ART APPRECIATION GEC 5

This course develops students’ ability to appreciate, analyze, and critique works of art. Through
interdisciplinary and multimodal approaches, this course equips students with a broad knowledge of the practical,
historical, philosophical, and social relevance of the arts in order to hone students’ ability to articulate their
understanding of the arts. This course also develops students’ competency in researching and curating art as well as
conceptualizing, mounting, and evaluating art productions. This course aims to develop students’ genuine appreciation
for Philippine arts by providing them opportunities to explore the diversity and richness and their rootedness in Filipino
culture.

ART/ARTS
The word “art” is rooted in the 13th century French word art which means skills as a result of learning or practice,
and the Latin word ars, meaning ability or practical skills.
It is the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting
or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.
It refers to the various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, literature, and dance.
Art is a highly diverse range of human activities engaged in creating visual, auditory, or performed artifacts, artworks,
that express the author's imaginative or technical skill, and are
intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power.

Dubai opened its Museum of the Future

a structure it touts as the world's most beautiful building. The museum
is a seven-story hollow silver ellipse decorated with Arabic calligraphy
quotes from Dubai's ruler.
Plato
“Art is that which brings life in harmony with the beauty of the world.”
John Dewey
“Art is an attitude of spirit, a state of mind-one that demands for its own satisfaction and fulfilling, a shaping of matter to
new and more significant form.”

Oscar Wilde “Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.”
Elbert Hubbard “Art is not a thing – it is a way.”

Art appreciation analyzes art using the methods and materials, allowing people to make connections to the context of
art and the interactions of societies.
Importance of Art/s
Art is the barometer that measures levels of cultural sophistication
Art forces humans to look beyond that which is necessary to survive and leads people to create for the sake of
expression and meaning
Art can communicate information, shape our everyday lives, make a social statement and be enjoyed for aesthetic
beauty
Scott Robinson, dean of humanities, Trinity River Campus, several and Design I students
“arts are necessary to give meaning to things”
In addition to providing commentary about the larger culture, art makes life more manageable, tolerable and enjoyable.

Your imagination is the ability that you have to form pictures or ideas in your mind of things that are new and exciting,
or things that you have not experienced.

Your imagination is the part of your mind which allows you to form pictures or ideas of things that do not necessarily
exist in real life.
1. the faculty or action of producing ideas, esp mental images of what is not present or has not been experienced
2. mental creative ability
3. the ability to deal resourcefully with unexpected or unusual problems, circumstances, etc
4. (in romantic literary criticism, esp that of S. T. Coleridge) a creative act of perception that joins passive and active
elements in thinking and imposes unity on the poetic material Compare fancy (sense 9)

1. a. the act or power of forming mental images of what is not actually present
b. the act or power of creating mental images of what has never been actually experienced, or of creating new
images or ideas by combining previous experiences; creative power
2. anything imagined; mental image; creation of the mind; fancy
3. the ability to understand and appreciate imaginative creations of others, esp. works of art and literature

Importance of Imagination
The ability to imagine things pervades our entire existence. It influences everything we do, think about and create.
It leads to elaborate theories, dreams and inventions in any profession from the realms of academia to engineering and
the arts. Ultimately, imagination influences everything we do regardless of our profession.

“Imagination is the key to innovation.”

Creativity, the ability to make or otherwise bring into existence something new, whether a new solution to a problem, a
new method or device, or a new artistic object or form.

The Importance of Creativity

Creativity allows us to view and solve problems more openly and with innovation. Creativity opens the mind. A society
that has lost touch with its creative side is an imprisoned society, in that generations of people may be closed minded.
It broadens our perspectives and can help us overcome prejudices.

Essentials of arts
Arts has to be man-made.
Arts must be creative, not imitative.
Art must benefit and satisfy man.
Art is expressed through a certain medium or material by which the artist communicates himself to his audience.
Assumptions of Art
1. Art Is Universal
Timeless, spanning generations and continents through and through.
Misconception: Artistic made long time ago.
Age is not a factor in determining art.
Literature has provided key words of art.
lliad and the Odyssey are the two Greek Epics that one’s being taught in school.
The Sanskrit pieces Mahabharata and Ramanaya are also staples in this fields.

In every country and in every generation, there is always art. Often times, people feel that what is considered artistic
are only those which have been made long time ago. This is a misconception. Age is not a factor in determining art.
“An art is not good because it is old, but old because it is good” (Dudley et al., 1960)
In the Philippines, the works of Jose Rizal and Francisco Balagtas are not being read because they are old.
Florante at Laura never fails to teach high school students the beauty of love, one that is universal and pure.

Ibong Adarna, another Filipino masterpiece, has always captured the imagination of the young with its timeless
lessons.
When we recite the Psalms, we feel in communion with King David as we feel one with him in his conversation with
God.
When we listen to a Kundiman or perform folk dances, we still enjoy the way our Filipino ancestors while away their
time in the past.

2. Art Is Not Nature

Art, not directed by representation of reality, is a perception of reality.
In the Philippines, it is not entirely novel to hear some consumers of local movies remark that these movies produced
locally are unrealistic. They contend that local movies work around certain formula to the detriment of substance and
faithfulness to reality of movies.
Paul Cezanne, a french painted a scene from reality entitled Well and Grinding Wheel in the Forest of the Chateau Noir
.

3. Art Involves Experience

It does not full detail but just an experience. Actual doing of something.
Getting this far without a satisfactory definition of art can be quite weird for some. For most people, art does not require
a full definition. Art is just experience. By experience, we mean the “actual doing of something” (Dudley et al., 1960)
and it also affirmed that art depends on experience, and if one is to know art, he must know it not as fact or information
but as an experience.

A work of an art then cannot be abstracted from actual doing. In order to know what an artwork, we have to sense it,
see and hear it.
An important aspect of experiencing art is its being highly personal, individual, and subjective. In philosophical terms,
perception of art is always a value judgment. It depends on who the perceive is, his tastes, his biases, and what he has
inside.