Visual arts — including paintings, sculptures, photography, architecture and different handicrafts — make up a major part of the local cultural heritage of virtually any place around the world. Seeing a famous painting or building can easily be one of the highlights of a visit.

Understand
While art in some form has existed in every known human society, the word art has no universal accepted definition. The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines (performing arts, conceptual art, textile arts) involve aspects of the visual arts as well as arts of other types. Also included within the visual arts are the applied arts such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design and decorative art.

Current usage of the term “visual arts” includes fine art as well as the applied or decorative arts and crafts, but this was not always the case. Before the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and elsewhere at the turn of the 20th century, the term ‘artist’ had for some centuries often been restricted to a person working in the fine arts (such as painting, sculpture, or printmaking) and not the decorative arts, craft, or applied art media. The distinction was emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement, who valued vernacular art forms as much as high forms. Art schools made a distinction between the fine arts and the crafts, maintaining that a craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner of the arts.

The increasing tendency to privilege painting, and to a lesser degree sculpture, above other arts has been a feature of Western art as well as East Asian art. In both regions painting has been seen as relying to the highest degree on the imagination of the artist, and the furthest removed from manual labour – in Chinese painting the most highly valued styles were those of “scholar-painting”, at least in theory practiced by gentleman amateurs. The Western hierarchy of genres reflected similar attitudes.

Some well-described art genres are:

Architecture; the design of buildings
Graffiti and murals; painting on buildings, structures and stone
European art; a tradition from the 14th to 19th centuries
Modern and contemporary art; trailblazing creations from the late 19th century until today

Drawing
Drawing is a means of making an image, using any of a wide variety of tools and techniques. It generally involves making marks on a surface by applying pressure from a tool, or moving a tool across a surface using dry media such as graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoals, pastels, and markers. Digital tools that simulate the effects of these are also used. The main techniques used in drawing are: line drawing, hatching, crosshatching, random hatching, scribbling, stippling, and blending. An artist who excels in drawing is referred to as a draftsman or draughtsman.

Drawing goes back at least 16,000 years to Paleolithic cave representations of animals such as those at Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain. In ancient Egypt, ink drawings on papyrus, often depicting people, were used as models for painting or sculpture. Drawings on Greek vases, initially geometric, later developed to the human form with black-figure pottery during the 7th century BC.

With paper becoming common in Europe by the 15th century, drawing was adopted by masters such as Sandro Botticelli, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci who sometimes treated drawing as an art in its own right rather than a preparatory stage for painting or sculpture.

Painting
Painting taken literally is the practice of applying pigment suspended in a carrier (or medium) and a binding agent (a glue) to a surface (support) such as paper, canvas or a wall. However, when used in an artistic sense it means the use of this activity in combination with drawing, composition, or other aesthetic considerations in order to manifest the expressive and conceptual intention of the practitioner. Painting is also used to express spiritual motifs and ideas; sites of this kind of painting range from artwork depicting mythological figures on pottery to The Sistine Chapel to the human body itself.

Printmaking
Printmaking is creating, for artistic purposes, an image on a matrix that is then transferred to a two-dimensional (flat) surface by means of ink (or another form of pigmentation). Except in the case of a monotype, the same matrix can be used to produce many examples of the print.

Historically, the major techniques (also called media) involved are woodcut, line engraving, etching, lithography, and screenprinting (serigraphy, silkscreening) but there are many others, including modern digital techniques. Normally, the print is printed on paper, but other mediums range from cloth and vellum to more modern materials. Major printmaking traditions include that of Japan (ukiyo-e).

Photography
Photography is the process of making pictures by means of the action of light. The light patterns reflected or emitted from objects are recorded onto a sensitive medium or storage chip through a timed exposure. The process is done through mechanical shutters or electronically timed exposure of photons into chemical processing or digitizing devices known as cameras.

Architecture
Architecture is the process and the product of planning, designing, and constructing buildings or any other structures. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural symbols and as works of art. Historical civilizations are often identified with their surviving architectural achievements.

The earliest surviving written work on the subject of architecture is De architectura, by the Roman architect Vitruvius in the early 1st century AD. According to Vitruvius, a good building should satisfy the three principles of firmitas, utilitas, venustas, commonly known by the original translation – firmness, commodity and delight. An equivalent in modern English would be:

Durability – a building should stand up robustly and remain in good condition.
Utility – it should be suitable for the purposes for which it is used.
Beauty – it should be aesthetically pleasing.

Building first evolved out of the dynamics between needs (shelter, security, worship, etc.) and means (available building materials and attendant skills). As human cultures developed and knowledge began to be formalized through oral traditions and practices, building became a craft, and “architecture” is the name given to the most highly formalized and respected versions of that craft.

Filmmaking
Filmmaking is the process of making a motion-picture, from an initial conception and research, through scriptwriting, shooting and recording, animation or other special effects, editing, sound and music work and finally distribution to an audience; it refers broadly to the creation of all types of films, embracing documentary, strains of theatre and literature in film, and poetic or experimental practices, and is often used to refer to video-based processes as well

Computer art
Visual artists are no longer limited to traditional art media. Computers have been used as an ever more common tool in the visual arts since the 1960s. Uses include the capturing or creating of images and forms, the editing of those images and forms (including exploring multiple compositions) and the final rendering or printing (including 3D printing).

Computer art is any in which computers played a role in production or display. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD, video game, website, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Many traditional disciplines are now integrating digital technologies and, as a result, the lines between traditional works of art and new media works created using computers have been blurred. For instance, an artist may combine traditional painting with algorithmic art and other digital techniques. As a result, defining computer art by its end product can be difficult. Nevertheless, this type of art is beginning to appear in art museum exhibits, though it has yet to prove its legitimacy as a form unto itself and this technology is widely seen in contemporary art more as a tool rather than a form as with painting.

Computer usage has blurred the distinctions between illustrators, photographers, photo editors, 3-D modelers, and handicraft artists. Sophisticated rendering and editing software has led to multi-skilled image developers. Photographers may become digital artists. Illustrators may become animators. Handicraft may be computer-aided or use computer-generated imagery as a template. Computer clip art usage has also made the clear distinction between visual arts and page layout less obvious due to the easy access and editing of clip art in the process of paginating a document, especially to the unskilled observer.

Plastic arts
Plastic arts is a term for art forms that involve physical manipulation of a plastic medium by moulding or modeling such as sculpture or ceramics. The term has also been applied to all the visual (non-literary, non-musical) arts.

Materials that can be carved or shaped, such as stone or wood, concrete or steel, have also been included in the narrower definition, since, with appropriate tools, such materials are also capable of modulation. This use of the term “plastic” in the arts should not be confused with Piet Mondrian’s use, nor with the movement he termed, in French and English, “Neoplasticism.”

Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard or plastic material, sound, or text and or light, commonly stone (either rock or marble), clay, metal, glass, or wood. Some sculptures are created directly by finding or carving; others are assembled, built together and fired, welded, molded, or cast. Sculptures are often painted. A person who creates sculptures is called a sculptor.

Because sculpture involves the use of materials that can be moulded or modulated, it is considered one of the plastic arts. The majority of public art is sculpture. Many sculptures together in a garden setting may be referred to as a sculpture garden.

Sculptors do not always make sculptures by hand. With increasing technology in the 20th century and the popularity of conceptual art over technical mastery, more sculptors turned to art fabricators to produce their artworks. With fabrication, the artist creates a design and pays a fabricator to produce it. This allows sculptors to create larger and more complex sculptures out of material like cement, metal and plastic, that they would not be able to create by hand. Sculptures can also be made with 3-d printing technology.

Visual arts tourism

See
The number of different arts and art styles in the world is too large to be discussed here, as virtually all cultures and epochs have developed something special. Refer to the historical travel article series and individual destination articles for an overview of art from particular historical epochs, cultures or parts of the world.

Artworks and artifacts are often central part of attractions. For instance religious buildings may include beautiful paintings and other objects.

Art museums and galleries can be found in any major city in the world. Many of them are world famous, like the Louvre in Paris, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg or Prado in Madrid, exhibiting equally famous works. They often exhibit both paintings and sculptures. In addition, historical or archaeological museums are a good place for seeing artifacts; for example, the Museo archeologico nazionale in Naples has many great ancient Roman paintings, mosaics and sculptures. Countries like Mexico (Aztec, Toltec and Maya), Guatemala (Maya), or Peru (Inca) have museums showcasing their pre-Columbian art and heritage, and even in Latin American countries untouched by the three best known pre-Columbian civilizations, interesting petroglyphs, everyday objects and gems may be on display in major museums.

Australia has a long history of visual art with evidence of Aboriginal art that dates back over 30,000 years.

Buy
At popular tourist destinations there may be street artists selling their own art, both paintings and sculptures. Museums may also sell replicas of famous exhibits.

Many destinations are known for some iconic handicraft; from Russian matryoshka dolls to Moroccan brass artwork. Why not go for something that’s not just beautiful to look at but something you can use too, like a maté gourd or a traditional piece of clothing?

Don’t buy
When your shopping does or may involve antiquities there are two things you need to be careful about. Firstly, the antiquities you’ve purchased may be fake copies. But it may be worse in the end if you actually have bought antique artwork. It is often illegal to take such items out of the country (at least without a permission from the government) and you will not only have lost your money but the artwork will be confiscated and you will get fined and possibly jailed.

Ivory carvings, polar bear skin rugs and African big game trophies may be banned from import by your own country or excluded from transport by major airlines. It’s possible to buy sealskin purses perfectly lawfully in Newfoundland, only to be robbed of these items by US customs upon leaving Canada. Newfoundland seals are not in any way endangered, but laws intended to address legitimate animal ethics issues (like the alarming number of elephants being massacred for their ivory tusks) are inconsistent in both what is being targeted and in enforcement. Antiquities containing ivory, but manufactured before the 1970s (when international treaties first restricted their import or sale) might be perfectly lawful to import – if one has proof of their provenance and applies at a specific border crossing under a specific bureaucratic procedure. Get any of this wrong and those antique bagpipes which have been in the family for generations are forcibly taken from you at the border and likely gone forever.

Education and training
Training in the visual arts has generally been through variations of the apprentice and workshop systems. In Europe the Renaissance movement to increase the prestige of the artist led to the academy system for training artists, and today most of the people who are pursuing a career in arts train in art schools at tertiary levels. Visual arts have now become an elective subject in most education systems.

Respect
Photography is often prohibited in art museums, for copyright reasons. In some countries, while there are no bans against photographing public buildings and artworks, there may be restrictions in publishing such photos unless a certain number of years has passed since the death of the artist or architect.

Flash photography or tripods might be prohibited, for public order.