As we all know, art has been around as long as man has been around, and one thing common with art and man through the ages is change.More... Art has always changed from the cave man who used natural substances to create simple yet stunningly beautiful works of art on the walls of caves that have lasted for thousands of years.
Micheal Angelo used natural substances also when he created his awe inspiring statue of David, yet the changes from flat paintings on the walls of caves to the incredible life like three dimensional carving in marble is just one of the many advances in art. There have been countless other changes some of them enormous such as the example above, to the changes in the types of mediums used and styles the of the artists,like the beautiful realism of Rembrandt and Boticelli to the impressionistic works of Picasso and Dhali.
Change is still happening and now is taking another enormous leap to the digital age where software programs are making creating art as simple as telling a program to create a picture in the style of Vincent Van Gogh or Claude Monet and the computer does all the work. Some programs work by using filters and masks to create numerous other styles of art. There are even painting programs that let you choose which style of paint brush and which color paint you want to use and allow you to paint a picture with any of 256 million colors and countless types of tools, and a variety of choices of textured papers and canvas,all without the actual mess of working with the real things. One art program actually records every stroke you make with a pen and a graphic tablet and replays it back as part of a screen saver for your computer.
Can you imagine the space and mess you would need if you actually had 256 million or more colors and the tools that would be needed to accompany these colors? It's like having the most complete art supply store in your computer without and the required space and mess. This gives you an unbelievable choice of options.
Using these programs and a graphic tablet lets you use the stylus as you would a brush,pen, pencil,crayon then after you choose the style and size you want, which includes the flat, round, chiseled or fan shaped etc...you can then choose the medium you want to work in such as watercolor,oil,charcoal,acrylic or pastels, and work as if you were actually painting on canvas, There is a wide variety of materials to paint with, such as textured papers, with different patterns,weaves and colors. The choice of tools such as air brushes, erasers, pencils, each comes with its own variety of choices. They also give you the ability to work in such detail that you can manipulate single pixels of color at a time, so for someone who likes to work with detail like I do this is truly wonderful.
One of the best changes,is the internet which has given artists the ability to display their art work where millions of people can view it and for people to choose an artist who may live on the other side of the world from them, with e-mail and the internet you can see examples of artists works, styles, and prices all from your own home. With the internet communication is as fast as your computer can transmit the information. Examples can be sent for approval,suggestions for changes can be made and when everything is approved it can be sent via the internet to be mounted and framed as you would with any other type of art work
All of these revolutions make one think what could possibly be next but given the uncountable changes from the cave man and his simple but timelessly beautiful form of art to the incredibly fast and complex computer generated art it is a given that art can only continue to change along with the artists, who like artists before them will continue to stretch the imagination and abilities of technology far into the future. While this may never replace the wonder and beauty of the "Old Masters" it goes without saying that the future may yet establish computer art as important in it's own genre as any of the other art forms before it.
