The arts are creative expressions of human experience, ideas and emotions.
We can creatively express ourselves in lots of different ways, including:
Visually
Painting, drawing, making prints and graphics, photographing, sculpting…
Through performing
Singing, dancing, acting, playing music, telling jokes, telling stories, performing poetry, cabaret, circus, magic…
Through writing
Poems, plays, novels, stories, music…
Through crafting and designing
Textiles, costumes and fashion, woodturning and carving, jewellery, pottery, architecture…
Through multimedia
Filmmaking, animation, computer games, digital art…
…and by mixing these mediums together.
The arts have been an important part of life for thousands of years.
The oldest known drawing by human hands is thought to be 73,000 years old.1
From Blombos Cave, South Africa.
Cave paintings from over 9,000 years ago show people dancing together.2
From Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, India.
New art mediums have developed alongside new technologies.
In 1928, the first ever TV drama was broadcast in New York. The Queen’s Messenger was adapted from a radio play by the London-born writer J. Hartley Manners.6
The fruits of the arts are all around us.
They are the films and TV shows we watch, the music we listen to, the stories we read, the clothes we wear, the computer games we play, the buildings we live in.
Investing in and supporting creative skills produces a vibrant culture from which everyone benefits.