Is it Art?

Looking at the transition digital art has made during the last 50 years, one could safely say that man’s advancement in technology has made way for the drastic change in the world of arts today. Software available to do things have been updated in fewer years than before. It is therefore no surprise to find that the initial advance of photography in the mid-19th Century just about killed off the art of miniature portrait painting. By the 1960s photography had firmly established itself among the chattering classes as the chosen form for preserving one's image above the mantelpiece. According to Trachtenberg, Paul valery stated:

Photography was like an objective process of illustration, mirroring physical facts, he believed photographs to have given man the capacity to contribute valuable information to man’s knowledge of the universe. (Trachtenberg. 1980, p191)

The above statement gives one the opinion that Valery welcomed the dawning of a new day in which art is perceived. Traditional art which included sculpture and the use of oil colour often took a long time to finish and sometimes works are abandoned as an observation was made about Leonardo da Vinci’s work (1452-1519) ‘he was continually correcting and refining, abandoning old work for new(Skira.1951 p.33)’. Most of the renowned traditional artists learnt their trade over the years by being apprentices of those who have themselves become masters in the trade e.g. Michelangelo was apprenticed at the age of thirteen (in 1488) to the painter D. Ghirlandajo. Leonardo da Vinci was placed in the study of Andrea Verrocchio, who was sculptor, engraver, and painter. The progression of Art in the 20th century saw the introduction of Duchamp, Marcel (1887-1968), French Dada artist who pioneered two of the main innovations of the 20th century—kinetic art and ready-made art. His “ready-mades” consisted simply of everyday objects, such as a urinal and a bottle rack. Today Digital Art seemed to have swept the art movement of it's feet with the introduction of various software to achieve to a certain extent traditional art( the pictures above where achieved through this means, worked on from a picture I took), although the work of digital painters is yet to be widely accepted by the established art community, works produced by Video Artist Bill Viola is giving Digital Art the much needed recognition it deserves.