Light art or the art of light is generally referring to a visual art form in which (physical) light is the main, if not sole medium of creation. Uses of the term differ drastically in incongruence; definitions, if existing, vary in several aspects. Since light is the medium for visual perception, this way all visual art could be considered light art absurdly enough; but most pieces of art are valid and coherent without reflecting on this basic perceptual fact. Some approaches on these grounds also include into light art those forms of art where light is not any medium contributing to the artwork, but is depicted. Thus, luminism may also refer to light art in the above sense, its previous usage point to painterly styles: either as an other label for the Caravaggisti in the baroque, or 19th and 20th centuries, fundamentally impressionist schools.
The Blessing Hand by Stepan Ryabchenko in Saatchi Gallery in London, depicting the hand of God
Robert Irwin Scrim Veil—Black Rectangle—Natural Light, Whitney Museum of American Art
Interior of Santa Maria Annunciata in Chiesa Rossa. Milan, Italy.
Two separate shots side-by-side looking up toward the ceiling in the middle of the Guggenheim Museum in New York during James Turrell's light exhibition Aten Reign.
Lumino Kinetic art is a subset and an art historical term in the context of the more established kinetic art, which in turn is a subset of new media art. The historian of art Frank Popper views the evolution of this type of art as evidence of "aesthetic preoccupations linked with technological advancement" and a starting-point in the context of high-technology art. László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946), a member of the Bauhaus, and influenced by constructivism can be regarded as one of the fathers of Lumino kinetic art. Light sculpture and moving sculpture are the components of his Light-Space Modulator (1922–30), One of the first Light art pieces which also combines kinetic art.
Weather Machine, a lumino kinetic bronze sculpture and columnar machine that serves as a weather beacon, displaying a weather prediction each day at noon, in Portland, Oregon.