Fine art

In Western European academic traditions, fine art is art developed primarily for aesthetics or beauty, distinguishing it from applied art that also has to serve some practical function.

Historically, the five main fine arts were painting, sculpture, architecture, music and poetry, with performing arts including theatre and dance. Today, the fine arts commonly include additional forms, such as film, photography, conceptual art, and printmaking. However, in some institutes of learning or in museums, fine art and frequently the term fine arts (pl.) as well, are associated exclusively with visual art forms.

One definition of fine art is "a visual art considered to have been created primarily for aestheticand intellectual purposes and judged for its beauty and meaningfulness, specifically, painting, sculpture, drawing, watercolor, graphics, and architecture." In that sense, there are conceptual differences between the fine arts and the applied arts. As originally conceived, and as understood for much of the modern era, the perception of aesthetic qualities required a refined judgment usually referred to as having good taste, which differentiated fine art from popular art and entertainment. However, in the Postmodern era, the value of good taste is disappearing, to the point that having bad taste has become synonymous with being avant-garde. The term "fine art" is now rarely found in art history, but remains common in the art trade and as a title for university departments and degrees, even if rarely used in teaching.

Artò

Artò is a frazione (and parish) of the municipality of Madonna del Sasso, in Piedmont, northern Italy.

Overview

It is a village located some km west from the Lake Orta.

History

Since 1928 Artò was a separate comune (municipality).

References

External links

Media related to Artò at Wikimedia Commons

Artà

Coordinates: 39°42′N 3°21′E / 39.700°N 3.350°E / 39.700; 3.350

Artà is one of the 53 independent municipalities on the Spanish Balearic island of Majorca. The small town of the same name is the administrative seat of this municipality in the region (Comarca) of Llevant.

Population

In 2008 the municipality of Artà had a population of 7,113 recorded residents within an area of 139.63 square kilometres (53.91 sq mi). This equates to 50.9 inhabitants per km². In 2006 the percentage of foreigners was 13.2% (890), of which Germans made up 3.9% (262). In 1991 there were still 136 illiterates in the municipality. 1,292 inhabitants had no education, 1,675 only a primary school certificate and 1,210 had secondary school leaving certificates. The official languages are Catalan and Spanish (Castilian). The Catalan dialect spoken on the island is known as Mallorquí.

Geography

Location

Artà lies in the northeast of the island of Majorca, around 60 km from the island's capital of Palma. The Massís d’Artà, the highest and most compact massif in the eastern mountain chain of the Serres de Llevant, occupies more than half the area of the municipality. The municipality is located on the western part of peninsula of Artà and is bordered in the west by the Bay of Alcúdia (Badia d’Alcúdia), and in the north by the Mediterranean sea where its coast lies opposite the neighbouring island of Minorca. The coast of Artà stretches for 25 kilometres and, so far, has escaped being developed. Particularly noteworthy are the beach and sand dune formations of sa Canova d’Artà, the flat coastal strip near the settlement of Colònia de Sant Pere, the high rocky coves of the Cap de Ferrutx and a large number of smaller bays that extend from s’Arenalet des Verger to Cala Torta.

ART image file format

ART is a proprietary image file format used mostly by the America Online (AOL) service and client software.

Technical details

The ART format (file extension ".art") holds a single still image that has been highly compressed. The format was designed to facilitate the quick downloading of images, among other things. Originally, the compression was developed by the Johnson-Grace Company, which was then acquired by AOL. When an image is converted to the ART format, the image is analyzed and the software decides what compression technique would be best. The ART format has similarities to the progressive JPEG format, and certain attributes of the ART format can lead to image quality being sacrificed for the sake of image compression (for instance, the image's color palette can be limited.)

Usage by AOL

The AOL service used the ART image format for most of the image presentation of the online service. In addition, the AOL client's web browser also automatically served such images in the ART format to achieve faster downloads on the slower dialup connections that were prevalent in those days. This conversion was done in the AOL proxy servers and could be optionally disabled by the user. This image conversion process effectively reduced the download time for image files. This technology was once branded as Turboweb and is now known as AOL TopSpeed.

Inkjet printing

Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper, plastic, or other substrates. Inkjet printers are the most commonly used type of printer, and range from small inexpensive consumer models to expensive professional machines.

The concept of inkjet printing originated in the 20th century, and the technology was first extensively developed in the early 1950s. Starting in the late 1970s inkjet printers that could reproduce digital images generated by computers were developed, mainly by Epson, Hewlett-Packard (HP), and Canon. In the worldwide consumer market, four manufacturers account for the majority of inkjet printer sales: Canon, HP, Epson, and Lexmark, a 1991 spin-off from IBM.

The emerging ink jet material deposition market also uses inkjet technologies, typically printheads using piezoelectric crystals, to deposit materials directly on substrates.

There are two main technologies in use in contemporary inkjet printers: continuous (CIJ) and Drop-on-demand (DOD).

Fine (paper products brand)

FINE is a registered trademark stationed out of Jordan and part of the conglomerate Nuqul Group. Its establishment was in 1958 and FINE's main line of business is hygienic products, which include tissues, toilet paper, diapers, sanitary napkins, adult briefs, pocket tissues among others. FINE has operational facilities in Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Sudan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Fine Hygienic Paper Co., was founded in 1958 as the Group’s first industrial operation. It specializes in the production and conversion of hygienic tissue paper products such as Fine facial tissues, baby diapers, feminine sanitary napkins, toilet rolls, kitchen towels, table napkins, drinking straws, coasters and wet wipes in addition to all types of stationery paper.

Over the years, the company has played a major role in expanding the Group’s activities and operations to include setting up similar industries in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Arab Republic of Egypt, Republic of Lebanon United Arab Emirates and Yemen Republic.

Fine (song)

"Fine" is a song by American R&B singer Whitney Houston, and was the fourth single from her 2000 compilation album, Whitney: The Greatest Hits.

Composition

"Fine" is a mid-tempo R&B tune, written and produced by Raphael Saadiq and Kamaal Fareed. According to Billboard, it features "languid retro-funk guitars" and a "sneaky hook", brought to life by "richly layered harmonies". It was described as having "a sleek lite-funk sound" by The Star-Ledger.

Critical reception

Billboard wrote that "Fine" is "perhaps her most convincing crack at urbanized pop music to date. [Houston] seems to have eased into the chilled soul that propels a street-wise track. She wisely does not give into the temptation to belt and wail her way through the song [...]. Instead, Houston works the more sultry lower register of her voice, saving the big, beautiful notes as a dramatic accent toward the end of the cut".LA Weekly in its review for Whitney: The Greatest Hits wrote that "Only on the stellar R&B track “Fine” does Whitney stand out. [...] “Fine” is soulful, funky and tight as hell. And the vocal performance ranks among Whitney’s best."The Baltimore Sun wrote that "Of the new tracks [on Whitney: The Greatest Hits], only the sultry, soulful "Fine" manages to convey any of the strengths that made Houston a star." and "hearing [Houston] work the tune's insistent, retro-funk groove, there's no doubting that she still has what it takes to make hits".CANOE reviewer Jane Stevenson felt that the song "falls flat".The Star-Ledger wrote that the song "grows tiresomely repetitious". According to New Nation the song takes Houston "to even greater heights, changing [her] vocals to a much lower tone, with an added hip-hop bassline". The St. Louis Post-Dispatch called it "a wonderful composition".