Stundent name: Nguyễn Gia Huấn
Assignment: Literature review
Topic: Is digital art real art?
Introduction:
If you are an artist, an art lover or you have been on the internet long enough, you
might have heard the term “digital art” and the infamous quote “digital art is not real art”.
In this literature review, I will explain “what is digital art?”, “why some people don’t
consider it real art” and “the truth about digital art”.
I. Digital art:
When you ask a normal person what digital art is, the most common answer will be
“art that generate by computer”. But according to Oxford dictionary, digital art is define
as “art that is created using computers or other digital media”. And in the art community,
digital is usually refer as making art on your computer through program(photoshop,clip
paint studio) or on your mobile device with apps(Ibispaintx, procreate)
Digital art has been controversial topic in the art community since it become more
popular in recent year. One of most heated debate is whether digital art is real art. Many
non-artists and traditional artists claim that digital art is fake because it was create by
computer not by the artist, there is no skill need to do it so it been consinder as cheating
and they believed that art have to be difficult.
II. The truth about digital art:
“Computer generate”, many people like to bring this up when giving a reason why
digital is not real art. Technically, you can create art with a push of a button but that is
not the case for digital artist. Similar to tradiotional art, computer is just a tool to make art
like how tradiontional art need canvas, color and many stuff to make their art. The
computer or mobile device is the canvas while the program and apps are the tool.
Like with any kind of tool, you need to learn and master how to use them, digital is no
difference from traditional art. The amount of tool pack in one drawing program are so
much that it can easily overwhelm any people. Learning to use each of the function in an
art program or app can took the same time needed to learn similar one in traditional art
and it can take more time to master it. And in term of art technique and knowledge in
digital art, it is the same as tradiontional art. Traditional art need to learn anatomy, shape,
value, shading, lighting, color,… then learning art in digital art require the same thing.
Digital art aslo come with it limitation, one of the most noticeable problem is the
texture. Texture in art is refers to the surface quality in a work of art, some things that
feel just as they appear; this is called real or actual texture. Some things look like they are
rough but are actually smooth. Texture that is created to look like something it is not, is
called visual or implied texture. Unlike traditional art where the texture of a piece is
affect by the medium the artist choose to use(pencil, oil paint, acrylic, copic, water
color…), digital artist have to creat the texture in their works through many techninques
that are not needed for traditional art. Another limitation of digital art is the difficulty to
first get into or start digital art. For traditional art, money for art resources(paper, canvas,
color supplies,…) is spend little by little over a long period of time making traditional art
more cheaper and more accessible for most artist. But for digital art, drawing tablet and
stylus are very expensive for normale people. If artists want to learning digital art but
don’t have much money, they will have to choose a cheaper or free option which have
less function and tool needed for doing art digitally, thus making digital art more difficult
for them while learning art itself is already hard.
III. Digital art is real art:
When compare closely we can see traditional art and digital art have no difference at a
fundemental level. In today modern age, many thing are now done through digital means
so it not unusual for art to do the same. In a way, it benefit today artist generation due to
how globally connect we are with everyone, artists have chance to share their work more
easily through social media and a better source of study from others artist worldwide.
IV.
V. References:
- Data Science and Digital Art History https://doi.org/10.11588/dah.2015.1.21631
- Is There a “Digital” Art History? https://doi.org/10.1080/01973762.2013.761106
- Weiming Du, Zhongyang Li and Qian Gao, "Analysis of the interaction between
digital art and traditional art," 2010 International Conference on Networking and
Digital Society, Wenzhou, 2010, pp. 441-443, doi:
10.1109/ICNDS.2010.5479462.
