Chinese Jade ornament with flower design, Jin Dynasty (1115-1234 AD), Shanghai Museum.

The word "artwork" was coined and widely used during the history of modern and post-modern art, in order to avoid an older syntagma "piece of art" as a concept which was strongly tied with traditional aesthetics and thinking of art through "master pieces".

Since modernism, the field of fine art has expanded to include photography (and fine art photography in particular), film (and art film in particular), performance art, conceptual art, and video art.

What is perceived as a work of art differs between cultures and eras and by the meaning of the term '"art" itself. Up until the 1970s, for example, art critics and the general public tended to exclude applied arts from works of art.

To establish whether a work is a work of art, the concepts of artistic merit and literary merit are regularly invoked.

A work of art might also be called an objet d'art, a French phrase that literally translates to "art object" and means something with perceived artistic value.

Among practitioners of contemporary art, various new media objects such as the DVD, the web page, and other interactive media have been treated as art objects; such treatment frequently involves a formalist (or "medium-specific") analysis. The formal analysis of computerized media has yielded such art movements as internet art and algorithmic art. The purpose of "new media objects" is not to replace traditional media, but to challenge old media.

Disegno

Among artists and scientists during the Renaissance, the prevailing belief held that the study of the male form was in itself a study of God, and they placed value on sculpture of the male form as one of the highest works of art.

Oeuvre

The oeuvre is all of an artist's works, or an individual piece. The French term ?uvre derives from Latin opus (?a work?).

See also

• Fine art
• Cultural artifact
• Masterpiece
• Aesthetics
• The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
• Magnum opus
• Western canon
• Printmaking

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