CHAPTER 1

Art and Nature of Art

To appreciate art is to understand and be knowledgeable of the universal and timeless

qualities of all great art. The more you appreciate and understand arts in general, the
better you can develop your own artwork.

Philippine Pottery Group of girls dancing the Tinikling © U.S.

http://www.hadrianmendozapottery.com/philippines Air Force/Senior Airman Nestor Cruz/
WikiCommons.
https://theculturetrip.com/asia/philippines/articles/
tinikling-the-national-dance-of-the-philippines-with-
bamboo-poles/

At 103, Whang-Od is the oldest living Kalinga Mambabatok Photo by Erron Ocampo.
https://travelnow.onemega.com/whang-od-batok-and-the-buscalan-experience/

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Lesson 1 THE NATURE AND THEORIES OF ART

WHAT IS ART?
Art comes from the Latin word “ars” meaning ability or skill. It covers those areas of
artistic creativity that seek to communicate beauty primarily through the senses.
The quality, production, or expression of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more
than ordinary significance is a Work of art and equivalent to saying that it is also a.
visual expression of an idea. Art applies to such activities that express aesthetic ideas by
the use of skill and imagination in the creation of objects, environment and experiences,
which can be shared with others. Art implies anything accomplished with great skill.

ARTS

“Art is to evoke in oneself a feeling one

“We can also say that we are involved in
has experienced and having evoked it in
art when we compose a melody, sing songs
oneself, then by means of movements, lines,
beautifully and dance gracefully: there is the
colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words,
art of dressing of relaxing, art of cooking and
so to transmit that feeling that others may
in almost all-human activities.”
experience the same feeling.”
– Estolas
– Leo Tolstoy

History of Arts in the Philippines

The art of the Philippines refers to the works of art that have developed and
accumulated in the Philippines from the beginning of civilization in the country up to
the present era. Philippine art reflects to its society and non-Filipinos the wide range
of cultural influences on the country’s culture and how these influences honed the
country’s arts. . In the 1920s, Fernando Amorsolo and his constituents established the
Amorsolo School of painting. Its influence would continue to grow for decades, where
their work became widely known.
Their works were not only seen as paintings, but were widely reproduced in calendars,
cards, illustrations for books, publications, and corporate advertisements. In sculpture,
Guillermo Tolentino was trained in the academy in Rome. He became the proponent of
classical sculpture in the Philippines, as seen in his public monuments and statues. The
art of the Philippines can be divided into two: Traditional Arts and Non-Traditional Arts.
1. Traditional Art. Bearers of traditional arts can be nominated as Gawad Manlilikha ng
Bayan (GAMABA), equal to National Artist. Forms of this art are: folk architecture,
weaving, carving, folk performing arts, folk graphic arts, and folk oral literature.
2. Non-Traditional Arts. Bearers non-traditional arts can be nominated as National
Artist, equal to Gawad Manlilikha ng Bayan. Forms of this art are: dance, music,
theatre, visual arts, literature, film and broadcast art, architecture and design.

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THE THEORIES OF ART
The theory of art contrasts with the definition of art. Traditionally, definitions include
fundamental, adequate, and single counterexample that overthrows such definition. On
the other hand, theorizing about art is similar to a theory of natural phenomenon like
gravity. As a matter fact, the main purpose of a theory of art is to treat art like other
natural phenomenon that needs to be investigated. Also, the theory of art employs with
the concept of art and the reasons will be discussed below.
Seeking a theory is better than seeking a definition because human minds cannot
find definitions without counterexamples. A definition assumes that there are concepts,
in something along Platonic lines, and a definition is an attempt to discover and extract
the essence of the concept. Also, it assumes that human intellect can access these
concepts. In contrast, a conception is an attempt to understand the assumed essence
while nobody has really access to the concept. A theory of art presumes that people have
different conceptions of this unattainable art concept, thus humans must resort to
worldly investigation.
1. Expressionism Art. It is a term used to describe
works of art in which the representation of
reality is distorted to communicate an inner
vision. Expressionism was an art movement
and international tendency at the beginning
of the 20th century, which spanned the visual
arts, literature, music, theatre and architecture.
The aim of artists was to express emotional
experiences, rather than physical reality.
Expressionism as a theory of art started in 1905, and
lasted till approximately 1920.
The expressionist artworks in early
twentieth century were often based on the Edvard Munch. The Scream
artist’s inner feelings, which involved highly https://www.theartstory.org/
movement/expressionism/artworks/
intense color and non-naturalistic brushwork.
A good example for this is the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, who was a key
forerunner of the Expressionism movement.
2. Distortion Art. In the art world, a distortion art is any change made by an artist to
the size, shape or visual character of a form to express an idea, convey a feeling or
enhance visual impact. Exaggerating, twisting, and elongating forms are used to
emphasize an intense feeling to do this.
Le Reve “The Dream” in French word is Pablo Picasso’s most famous, expensive
and also controversial painting of all time. The highly contrasting colors and the overly
simplified depiction of Picasso’s period of distorted depictions. He had various periods
of different types of depictions in his art during his time. This style is said to be near the
style of Fauvism, which also used contrasting colors.
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 Pablo Picasso is one of the great contributors
of distorted artworks. He is very famous for his
paintings of distorted faces. However, many
people don’t realize that he is a genius artist who
created 1,800 paintings all through his lifetime.
In fact, he constantly changed his painting style
throughout his career, including realism. At the
age of 14, Picasso painted “The Old Fisherman”
(1895), and this justifies the depth and breadth
of his ingenuity.
3. Formalism Art. Formalism is an approach used
by art critics to examine and evaluate works of Le Reve by Pablo Picasso
art. It is basically one of the oldest methods to https://d1dzh206jt2san.cloudfront.
evaluate art. This approach is the basis of art net/posts-images/743X483/461_151
3158844MSt9T.jpg
criticism that is why artist are driven to learn
and improve their natural skills.
Formalism emphasizes compositional elements
such as color, line shape, and texture. This
theory of art describes the critical position that
the most important aspect of a work of art is its
form–the way it is made and it’s purely visual
aspects–rather than its narrative content or
its relationship to the visible world. In painting
therefore, a formalist critic would focus exclusively
on the qualities of color, brushwork, form, line
and composition. In formalistic approach, an
artist analyzed the form and style of an artwork.
The Gardener Vallier by Paul
The meaning of an artwork is not emphasized
Cézanne
here, but rather the elements of arts such as line https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-
and color are given importance. At some point, terms/f/formalism
the artwork is given secondary characteristic completely out of consequence. The
assessment of an artwork is purely dependent on the artists’ skill and not on the
subject matter, with the value based primarily on the elements of arts with little
regard for the viewer’s context perception.

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4. Realism. Artists in Europe adopted realism as a
new style of art in the middle of the 19th century.
This art movement transformed the western
art world because of its unprecedented attention
to everyday subject matter. Realism actually
emerged in France in the 1850s. The establishment
of the “right to work” event in 1848 revolution in
the country had made worthy artistic subjects
such as the idea of average, working class people,
The Stone Breakers by Gustave
contemporary settings, and day-to-day scenes. Courbet,
The function of the artist is to illustrate as https://www.gustave-courbet.com/
accurately and honestly as possible what he the-stonebreakers.jsp

observed through his senses.

5. Abstraction. Abstract art  does not attempt to
represent an accurate depiction of a visual
reality but instead use shapes, colours, forms and
gestural marks to achieve its effect. It can be in a
simplified or schematized forms based on object,
figure, or landscape. It is also applied to artworks
using forms like geometric shapes, which does not
have source in an external visual reality. Concrete
art or non-objective art are the preferred terms of
pure abstract artists. However, the word abstract Cossacks by Wassily Kandinsky,
Tate Gallery
is widely used and the difference between the two https://www.tate.org.uk/
is not obvious. art/artworks/kandinsky-
cossacks-n04948