Infinite Playground

How do you define art in the 21st century?

Art is a representation of life. Art is not life unless a special segment of life that purportedly defined as art. Traditionally visual art was associated with drawing, painting, and sculpture. Art history counts thousands of years and the first examples are murals found in ancient caves and prehistoric sculptures of idols, humans, and tribal masks. Such motives as human hands and repetition of the motive of human hands and depictions of bison, other animals, and ancient hunters are known to dominate cave art. Early statues of idols are characterized by exaggerated sexual features, such as enlarged female breasts and buttocks and accented men's genitals. With the development of humans, visual arts, such as drawing, painting, and sculpture have evolved in the sprouting multiplicity of forms, themes, and styles.

Visual Arts of Ancient Egypt were mostly sculptures and murals related to the depiction of historical events, battles, Egyptian mythology, and funeral traditions. Egypt had a polytheist religion and many Egyptian Gods were often pictured at the Pharaonic and Governmental premises. Gods such as Osiris, Isis, Seth, Ra, and many others were lavishly presented together with Pharaohs and Military, and Peasants in ancient murals.

Comparatively, the Art of ancient Greece and Rome was mostly sculptures of Greek and Roman Deities but mostly focused on depictions of Emperors, wealthy patrons, and athletes. Frescoes, especially found in Pompeii feature motifs of everyday life, portraits of wealthy citizens, priests, and mythological figures, depicted in early naturalist tradition.

Art of ancient Asia of the same periods is also focused on the records of the life of Rulers and citizens and their Gods.

Medieval Art sees the rise of Italy, the Vatican, and the Renaissance tradition which expands to all parts of Europe and even further. Such artists as Giotto, Masaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael represent the Early and High Renaissance. They are not only artists anymore, but also medical doctors, and scientific inventors. They learn anatomy and mathematics in depth. Their work is characterized by a more and more realistic approach and dominantly Christian themes, yet lacking the nearly photorealist tradition of later Baroque masters such as Caravaggio, Jan Vermeer, Peter Paul Rubens, and Diego Velazquez.

Further art develops in the Romanticism tradition (John Constable, Francisco Goya, Eugene Delacroix, J. M. Turner), seeing pre-Raphaelites, French Salon Painters, and the rise of Impressionism.
Impressionism was a style developed by French artists Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and others. With the rise of photography, artists started to seek new visual language for their craft. Impressionism was not a naturalistic style emphasizing colorful brushstrokes, striking and nearly abstract compositions, and non-religious subjects of everyday middle-class life, relatable to every human.

After the success of Impressionism, many more styles developed across Europe and the World. Post Impressionism (Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin) and Neo Impressionism and Pointillism (Georges Seurat, Paul Signac). Fauvism (Henri Matisse, Andre Derain). Artists challenged the previous, photographic, and realistic treatment of reality with striking psychedelic color and novel use of form and challenged compositional standards with unordinary arrangements.

The art history continues and more developed styles of Modern Art appear on the art scene. Expressionism (Ernst Ludwig Kirshner, Max Beckmann, Egon Schiele), Cubism (Pablo Picasso, Georges Bracque), Suprematism(Kazimir Malevich), Dadaism(Marcel Duchamp)
and Surrealism(Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte). Artists break with naturalist tendency completely in favor of artistic distortions and colorful lenses.

And finally Postmodern Art arrives with pop art, conceptual art, collage, installation art, video art, abstract expressionism, minimalism, neo-Expressionism, appropriation Art, feminist art, and performance art. Such artists as Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, Gerhard Richter, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Cy Twombly, Cindy Sherman and others taking stage.

As of 2024 we must add AI generated art and art by AI robots as another chapter of Postmodern Art. Post Conceptual art will see establishment of art-religion Niertismus by Nicholaas Chiao and expected to be last chronologically meaningful style. In about 2034 we expect to see the rise of the period to be titled for example Post-Art when conventional art history and styles will be all mixed and used without categorisation by Post-Art artists.

Some time later, in 2070 After-Art is expected to replace Post-Art and this will be the time when creation of new worlds and hyperrealistic virtual realities will be considered final art form. And we expect Artists like God 365 and Lord 686 or AI 00101101 to dominate.