Introduction to Art Appreciation

• Art is something that is perennially around us

• Life presents us with many forms of and opportunities for communication with the arts
o Choosing a playlist, shuffling the tracks
o Architecture, theory of structures
o Clothing styles, trends
• Plato – beauty, the object of love, truly progresses
• We understand and yearn for art consciously and unconsciously
• Man marked his place in the world through his works
o Constructed infrastructures for shelter
o Sharpened swords and spears
o Employed fire to melt gold
• Ancient Latin
o Ars = craft or specialized form of skills (e.g., carpentry, surgery)
o Art suggested the capacity to produce an intended result from carefully planned
steps or method
• Medieval Latin
o Ars = any special form of book-learning (e.g., grammar, logic, magic, astrology)
• Renaissance
o Early renaissance artists saw their activities merely as craftsmanship
o 17th century – aesthetics (study of beauty)
o 18th century – distinguished between fine arts and useful arts
▪ Fine Arts – not delicate or highly skilled arts but beautiful arts
• Humanities constitute one of the oldest and most important means of expression developed
by man
• Assumptions of Art
o Art is universal
▪ Man’s attempt at recording stories and tales that have been passed on,
known, and sung throughout the years
▪ Timeless and universal, spanning generations and continents through and
through
▪ Age is not a factor in determining art. An art is not good because it is old,
but old because it is good.
▪ Art has been crafted by all people regardless of origin, time, and place and
that it stayed on because it is liked and enjoyed by people continuously.
▪ John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism (1879) - enjoyment in the arts belongs to
a higher good, one that lies at the opposite end of base pleasures
o Art is not nature
▪ Art is man’s expression of his reception of nature
▪ Man's way of interpreting nature
▪ What we find in nature should not be expected to be present in art too
▪ Movies are not meant to be direct representation of reality
▪ Based on an individual’s subjective experience of nature
 ▪ Artists are not expected to duplicate nature
o Art involves experience
▪ Experience – the actual doing of something (Dudley et al, 1960)
▪ Knowing a thing is different from hearing from others what the said thing
is
▪ A painter cannot claim to know how to paint if he has not tried holding a
brush
▪ A work of art cannot be abstracted from actual doing. To know what an
artwork is, we have to sense it, see or hear it.
▪ One fully gets acquainted with art if one immerses himself into it
▪ Experiencing art as being highly personal, individual, and subjective
▪ Perception of art is always value-judgment. It depends on the perceiver, his
tastes, his biases, and what he has inside him.
▪ Degustibus Non Disputandum Est (matters of taste are not matters of
dispute)

Creativity, Imagination, and Expression

• Jean Paul Sartre described the role of art as a creative work that depicts the world in a
completely different light and perspective and the source is due to human freedom (Green,
1995)
• In cultivating the appreciation of art, one should also exercise and develop his taste for
things that are fine and beautiful
• Art as a product of imagination, imagination as a product of art
o Imagination is not constrained by the walls of the norm but goes beyond it. People
rely on curiosity and imagination for advancement
o Through imagination, one is able to craft something bold, new, and better in the
hopes of creating something that will stimulate change. Imagination allows endless
possibilities.
o Imagination gives birth to reality through creation
• Art as expression
o (Robin George Collingwood – The Principles of Art, 1938) What an artist does to
an emotion is not to induce it but to express it. Through expression, he can explore
his own emotions and at the same time, create something beautiful out of them.
o People’s art is not a reflection of what is outside or external to them but a reflection
of their inner selves.
o Expressions of art
▪ Visual arts
▪ Film
▪ Performance art
▪ Poetry performance
▪ Architecture
▪ Dance
▪ Literary art
 ▪ Theater
▪ Applied arts

• Functions of art
o Personal functions
▪ An artist may create an art out of the need for self-expression
▪ Communication of idea
▪ Entertainment for intended audience
▪ Therapeutic (I.e., adult coloring books)
o Social functions
▪ When it addresses a particular collective interest
▪ Political art – may convey messages of protest contestation or social
conditions
▪ Photography – pictures of poverty may carry emotional overtones that may
solicit action or awareness from their audience
o Physical functions
▪ Art that is crafted to serve a physical purpose
▪ Architecture, jewelry-making, interior design, etc.
• Philosophical perspectives on art
o Art as an imitation
▪ Plato’s metaphysics (view of reality) - the things in this world are only
copies of the original, the external and the true entities that can only be
found in the World of Forms
▪ Plato was deeply suspicious of arts and artists for two reasons: they appeal
to emotion rather than to the rational faculty of men and they imitate rather
than lead one to reality.
o Art as a representation
▪ Aristotle considered art as an aid to philosophy in revealing truth
▪ Art does not aim to represent reality as it is but rather to provide a vision of
what might be or the myriad of possibilities.
▪ In Aristotelian worldview, art serves 2 purposes
• Art allows for the experience of pleasure
• Art can be instructive and teach its audience things about life

Subject and Content

• Types of subjects
o Representation art
▪ Aka figurative art because the figures depicted are easy to make out and
decipher
▪ Has subjects that refer to objects or events occurring in the real world
o Non-representation art
 ▪ Does not refer to the real world
▪ Stripped down to visual elements such as shapes, lines, and colors that are
employed to translate a particular feeling, emotion and even concept
▪ A high-level perceptiveness and insight might be required to fully grasp the
feeling, emotion, or concept behind the work.
• Sources and kinds of subjects
o Nature
▪ These depictions are often seen as expressions of the sacred or the profane,
supplemented by the artist’s imagination
▪ Vincent Van Gogh saw art and nature as inseparable
▪ Fernando Amorsolo & Fabian dela Rosa gained prominence form their
painted rural scenes
o Distinct relationship with a higher controlling power
▪ Polytheism – multitude of gods and goddesses (e.g., Greeks and Romans)
▪ Monotheism – lone creator (e.g., Christianity)
▪ Church architecture – echoes belief that art is central to religious experience
o Historically significant events
▪ Early breakthroughs
▪ Succeeding advancements through discovery and innovation
▪ Man’s incessant search for glory
• Content in art
o Levels of meaning
▪ Factual meaning
• Most rudimentary level of meaning
• Identifiable or recognizable forms in the artwork and understanding
how these elements relate to one another
▪ Conventional meaning
• Acknowledged interpretation of the artwork using motifs, signs,
symbols, and other cyphers as bases of its meaning
• Established through time strengthened by recurrent use and wide
acceptance by its viewers and scholars who study them
• Stem from the viewer’s circumstances that come into play when
engaging with the art
▪ Subjective
• Perception and meaning are always informed by a manifold of
contexts such as what we know, what we learned, what we
experienced, and the values we stand for.
• A painting may communicate multiple meanings to its many
viewers
Artist and Artisans

• Production process
o Pre-production
 ▪ Begins with an idea that he wants to express or communicate with his
audience
o Production
▪ Material manipulation
▪ Gathering and sourcing materials form one of the most crucial aspects that
inform the direction, quality, and the final output itself
o Post-production
▪ Decision on how the artwork will be circulated not only in the art world but
also by the many publics
▪ Allowing the artwork to set, tweaking, preparing for transport and display,
promotion, and inclusion of artwork in publications or discussions.
• Awards and citations
o Orden ng Pambansang Alagad ng Sining (Order of National Artists)
▪ Highest national recognition given to Filipino individuals who have made
significant contributions to the development of Philippine arts
▪ Jointly administered by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts
(NCCA) and the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) and conferred by
the President
▪ Fernando Amorsolo “Grand Old Man of Philippine Art”, sole awardee in
1972, national artist for visual arts
o Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan (National Living Treasures Award) GAMABA
▪ Created in 1992 under the RA 7355
▪ Promote genuine appreciation of and instill pride among our people about
the genius of the Manlilikha ng Bayan
▪ Conferred to 3 outstanding artists in 1993
• Ginaw Bilog – master of Ambahan poetry
• Masino Intaray – master of various musical instruments of Palawan
people
• Samaon Sulaiman – master of Kutyapi and other instruments

Elements and Principles of Art

• Elements of art
o Visual
▪ Line – horizontal, vertical, diagonal, crooked, curved
▪ Shape – height and width
▪ Form – height, width, and depth
▪ Space – sense of depth, real or simulation, interlinked
▪ Color
• Hue – primary, secondary, tertiary
• Value – brightness or darkness of color
• Intensity – brightness or dullness
▪ Texture – real or implied, textiles, interlinked
 o Auditory
▪ Rhythm – beat, meter, and tempo
▪ Dynamics – loudness or quietness
▪ Melody – linear presentation of pitch
• Pitch – highness or lowness of sound
▪ Harmony – harshness
• Dissonance – harsh-sounding combination
• Consonance – smooth-sounding combination
▪ Timbre – color of music, tone, characteristic
▪ Texture – number of melodies, types of layers, relatedness
• Monophonic – single melodic line
• Polyphonic – 2 or more melodic lines
• Homophonic – main melody accompanied by chords
• Principles of art
o Balance – distribution of visual elements in placement and relation
▪ Asymmetrical – more on one side
▪ Symmetrical – most stable visual sense to any artwork
▪ Radial – central point in the composition
o Scale and proportion
▪ Scale – size in relation to what is normal
▪ Proportion – size in relation to one another
o Emphasis and contrast
▪ Emphasis – allows the attention of the viewer to a focal point
▪ Contrast – disparity between the elements
o Unity and variety
▪ Unity – sense of accord or completeness
▪ Variety – allowing patches or areas that both excite and allow the eye to
reset
o Harmony – sense of flow and interconnectedness; interlinked
o Movement – direction of the viewing eye as it goes through the artwork
o Rhythm
o Repetition – sense of predictability, imbues security and calmness
o Pattern – recurrence of elements