# What art is Art is any expression of the human condition. To that end, all art is a [creation](creations.md), even if it was [grown](horticulture.md) or created via automation [technology](technology.md). The consumption and expression of art is a critical component of living [the good life](goodlife.md). Without it, we tend to flounder in our connection with [meaning](meaning.md). [God](god.md) has created art within nature, and that represents itself in how we find inherent [beauty](values-quality.md) in many naturally-occurring things. All our derived works are pulled straight from nature. APPLICATION: To create beautiful art, consult nature. To create ugly art (such as a [post-modern expression](philosophy.md)), consult something abstracted from nature like [technology](technology.md) or [man's sin](morality-sins.md). ## Art culture Since the capturing of art is perpetually working within the realm of [The Unknown](unknown.md), the [culture](people-culture.md) of artists is composed of equally adventurous and [unhinged](mind-neurodivergence.md) individuals. APPLICATION: Artists, by their [personality](personality.md), aren't very efficient workers, so never expect reliable work from them. ## Evoking feelings The entire purpose of art is to evoke a [feeling](mind-feelings.md), and most people intuitively perceive the [quality](values-quality.md) of a piece of art by several criteria: 1. How effectively a feeling was evoked. 2. The range of feelings that have been sufficiently evoked. 3. How well those feelings have captured an experience to make it seem [real](reality.md). This is far harder than it sounds. It requires several conditions: 1. The creator is intimately in touch with their own feelings. 2. The creator has skill in some form of media to express those feelings. 3. The creator remembers their audience enough that they avoid over-expressing feelings in a way that muddles the intended message. ## Primitives It's only natural, in the flow of evoking feelings, that some media and [genres](art-genres.md) will have some set standards that always work to evoke an experience. Those standards often create tropes that represent repeatedly throughout that type of work. ### Media The atomic components of art assemble into more complex aspects, as demonstrated below #### Level 1 Reasoning: a form of thought - Assembles a new thought based on at least two other elements - Can be [logical](logic.md) reasoning, or [emotional](mind-feelings.md) expression put to [language](language.md) Inflection: a form of oral or written expression - Expressing certain sound variations of a word - Built around evoking a particular feeling [common to other people](humanity-universals.md) Calligraphy: a form of visual expression - Expressing symbols on a surface - Can also be described as [creative writing](language-writing.md), but also includes artistic typography Change: a depiction of movement - Expressing two states, one after the other - May be a [story](stories.md), but can also indicate two bits of [information](information.md) Visual Capture: representing a visual state of the world - Capturing the world around us via visual expression - As an [image](image.md), has an inherent relativity mixed with an inherent absolute - Includes what people call "doodling" as well as photography #### Level 2 Storytelling: expressing a flow of thoughts with a beginning, middle, and end - Reasoning + Change - Expressing a type of [human or anthropomorphized change](people-changes.md) Diction: a form of oral expression - Reasoning + Inflection - Choosing words to convey an idea with sentences Portraiture: capturing a visual composite - Visual Capture + Change - depicts a scene for the purpose of showing a story #### Level 3 Prose: a form of expressing a [story](stories.md) - Storytelling + Diction - Choosing sentences to build a sequence of concepts - can expand into fiction, nonfiction, novels, serials, epics, etc. Poetry: a structured means of expressing change - Calligraphy + Inflection Animation: Portraiture set to movement - Portraiture + Change #### Level 4 Film: precise capturing, set to a story - Visual Capture + Prose - Can range from 10 minutes to several hours Stage: #### Level 5 Games: ### Tropes Animation - With the exception of an intentionally dismal setting, bright and vibrant contrasting colors - Even with lifelike animation, everything is vastly exaggerated Stage - All emotional expressions are accompanied by flagrant body language Film - The 1-hour mark defines the most memorable part of the film, irrespective of the rest of the film's length Games - Make the player character either incredibly uninteresting (for the player to act out their preferred behaviors) or set to be a few major possible roles (to reflect the general decisions of the player) ### Genre Action - Constantly changing scenes or perspectives that are only intentionally interspersed with calm moments to give a contrast Comedy - Set the character in a familiar setting that most of the audience will relate to Horror/Thriller - Only reveal portions of the antagonist, but never the full scope of the character, even during the climax of the story - If any audio is present, use extremely low-frequency audio (infrasound) to evoke [fear](mind-feelings-fear.md)