The Arts Portal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Art, in its broadest meaning, is the physical expression of creativity or imagination. The word art comes from the Latin ars, which, loosely translated, means "arrangement". Art is commonly understood as the act of making works (or artworks) which use the human creative impulse and which have meaning beyond simple description. 'Art' is often distinguished from crafts and recreational hobby activities. The term creative arts denotes a collection of disciplines whose principal purpose is the output of material for the viewer or audience to interpret. As such, 'art' may be taken to include forms as diverse as prose writing, poetry, dance, acting or drama, music, sculpture, photography, illustration, architecture, collage and painting. Art may also be understood as relating to creativity, æsthetics and the generation of emotion.

Genre

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A genre, (French: "kind" or "sort") is a division of a particular form of art or utterance according to criteria particular to that form. In all art forms, genres are vague categories with no fixed boundaries. Genres are formed by sets of conventions, and many works cross into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. The scope of the word "genre" is usually confined to art and culture, particularly literature. In genre studies the concept of genre is not compared to originality. Rather, all works are recognized as either reflecting on or participating in the conventions of genre.

Genre and audiences

Although most genres are often only vaguely definable, genre considerations are one of the most important factors in determining what a person will see or read. Many genres have built-in audiences and corresponding publications that support them, such as magazines and websites. Books and movies that are difficult to categorize into a genre are often less successful commercially.

Genre has generated interest in categorization of web pages. When genre is applied in this media the audience is really unknown and consequently genres or, in this case, cybergenres, are very difficult to identify. Cataloging cybergenre is problematic and various attempts have resulted in thousands of potential cybergenres. Of most interest are those genres that arise with the rise of the internet, that do not exist in an earlier media, like home pages, blogs, FAQ's. Some search engines like Vivisimo try to group found web pages into categories in an attempt to show various genres the search hits might fit.