The question of the Mona Lisa's smile

              From an academic point of view Fine Art is the great works of such people as Da Vinci, Van Gogh and Frieda Kahlo. While this is correct it is also an outdated concept; a painting from five hundred years ago is a reflection of the time therefore fine art in the 21^st century should do the same.            

                We are taught to copy the styles of other artists, we are taught to know the concepts and feelings behind them, the lives these people held; this is teaching students history and not bringing art into the 21^st century. Charlie Chaplin and Walt Disney, two men who took their time and captured it; not in a painting but in film. The time that they came from had left painting behind and they shaped the world we live in today. The same way the Mona Lisa has held onto history and shaped art for hundreds of years their films will always be the foundations of the digital age we live in today. Why should their work not be classed as fine art?  

                For fine art to truly be fine art it cannot be a copy of one of the great painters, it has to be something that captures everything about the present; be that through pencil, ink, paint, photographs, film, oils, clothing or even makeup. The society we live in today allows for us to not only, as an artist, hold a paintbrush to canvas and tell a story but hold a camera or a pen or a sewing machine because our world has outlived the paintbrush. As Da’ Vinci created the finest smile and Van Gogh the finest stars, Warhol the finest prints, Chanel the finest clothes and Disney the finest animation; they all earned the title ‘Fine’ not through imitating their predecessors but by understanding the world they lived in and capturing that in the most exciting and new way possible.

     

       Therefore, who is to say what fine art truly is? While it remains to be the paintings we all know and love, how can we ignore the obvious fact that the world is no longer limited to a paintbrush?