UNIT 2: MODERN ART; FORMS, STYLES, AND TECHNIQUES

Art is the product of creative human activity in which materials are shaped or selected to convey an idea,
emotion, or visually interesting form. The word "art" can refer to the visual arts, including painting,
sculpture, architecture, photography, decorative art, crafts, and other visual works that combine
materials or forms. We also use the word "art" in a more general sense to encompass other forms of
creative activity.

LESSON 1-3 STYLES OF ART

Modern art is characterized by contemporary styles of visual art. It rejects traditionally accepted or
sanctioned forms and emphasizes individual experimentation and sensibility.

The works produced by an individual artist usually have in common, distinctive and identifiable visual
qualities. These qualities form what is called the artist's personal style. Because artists from a particular
time or place share ways of working, it is also possible to talk about the style of a period - for example, a
Renaissance style - or regional styles - Polynesian style, for instance.

A.EXPRESSIONISM

Expressionism is a manner of painting and sculpturing in which natural forms and colors are distorted
and exaggerated. This style of art, which developed in 20 th century, is characterized chiefly by heavy,
often black lines that define form, sharply contrasting, often vivid colors, and subjective treatment of
thematic materials.

The artist uses free distortion of form and color through which he gives visual form to inner sensations or
emotions.

The emotional expressions in these paintings could be described as involving morbidity, violence, or
chaos and tragedy. It sometimes portrays defeat.

B.IMPRESSIONISM
Impressionism in produce, with the vivic the impression made

Impressionism is a style of painting developed in the last quarter of the 19th century, characterized by
short brisk strokes of bright colors used to recreate the impression of light on objects.

Impressionism portrays the effects of experience upon the consciousness of the artist and the audience.
The artist is characterized as one concerned more with the technique of suggesting light and color to the
picture than with the subject matter.

This is French and thoroughly French. Their art of using glowing color was handed down to the modern
artists as an accomplished fact.

impressionism in painting is a theory and a school of art, which attempts to produce, with the vividness
and immediacy of nature and particularly of life itself, the impression made by the subject on the artist.
C. CUBISM
Cubism is a style of painting and sculpture developed in the early 20th century characterized by
an emphasis on the formal structure of a work of art and the reduction of natural forms of their
geometrical equivalent.
Cubism is a form of abstraction. In this style, objects are first reduced into cubes and flattened
into two-dimensional shapes. These are arranged in overlapping planes. •
Cubism was further developed by Picasso and Brague in the first decade of the 20th century,
when it was modified by the influence of African primitive sculpture with its tendency towards
abstraction.

D. ABSTRACT
Abstract art is conceived apart from any concrete realities, or specific objects., It pertains to the
formal aspects of art in emphasizing lines, colors, and generalized geometric forms. This kind of
art is a logical extension of cubism with its fragmentation of the object.
Two artists, Kandinsky and Mondrian, launched abstraction in painting which, proclaiming the
independence of the artist from the representation of the object, must have constituted a most
daring step.
Piet Mondrian, a Dutch artist, was the leader of the De Stijl group. He developed geometric
abstraction with his mathematically precise paintings based on right angles, squares, and
rectangles. He limited himself to the primary colors - red, yellow, and blue - with the addition of
black and white. So precise and exquisitely balanced are his paintings that the slightest
modification would disturb the relationship of the lines, colors, and shapes.
Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian, was also an abstractionist. He believed in the free distortion of
shapes and the arbitrary use of color. The subject is not the abstractionist's concern. He
forwarded that shape and color are the expressive elements in painting. He called his paintings
either "Composition" or "Improvisation.

E. REALISM
Realism is another style of art whose interest and concern centers around the actual or real problems. It
delves on the treatment of forms, colors, and space, as they appear in actuality or ordinary visual
experience.

Realism is associated with social consciousness and transformation occurring during the period.
American Society was then suffering from economic depression and moral decadence. Thus, literature
and other forms of art dealt with the problems of alienation, urbanization, and the dehumanization of
the persons.
Realistic paintings in which form and content try to make a moving human message are works of artists
who are highly sensitive people, feeling and living with their society and finding art as a vehicle for
communicating significant human experience that will transform human values essential to a truly
humane society.

F. SURREALISM

Surrealism is a style of art and literature developed principally in the 20th century, stressing the
subconscious or non-rational significance of imagery arrived at automation or the exploitation of chance
effects, unexpected juxtapositions and symbolic objects. Surrealism as an artistic style and movement,
drew its impulse from the psychological method of Freud, particularly, the association and interpretation
of dreams. Surrealism focuses on the theory that man's conscious activity is so small and limited
compared to the infinite realms of the unconscious of which dreams are successions of images, thoughts
or emotions passing through the mind during sleep. Surrealistic paintings are manifested for their
haunting, dream-like, often ominous imagery.

LESSON 4-5: IMAGES

Photography, video art, film and digital art all use sophisticated technology to create images, which then
can usually be reproduced in multiple copies. Photography most closely resembles painting and the
graphic arts because most photographs are stable, two-dimensional objects. The photographer's role,
however, is different from the painter's.

Photographers select their subject matter, but light, rather than the artists' hand, makes the image.
Photographers make many creative decisions about film development, printing, or digital adjustments,
and they can even add drawing or color by hand. However, the primary process is mechanical and
chemical.

Video artists and filmmakers also use photography to record images, and they often combine visual
effects with dramatic action, narrative and music. Digital art, another new artistic medium, uses the
computer to create work of art. Digital art can use video, photography, or traditional methods of
drawing. The works may be printed out and displayed like other drawings or photographs, or they may
exist only in virtual form, to be viewed on computer screens.

A. PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography (from Greek "phos", light, and "graphein" , writing) is the art or process of producing
images through the use of a light-sensitive chemical or film.

A painting is not an actual likeness of an object; rather, it is a likeness of what exists in the artist's mind,
which may or may not resemble anything in the actual world at all. A photograph, on the other hand, is
an actual likeness, the production of which may not actually involve an artist's creativity. One only has to
press a button on a camera to produce this actual likeness.

Photography is literally, drawing or writing with light. It is a three-step process that involves the use of
such equipment and materials as a camera fitted with a lens, shutter, and diaphragm; filters; film, either
black-and-white or colored; a special kind of paper onto which the image is transferred; and other
materials for developing the negative and producing the print.

The first step: Choosing the subject - requires the wise judgment and artistic sense of the photographer.

The second step: Mechanical one - a light-sensitized film contained in a darkened box (camera) is
exposed to the light from the object being photographed.

The third step: A chemical process - After the film has been exposed, it is treated with a series of
chemical solutions to "develop" the film and produce a permanent negative. A photographic paint is
produced from the negative.

It is now possible to produce a photographic image without the use of a camera and film. A photogram is
a permanently recorded image made by placing objects directly on light-sensitive paper and exposing
the paper to light.

B. Printmaking
Printmaking is the art of transferring images from a stiff surface, like wood or metal, to a pliant surface,
like paper or cloth, by means of pressure.

A print is a graphic image that results from a duplicating process. The technique of printmaking involves
the preparation of a master image on a plate made of wood, metal, or stone from which the impression
is taken.

Each print is considered an original work, not a reproduction. Calendar pictures are reproduction.

The making of prints was originally resorted to in order to multiply copies of a drawing. Today,
printmaking has become an independent art; it is as popular as painting and sculpture.

Early Philippine printmaking was a facet of bookmaking and publishing which developed as an
instrument of Spanish colonization. The very first prints were thus designs or illustrations published in I-
instructional books on catechism and prayers, which at times included lessons in alphabet, language, and
practical science.