From Academic Kids Online Encyclopedia
Religious painting,Venice Italy. Photo courtesy of
Classroom Clipart (http://classroomclipart.com), in its broadest meaning, is the expression of creativity or imagination, or both.
Throughout the written history of mankind, various constrictions have been applied to the broad concept. Most individuals know what they consider to be art, and what they believe is not art. Additionally, groups, such as acedemia, have a vaguely shared notion of what is, or is not art.
The word art is often used to refer to the visual arts, and arts is used to refer to visual art, literature, music, dance — the fine arts. However, such distinctions are the subject of many discussions and debates.
Art seems to be almost universal throughout the human race — integral to the human condition. There are no cultures that do not participate in it to some extent, and child art is created by all from about the first birthday.
Villager in Northern Thailand. Picture provided by
Classroom Clipart (http://classroomclipart.com)The word
culture, from the
Latin colere, with its root meaning "to cultivate", generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. Different definitions of "culture" reflect different theoretical bases for understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity. Anthropologists most commonly use the term "culture" to refer to the universal human capacity to classify, codify and communicate their experiences
symbolically. This capacity is taken as a defining feature of the genus
Homo, though
Jane Goodall (
The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior, 1986) identified aspects of culture among our closest relatives.
Villager in Northern Thailand. Picture provided by
Classroom Clipart (http://classroomclipart.com)
