors used in art; the Lascaux cave in France has a painting of a yellow horse 17,000 years old. Ochre and orpiment…

Red color in history and art

Red is the color at the end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and the CMYK color model, and is the complementary color of cyan. Reds range from the brilliant yellow-tinged scarlet and vermillion to bluish-red crimson, and vary in shade from the pale red pink to the dark red burgundy. The red sky at sunset results from Rayleigh scattering, while the red color of the Grand Canyon and other geological features is caused by hematite or red ochre, both forms of iron oxide. Iron oxide also gives the red color to the planet Mars. The red colour of blood comes from protein hemoglobin, while ripe strawberries, red apples and reddish autumn leaves are colored by anthocyanins. Red pigment made from ochre was one of…

Blue colour in history and art

Blue is one of the three primary colours of pigments in painting and traditional colour theory, as well as in the RGB colour model. It lies between violet and green on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when observing light with a dominant wavelength between approximately 450 and 495 nanometres. Most blues contain a slight mixture of other colors; azure contains some green, while ultramarine contains some violet. The clear daytime sky and the deep sea appear blue because of an optical effect known as Rayleigh scattering. An optical effect called Tyndall scattering explains blue eyes. Distant objects appear more blue because of another optical effect called atmospheric perspective. Blue has been an important colour in art and decoration since ancient times. The semi-precious stone lapis lazuli was used in ancient Egypt for jewellery and ornament and later, in the Renaissance, to make the pigment ultramarine, the…

Brown color in history and art

Brown is a composite color. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is made by combining red, black, and yellow, or red, yellow, and blue. In the RGB color model used to project colors onto television screens and computer monitors, brown is made by combining red and green, in specific proportions. The brown color is seen widely in nature, in wood, soil, human hair color, eye color and skin pigmentation. Brown is the color of dark wood or rich soil. According to public opinion surveys in Europe and the United States, brown is the least favorite color of the public; the color is most often associated with plainness, the rustic and poverty. History and art Ancient history Brown has been used in art since prehistoric times. Paintings using umber, a natural clay pigment composed of iron oxide and manganese oxide, have been dated to 40,000 BC.…

White color in history and art

White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue), because it fully reflects and scatters all the visible wavelengths of light. It is the color of fresh snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. In ancient Egypt and ancient Rome, priestesses wore white as a symbol of purity, and Romans wore a white toga as a symbol of citizenship. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance a white unicorn symbolized chastity, and a white lamb sacrifice and purity. It was the royal color of the Kings of France, and of the monarchist movement that opposed the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War (1917–1922). Greek and Roman temples were faced with white marble, and beginning in the 18th century, with the advent of neoclassical architecture, white became the most common color of new churches, capitols and other government buildings, especially in the United States. It was also…

Gray Color in history and art

Gray is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is a color “without color.” It is the color of a cloud-covered sky, of ash and of lead. The first recorded use of grey as a color name in the English language was in AD 700. Grey is the dominant spelling in European and Commonwealth English, although gray remained in common usage in the UK until the second half of the 20th century. Gray has been the preferred American spelling since approximately 1825, although grey is an accepted variant. In Europe and the United States, surveys show that grey is the color most commonly associated with neutrality, conformity, boredom, uncertainty, old age, indifference, and modesty. Only one percent of respondents chose it as their favorite color. In history and art Antiquity through the Middle Ages In antiquity and the Middle…

Orange colour in history and art

Orange is the colour between yellow and red on the spectrum of visible light. Human eyes perceive orange when observing light with a dominant wavelength between roughly 585 and 620 nanometres. In painting and traditional colour theory, it is a secondary colour of pigments, created by mixing yellow and red. It is named after the fruit of the same name. The orange colour of carrots, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, oranges, and many other fruits and vegetables comes from carotenes, a type of photosynthetic pigment. These pigments convert the light energy that the plants absorb from the sun into chemical energy for the plants’ growth. Similarly the hues of autumn leaves are from the same pigment after chlorophyll is removed. In Europe and America, surveys show that orange is the colour most associated with amusement, the unconventional, extroverts, warmth, fire, energy, activity, danger, taste and aroma, Protestantism, the autumn and Allhallowtide seasons,…

Purple in history and art

Purple is a color intermediate between blue and red. It is similar to violet, but unlike violet, which is a spectral color with its own wavelength on the visible spectrum of light, purple is a composite color made by combining red and blue. According to surveys in Europe and the U.S., purple is the color most often associated with royalty, magic, mystery, and piety. When combined with pink, it is associated with eroticism, femininity, and seduction. Purple was the color worn by Roman magistrates; it became the imperial color worn by the rulers of the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, and later by Roman Catholic bishops. Similarly in Japan, the color is traditionally associated with the Emperor and aristocracy. The complementary color of purple is yellow. In art, history and fashion In prehistory and the ancient world: Tyrian purple Purple first appeared in prehistoric art during the Neolithic…

Pink color in history and art

Pink is a pale red color that is named after a flower of the same name. It was first used as a color name in the late 17th century. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most often associated with charm, politeness, sensitivity, tenderness, sweetness, childhood, femininity and the romantic. It is associated with chastity and innocence when combined with white, but associated with eroticism and seduction when combined with purple or black. History, art and fashion From prehistory to post-classical history The color pink has been described in literature since ancient times. In the Odyssey, written in approximately 800 BCE, Homer wrote “Then, when the child of morning, rosy-fingered dawn appeared…” Roman poets also described the color. Roseus is the Latin word meaning “rosy” or “pink.” Lucretius used the word to describe the dawn in his epic poem On the Nature of Things…

Black color in history and art

Black is the darkest color, the result of the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, literally a color without hue, like white (its opposite) and gray. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness, while white represents light. Black ink is the most common color used for printing books, newspapers and documents, because it has the highest contrast with white paper and is the easiest to read. For the same reason, black text on a white screen is the most common format used on computer screens. In color printing it is used along with the subtractive primaries cyan, yellow, and magenta, in order to help produce the darkest shades. Black and white have often been used to describe opposites; particularly truth and ignorance, good and evil, the “Dark Ages” versus Age of Enlightenment. Since the Middle Ages black has been the symbolic…

Color symbolism

Color symbolism in art and anthropology refers to the use of color as a symbol in various cultures. There is great diversity in the use of colors and their associations between cultures and even within the same culture in different time periods. The same color may have very different associations within the same culture at any time. For example, red is often used for stop signs or danger. At the same time, red is also frequently used in association with romance, e.g. with Valentine’s Day. White variously signifies purity, innocence, wisdom or death. Blue has similarly diverse meanings. Diversity in color symbolism occurs because color meanings and symbolism occur on an individual, cultural and universal basis. Color symbolism is also context-dependent and influenced by changes over time. Symbolic representations of religious concepts or articles may include a specific color with which the concept or object is associated. There is evidence…

Perceptual art

Perceptual art is a form of art that can trace its roots to the art history concepts of perceptualism as well as to twentieth century inventions of conceptual art and performance art. Perceptual art delineates the aspects of art that need explaining: not just why it is attractive, but why fine execution and form.Perceptual art states certain constraints, and explain pleasure in contemplation, not value extracted from the object by activities other than contemplation. The theory is that aesthetic pleasure is a motivation for learning skills. Two forms of pleasure are postulated. The first accompanies the spontaneous activity necessary for learning a more or less universal basic level of skill. The second accompanies highly skilled activity. This second kind of pleasure is specific to art as such. Perceptualism The concept of perceptualism has been discussed in historical and philosophical explorations of art and psychology, thus it forms an innate relationship…

Abjection

The term abjection literally means “the state of being cast off.” The term has been explored in post-structuralism as that which inherently disturbs conventional identity and cultural concepts. Among the most popular interpretations of abjection is Julia Kristeva’s (pursued particularly in her work Powers of Horror). Kristeva describes subjective horror (abjection) as the feeling when an individual experiences, or is confronted by (both mentally and as a body), what Kristeva terms one’s “corporeal reality”, or a breakdown in the distinction between what is self and what is Other. The concept of abjection is best described as the process by which, one separates one’s sense of self from that which, immediately threatens one’s sense of life. Abjection prevents the absolute realization of existence, completing the course of biological, social, physical, and spiritual cycles. The best representation of this concept can be imagined as one’s reaction to gazing at a human cadaver,…

Automatic Drawing and Painting

Automatic Drawing (distinguished from drawn expression of mediums) was developed by the surrealists, as a means of expressing the subconscious. In automatic drawing, the hand is allowed to move ‘randomly’ across the paper. In applying chance and accident to mark-making, drawing is to a large extent freed of rational control. Hence the drawing produced may be attributed in part to the subconscious and may reveal something of the psyche, which would otherwise be repressed. Examples of automatic drawing were produced by mediums and practitioners of the psychic arts. It was thought by some Spiritualists to be a spirit control that was producing the drawing while physically taking control of the medium’s body. Automatic drawing was pioneered by André Masson but artists who also practised automatic drawing around the same time include the English artist Austin Osman Spare and in France Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, Jean Arp and André Breton. The…

Outsider art

Outsider art is art by self-taught or naïve art makers. Typically, those labeled as outsider artists have little or no contact with the mainstream art world or art institutions. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds. The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut , a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by those on the outside of the established art scene, using as examples psychiatric hospital patients and children. Art brut is the term by which the painter Jean Dubuffet refers to the productions of people without artistic culture. He has grouped some of these productions into a collection, the Collection of Art Brut…

Massurrealism

Massurrealism is an art form rooted in the combination of mass media and surrealist art, an artistic trend based on the evolution of surrealism with technology and mass media as a catalyst. Originally an art style, it grew to a small group in the United States. Massurrealism is a portmanteau word coined in 1992 by American artist James Seehafer, who described a trend among some postmodern artists that mix the aesthetic styles and themes of surrealism and mass media—including pop art. This genre has generated a growing interest among new media artists, while the creative tools used by contemporary artists have changed in the late twentieth century / early 21st century to incorporate the use of more electronic media and methods. Massurrealism is also influenced by the mass media of postmodern times where examples of surreal imaging are present under printed forms, films and music videos without the observer being…

Inter-dimensional art

Inter-dimensional Art is a form of Visionary Art, which seeks to represent or explore transcendent experience. It highlights the nexus between the sublime and the existential and contains elements of the metaphysical, and often qualities associated with altered states of consciousness. Inter-dimensional art is an essentially pictorial or graphic art that claims to transcend the physical world and to describe an enlarged vision of consciousness including spiritual, mystical or based on such experiences. Inter-dimensional Art is primarily created on, but not limited to, the flat surfaces of a canvas. Through creative freedom, the artist uses a two dimensional surface to [visually] convey an unusual perception of depth, which consists of bold geometric structures and colors to explore spatial boundaries and higher dimensions of vibrancies along with spiritual, and planetary transformation through personal growth. Inter-dimensional art is art that purports to transcend the physical world and portray a wider vision of…

Inscape arts

Inscape, in visual art, is a term especially associated with certain works of Chilean artist Roberto Matta, but it is also used in other senses within the visual arts. Though the term inscape has been applied to stylistically diverse artworks, it usually conveys some notion of representing the artist’s psyche as a kind of interior landscape. The word inscape can therefore be read as a kind of portmanteau, combining interior (or inward) with landscape. Roberto Matta‘s paintings give an indication of the work with diffuse light patterns and bold lines on a featureless background. This is also the period of the “inscape” series, and the closely related “psychological morphologies”. Matta’s key ambition to represent and evoke the human psyche in visual form was filtered through the writings of Freud and the psychoanalytic view of the mind as a three-dimensional space: the ‘inscape’.” According to the essay on Matta in Crosscurrents…

Danish Bicycle Culture, the Carbon free Cycling Tour in Denmark

Cycling in Denmark is both a common and popular recreational and utilitarian activity. The bike is a Dane’s best friend, as a unique icon, the Danish cycling culture forms a collective coherence and is a unique part of shared identity. In Denmark, bicycling is one of the primary forms of transportation, people bicycle in all types of weather and at all times of day. Bicycles are used for pleasure, commuting, transport of goods, and family travel. Denmark has a long tradition for riding the bike, and the Danish cycling culture is well known and increasingly in demand and envied in many parts of the world. Denmark have a unique cycling culture, which is more than a way of transport, the bike established the present day society. The cycling culture is an imprint of democracy, equality and solidarity, also highlight how the welfare society was made possible. Denmark is a perfect…

Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Modern hermeneutics includes both verbal and non-verbal communication as well as semiotics, presuppositions, and pre-understandings. Hermeneutics has been broadly applied in the humanities, especially in law, history and theology. Hermeneutics was initially applied to the interpretation, or exegesis, of scripture, and has been later broadened to questions of general interpretation. The terms hermeneutics and exegesis are sometimes used interchangeably. Hermeneutics is a wider discipline which includes written, verbal, and non-verbal communication. Exegesis focuses primarily upon the word and grammar of texts. Hermeneutic, as a count noun in the singular, refers to some particular method of interpretation (see, in contrast, double hermeneutic). In religious traditions Mesopotamian hermeneutics Talmudic hermeneutics Summaries of the principles by which Torah can be interpreted date back to, at least, Hillel the Elder, although the thirteen principles set…

Value concepts

Value concepts or values in general use linguistic usage as desirable or morally well-considered qualities or qualities that are attached to objects, ideas, practical or moral ideals, facts, patterns of behavior, character traits. By value decision is meant a decision based on values. The overall structure formed from the values ​​or values ​​of a society is called value system or value system. The network of linked, but differently weighted, values ​​is calledValue Hierarchy. If a value system contains a sole claim to truth, it is the mark of an ideology. Value creation can be understood in a material and ideal sense. In ethics, value denotes the degree of importance of some thing or action, with the aim of determining what actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics), or to describe the significance of different actions. Value systems are proscriptive and prescriptive beliefs; they…

Virtue

Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. Personal virtues are characteristics valued as promoting collective and individual greatness. In other words, it is a behavior that shows high moral standards. Doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong. The opposite of virtue is vice. The four classic cardinal virtues in Christianity are temperance, prudence, courage, and justice. Christianity derives the three theological virtues of faith, hope and love (charity) from 1 Corinthians. Together these make up the seven virtues. Buddhism’s four brahmavihara (“Divine States”) can be regarded as virtues in the European sense. According to Nitobe Inazō’s book Bushido: The Soul of Japan, the Japanese Bushidō code is characterized by eight main virtues, including honesty, heroic courage, and righteousness. Ancient Egypt During Egyptian civilization, Maat…