9781422275368

Portraying Culture and Tradition

In the Middle Eastern art world, calligraphy was and is still a highly esteemed and sophisticated art form that has been intertwined with drawing and painting for hundreds of years. In Middle Eastern countries such as Israel, Syria, and Pales- tine, artists continue to evolve and grow their artistic styles in sometimes violent and challenging circumstances. Long before the colonists landed in the Americas, Native American peoples had been drawing and painting as an integral part of their cultures and traditions. Over time, the European settlers of North America forged their own styles in art. From the whimsical folk art of traveling artists to innovative comic book and mag- azine illustrators, each art movement found its own individual style. The art of Oceania is shared by the aboriginal peoples of New Zealand and Australia, as well as the colonists who came to settle in this new and wild land- scape, looking for a better life. The aboriginal peoples of this region had many ways of using drawing and painting as a way to celebrate their culture, including Drawing made significant advances in the 1800s when pencils began to be manu- factured. For many artists, pencils became the preferred drawing tool, but others experimented with various media, such as brush with black and gray washes, oil on paper, pastels, and crayons. Artists like Edgar Degas experimented with these media to create representations of everyday scenes, such as ballet dancers practicing or a day at the horse races. By the end of the 1800s, however, artists began to question the traditional academic training and practice of drawing. Dur- ing the Impressionist movement, artists rejected making a preliminary drawing and painted directly on the canvas. Since the start of the twentieth century, the world of painting and drawing has taken a direction away from past traditions and attempted to forge a new voice for each individual artist. The meaning of drawing and painting has thus evolved and expanded. So now more than ever, drawing or painting can be anything an artist desires. This idea can be found in a myriad of new and emerging art movements, such as comic book and magazine illustration, manga art, and street art. body painting, facial tattoos, and rock art. The Modern Era

7

INTRODUCTION