The Unified Field of Art shows the relationships between the basic art styles and highlights the timeless, essential role each style plays in the expression of human experience.

Charles Morris is a co-founder of Arts360, a new non-profit dedicated to the creation of free arts education tools..  Click here to see The Unified Field of Art used as an art history navigator.

Old City Hall Gallery will soon announce dates for workshops using this continuum as a format for the exploration of diverse approaches to painting.  E-mail: chuck@arts360.org if you would like to receive information about workshops.

The four primary styles: realism, action painting, surrealism, and design take the cardinal points on this compass of art.  Realism’s depiction of objective reality lies opposite the depiction of imagined realities found in surrealism.  Action painting’s impulsive, emotional play lies opposite the careful and considered mapping of shapes found in design. Between the primary styles lie the secondary styles.  Realism and surrealism combine with action painting’s emotional expression to yield expressionism and surreal expressionism.  Realism and surrealism combine with design’s consideration of shape to yield abstraction and abstract surrealism.  Just as the color wheel names the primary and secondary colors while implying a seamless continuum of color, the four primary and four secondary styles are named while implying subtle gradations from one style to the next.  Just as any color on the color wheel can be combined with any other, so too can the essential styles be combined and juxtaposed in endless variation.