Classification and the Nature of the Arts

Key Concepts
Applied Arts – is the application of the design and aesthetics to objects of function and everyday use.
Architecture – is both the process and product of planning, designing and constructing buildings or other
structures (Encyclopedia Britannica, retrieved June 24, 2020)
Creativity – is the phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed (such as an idea, a
scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or physical object (such as intervention, literary work, and
or paintings)
Dance – is performing art consisting of purposely selected sequences of human movement. This movement
has aesthetic and symbolic value, and is acknowledged as dance by performers and observers in particular
culture. (Farleigh, 1987)
Film – is a form of entertainment that enacts a story by sound and a sequence of images giving the illusion of
continuous movement.
Literature – is anybody or collection of written work. It also refers to writing. Considered to be an art form or
any single writing deemed to have artistic or intellectual value and sometimes deploys language in ways that
differ from ordinary usage. ( Letich, et al, 2018)
Music – is the art of combining vocal or instrumental sounds or both to produce beauty of form, harmony, and
expression of emotion (Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1992)
Painting – is an image artwork created using pigments (color) on a surface (ground) such as paper or canvas.
The pigment may be in a wet form such as oil, acrylic (Baoddy-Evans, 2017)
Performance arts – refers to an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or
other participants. It may be live, through documentation, spontaneously or written, presented to a public in a
Fine arts context, traditionally interdisciplinary
Sculpture – is a branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable
sculptural processes originally used carving ( the removal of material) and modelling (the addition of material,
as clay), in stone, metal, ceramics, wood, and other materials
Theater – is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, typically actors or actresses
present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The
performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song,
music and dance (Webster’s dictionary, 1991).
Visual Arts – are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video,
filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. (Esaak, 2019)
Functions of Art, Basic Assumptions & Philosophical Perspectives on Art
Functions in Art
To a lay man art has a little function painting, sculpture music, literature just to amuse or provide a pleasant
escape from one’s daily life. These are non-functional arts.
All arts have function for man, the make who creates makes things which has a function for him.

KEY CONCEPTS
Personal function is for public display or expression. Music for example and literature has a way for expressing
emotions for us. The power of music make us feel for certain emotion.
Social function refers to the celebration or to affect collective behaviour. It performs social function when:
a. Tends to influence the collective behavior of the people
b. Created to be seen or used primarily in public situations.
c. Describes social aspect of collective aspects of existence.

Physical Function refers to the Utilitarian use of Art. Makes our Lives Physically Comfortable.
Philosophical Perspectives
1. Art as imitation.
2. Art as representation.
3. Art for art’s sake vs. Art for man’s sake.
4. Art as an escape.

Subject and Content of Art

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”
Representational Art have subject that refer to objects or events occurring in the real world. (Casilib, Garing
and Caasaul, 2018)
Non- Representational Art do not make a reference to the real world, whether it is a person, place, thing or
even a particular event. It is stripped down to visual elements such as shapes, lines, colors that are employed
to translate a particular feeling, emotion, and even concept.

Artists and Artisans

KEY CONCEPTS
Artists
Artisans
1. What kind of artist will you be?
2. When is a person said to be artistic?
3. How can you identify an artistic person?
4. Differentiate artistic and creative.

Elements of Art Visual, Auditory and Transcreation

Line - Is a path that a point takes through a space. A line can be thick, thin, dotted or solid. It can make a
straight movement, zigzag, wave or curl. It may be horizontal, vertical or diagonal.
Shape- Is created when a line becomes connected and encloses a space. It is the outline or outward
appearance of something. It can be two dimensional (2 –D). The shape’s height and width can be measured
Form - Is a shape that has become 3 – dimensional. It has height, width and depth.
Space - Can be divided into foreground, middle ground and background. It may be shallow, deep or negative
Color- Can add interest and reality to an artwork. The use of a 12 step colour wheel can help you understand
color more effectively.
Texture - The way the surface of an object actually feels.
Picture Plane - Is the actual surface of the painting or drawing, where no illusion of a third dimension exists.
Perspective - Takes place when an artists uses a vanishing point on a horizon and the creates a sense of deep
space by showing objects getting progressively smaller as they get closer to the vanishing point.
Elements of art: Auditory
Rhythm – is the element of time in music. When you tap your foot to the music, you “are keeping the beat” or
following the structural rhythmic pulse of the music.
Dynamics – is the relative loudness or quietness of music.
Melody – is the linear/ horizontal presentation of pitch (the highness and lowness of musical sound).
Harmony – is the verticalization of pitch. Often harmony is thought as the art of combining pitches into
chords.
Timbre – refers to tone color.
Texture – refers to the number of individual musical lines and the relationship of these lines to one another

Levels of Reading Images

Axiological or Evaluative Plane – has to do with analyzing the values of a work. After the understanding of the
work is the difficult task of evaluating it. This involves the two aspects of form and content. (Guillermo, 2001).
Iconic Plane or the image itself. This includes the choice of the subject which may bear social and political
implications. This includes signifier – signified relationship (particular features, aspects and qualities of the
image). This also includes the positioning of the figure or figures whether frontal, in profile, three – fourths
etc. and the significations that arise forms the different presentations. (Guillermo, 2001).
Contextual Plane – situates the work in the personal and social circumstances of its production. The work may
contain allusions to personal or public events, conditions, stages as well as influences, such as persons and
literary texts, that have been particularly meaningful to the artist . (Guillermo, 2001).
Semiotic Plane – Semiotics is the study of signs – the work of art is the iconic or pictorial sign. A sign consists
of a “signifier” or its material physical aspect and its “signified”or non material aspect as concept and value.
Related to this is the “referent” or object as it exist in the real world. A visual work, whether it be a two –
dimensional pictorial space or a threedimensional body, is an embodiment of the signs in which all physical or
material marks and traces, elements, figures, notations are signifiers which bears a semantic or meaning –
conveying potential and which relation to each other convey concepts and values which are their signifieds.
(Guillermo, 2001).