9/21/2023

MODULE 2:
ART APPRECIATION AND
THE HUMAN FACULTIES

PARTS

2.1. Art and the Human Faculties

2.2. The Process of Art Appreciation
2.3. Art and the Perception of Reality

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LEARNING OUTCOMES
• Explain the human faculties as bases for the appreciation of art.
• Analyze works of art according to four levels: perceptual elements,
representations, emotional suggestions, and intellectual meaning.
• Define art appreciation.
• Evaluate the merit or demerit of works of art based on the concept
of art as reality.

ART AND
THE HUMAN FACULTIES

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What is a human being?

Erica Simone & Jaci Berkopec, Tree of Life Leonardo da Vinci, Vitruvian Man, 1490
Li Chen, Human Nature, 2013

Human Faculties

MIND WILL SENSES

Reason Emotion Perception

(thinking) (feeling) (sensing)

rational emotional sensual

eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, imagination

seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, imagining

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ANALYSIS OF ART BASED ON HUMAN FACULTIES

ideas, concepts,
symbolism

happy, sad, afraid etc.

things, people, MIND:

events WILL: Intellectual
Emotional Meaning
Suggestions
sense-data: SENSES:
lines, colors, Representations
shapes, etc.
SENSES:
Perceptual Elements

Senses: Perceptual (Visual) Elements

COLORS:
red, yellow, blue, white, black,
gray

SHAPES:
rectangles, squares

LINES:
straight, horizontal and
vertical
Piet Mondrian, Composition A, 1923
(non-figurative art)

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Senses: Representations
VISUAL ELEMENTS

PEOPLE:
man, children

ANIMALS:
sea serpents

THINGS:
robe, cloth, altar

EVENT:
Laocoön and His Sons, 2nd century BC
(figurative art)
being attacked, fighting

Will: Emotional Suggestions

VISUAL ELEMENTS
REPRESENTATIONS

Emotions:
fear or terror
(facial expression; curving lines of
red, yellow, and orange of the sky)

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893

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Mind: Intellectual Meaning

VISUAL ELEMENTS
REPRESENTATIONS
EMOTIONS

Concepts, ideas, symbols:

Book of Ecclesiastes: “To every
thing there is a season, and a time to
every purpose under the heaven”

Memento mori: reflecting about

death

Harmen Steenwyck, Still Life: An Allegory of

the Vanities of Human Life, about 1640

LIGHT Optimism DARK Pessimism

Hope, God

LAMP End of Life

SHELL Wealth

MUSICAL SAMURAI Suicide

INSTRUMENTS
Beauty
SKULL Death
HELMET Power

CLOCK Time
BOOK Knowledge

FLASK Celebration

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THE PROCESS OF ART

APPRECIATION

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NATURE ART
Created by God Made by people
out of nothing out of something

Amorsolo, Planting Rice, 1949

Art Appreciation

Spectator:
viewer, listener, audience Art appreciation is the
positive, perceptual,
Artwork emotional and intellectual
response to the beauty of art.
(Orate, 2000)
Response

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positive Wow!
perceptual sense-data and representation
emotional feelings
intellectual meanings
response to communication and reaction
the beauty value that delights
of art painting, sculpture, music, etc.

The Process of Art Appreciation

Analyze it based
Articulate your
View the on the three
React (initial) reaction +
artwork human faculties
analysis
(4 levels)

• sense-data and
representation
• emotional
expression
• intellectual
meaning

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ART AND THE PERCEPTION

OF REALITY

Da Vinci,
Mona Lisa,
1503-1506

Picasso,
Weeping
Woman,
1937

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Piet Mondrian, Composition A, 1923 Kazimir Malevich, White on White, 1918

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917

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Non-figurative, non-representational art

Nothing in reality is
represented, and only
visual elements are seen.
However, the paintings
themselves become
“the real thing.”

Figurative, representational art

The women in the
paintings are NOT
The art is a real object.
women in the real
The object itself is the art.
sense. They are just
representations of
women in works of
art. They reflect
reality, but they are Which is more REAL?
NOT reality.

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