4 Disciplines of Visual and Performing Arts

Visual and performing arts enrich our lives in a variety of ways. They entertain us, educate us about the world, let us see our world in a different way, and help us record our world for future generations. There are many different forms of visual and performing arts. In this essay, I will discuss painting, music, theater, and dance. Painting is the art of putting a medium on a flat surface with a brush. The mediums used to do this are as vast as the artist themselves. Some of these mediums are watercolor, tempera, fresco, and oil. Watercolor is a pigment that has been mixed with a water soluble substance. It is mixed by the brush and water. It creates a translucent quality that is not useful to an artist who wants to paint precise detail. Tempera is made by mixing pigment with egg yolk. It is then applied to a surface that has been prepared with gesso, a fine powdery plaster that is mixed with water. Tempera dries very quickly, and has a dry flat appearance when finished. Tempera is the oldest known paint. Fresco is made by adding pigment to lime water and then applied to a wet plaster wall. It dries very quickly like tempera, so the artist must work fast. It is the media that Michelangelo used to paint the Sistine Chapel. The tempera that is used in the masterpieces is not the same as tempera paint that is used my children in school. Oil paint is made by mixing powdered pigments in oil and turpentine. It can portray many textures with shadow, and provides a vast blending of colors. Oil paint dries very slowly. After its development, it was the medium of choice for most painters. Painters use many elements to portray what they wish in their painting. Because painting is essentially making a two dimensional object seem three dimensional, artists must employ many different elements. A line, which is the most basic element in painting, delineates an area from point to point. It is used to outline a figure, or to provide direction to the