CHAPTER

1
A GENERAL VIEW OF ART
 1. Etymology of Art
The word Art originally comes from the Aryan
root ar meaning “join,” “put together”. From this
ancient etymon, two Greek verbs are derived,
artizein, meaning to “prepare,” arkiskein, “to put
together.
” the Latin term ars, artis, means everything that is
artificially made or composed by man, In modern
times the word art is restricted to express the
fine arts.
. There are actions to be done in relations
to man’s ultimate destiny and moral
obligations {prudence, virtue, moral actions}
and works to be made in relations to man’s
practical and cultural needs (artificial or
artistic things).
In general Art is either making or the
composition of any object useful for our
human needs, from a stone knife to a jet
plane, or the arrangement of certain
elements and qualities for the contemplation
and enjoyment of its meaning or beauty.
 2. Definition of ART
 Aristotle defines Art as the “right reason of
making things.” any kind of human activity, when
directed to change or transform things under the
patterns of right reason, can be called ART.
 By processing natural things, we prepare them for
our use or consumption as food, medicine, cloth,
etc.
 Art therefore, is the skillful arrangement or
composition of some common but significant
qualities of nature to express human feelings,
emotions or thoughts in a perfect meaningful, and
enjoyable way.
 Art has been defined as a formal
expression of considered human
experience.
 It is uses experience as its subject
matter, but uses it after it has passed the
artist’s sensibilities and has been carefully
analyzed, felt, and thought.
2. The divisions of Art
A. With respect to the purpose, arts are
classified as:
• Practical or useful Arts- when human
activity is directed to produce
artifacts and utensils which cope with
human needs.
Ex. Basket weaving, agriculture, mannual
works prevail, and industrial or
commercial arts.
• Liberal Arts- in which intellectual efforts
are considered.
Ex. In ancient time the present sciences of
mathematics, astronomy, and grammar.
• Fine Arts- which are the products of the
human creative activity insofar as they
express beauty in different ways and media,
for the contemplation of the mind and the
relaxation of the spirit.
• Major Arts- which are characterized by
their actual and potential expressiveness
and by a purely disinterested purpose, such
a music, poetry, sculpture, etc.
• Minor arts- which are connected with
practical users and purposes.
Ex. Interior decoration and porcelain art.

According to media and Forms, arts are

divided into:
Plastic Arts- which are developed through
space and perceived by the sense of sight.
Ex. Painting, sculpture, and architecture.
Phonetic arts- which are base on sounds and
words as media of expression.
Ex. Music, drama and literature.
• Kinetic arts- which use as their most
important elements, rhythmic movement.
ex. Dance
• Pure Arts- which take only one medium of
expression as sound in music and color in
painting.
• Mixed arts- which use two more media.
Ex. Opera which is a combination of
music, poetry, and drama.
4. The origin of the Arts
The dance was probably the first art
cultivated by man and the origin of all his
aesthetic activity. Dance flows naturally from
man and its practice has been universally
accepted in all primitive and modern societies.

music and poetry accompanied dance

performances. Poetry began as story-telling
of the feats of the ancestors, and of the
race’s legendary origins allied to heroes and
gods. Prose originated from poetry.
 Other author’s believe that the origin
of this Arts is connected common belief
among the superstitious primitive people
that represent the animals in the interior
of their caves acted as an incantation to
trap and kill the wild animals.
 superstitious or religion, we cannot
deny the tremendous influence of these
two factors in the origin and evolution of
human arts.
In the east, as well as in the west, all
arts, including dancing, originated in the
temple. We still admire the ancient
colossal statues of gods, goddesses,
religious animals, totems, demons, and
priests.
 5. The purpose of the Arts
A. Besides the moral, educational, social, cultural,
and religious purpose of value in itself, which is
no other than to express beauty. To a certain
extent, the famous statement “art for arts
sake” is true.
B. All arts afford man moments of relaxation and
spirituals happiness, which is a reflection of an
eternal happiness.
C. Our imaginations seldom more satisfied than
though the recreation in ourselves of the
beautiful themes, characters, motifs, events etc.
express by artists in their creations.
d. The arts are an outlet of our slumbering
passions when brought to the surface
under the orderly control of arts. In real
life passion frequently move men to
immoral or disorderly actions. e.

Arts are powerful means to reform man,

to change his deviant behaviour in to
social order and to overcome his feelings
of loneliness, uncertainty, restlessness.
6. The Hierarchy of the Arts
Writers and old authors of aesthetics
considered very important the academic
discussions on the relative superiority of
the arts : which of them are more forceful
in expression, intense in communication,
sufficient in medium, lively in rhythm
luxuriant in details.
Different authors have expressed opposite
views on the matter. Kant says that music is
the lowest of all arts, for it gives only sensible
pleasure. According to Schopenhauer,
however, music is the greatest of all arts, the
“liberator-art,” for music is capable of freeing
man from his fears and from his ignoble
desires, from his anger and despair, and from
other passions and anxieties.
Hegel believes that poetry has the best
qualities of other arts: immediate perception,
creative imagination, development of thoughts
and events.
Leibnitz though that the greatest human
expression in arts was possible by the
fusion of poetry and music as in the final
act of the Ninth symphony of Beethoven.
7. Is art and imitation and creation?
Fundamentally, art is an imitation of nature in
the sense given by Aristotle to the word
imitation. As nature produces new beings
within the frame of the same species, so art
produces new objects within the frame of
the artist mental patterns in within the limits
of his technique. Nature gives life to matter
through a new soul; likewise, art infuses life,
order, in dynamic rhythm into unmeaningful
and organizes them into different arts.
 ARISTOTLE’s teachings regarding
imitation in art have been widely
misunderstood. Yet his principles are
true and may be accepted and employed
in art.

i. “art aims at imitating nature”

ii. “imitation is natural to man”
iii. “it is natural to man to delight in works
of imitation”
• Imitative representation of nature has been
for man a perennial source of enjoyment and
inspiration.
• Man love himself and his image and enjoys
looking at his portraits.
• Art lifts man from present realities and throws
him into a world of dreams and illusions,
gratifying his pent-up wishes.
• All arts are somehow imitations of things and
actions.
• In some art as in the drama, the motion
pictures, and the dance, imitations assume a
personal “representative” or “interpretative”
character.
• It is clear that imitation for Aristotle
does not mean copying directly from the
book of nature but interpreting nature in
sensible media through ideas and feelings.
• If were simple imitation, tragedy and
comedy, the most imitative of the arts,
would be impossible since tragedy makes
its characters better than actual men;
comedy, worse.
 The work of an artist is not the
mechanical reproduction of a picture
through a camera, but a translation of the
most relevant characteristics of the
original model.
 Involves the process of selection,
interpretation, arrangement, ad execution
also personal assimilation through the
mind, feeling and technique of artist.
 One camera may reproduce the same face
hundred of times.
• Photography represent objects as they
are.
• Art transform the objects,
accentuating or diminishing their
features.
• We do not usually admire a photographic
picture but we are always attracted by
an artistic portrait.
• Art tends not to imitate but to express
nature with clarity and meaning. When
the arts too separated from nature,
their meaning is lost.
• If they are too close to nature, they
cease to be human to be human and
meaningful. Modern painters and
sculptors have isolated themselves from
natural forms through abstractionism
and surrealism.
• On the other hand, writers and movie
producers insists on going back to
nature and to a crude realism of life.
• Art is not a mere copying of nature but a
creative activity.
• Anything man conceives in his mind or
makes with his hand is a creation.
• Buildings, poems, or statues are not
produced by nature; man creates them,
brings them into existence.
• Artists compose or arrange things. They
give order and beautiful expression to the
materials they use but they cannot create
the materials.
• God created the world from chaotic
nothingness. He created order, distinction
and beauty. The Bible compares god to an
artist. After creating the world in six
days, he contemplated his work on the
seventh day and aesthetically enjoyed it.
• We expect the artist to disclose to us the
beauty of the world we know and of the
nature that we are. It is the aim of the
artist to bring forth beauty, order to
clarity, and meaning.
• In every human being there is an artist,
an admirer of the inner beauty of
painting, sculpture, music, poetry and
drama, and in every art there is a genuine
interpretation of human life.
• The very existence of art depends on its
message to man and society needs and
artists need society.
• Immortal art is the genuine expression of
the customs, environment, and ideas of
historical period.
• A poet of great imagination may believe
he is expressing personal views and
experiences, but actually his poems are
addressed to contemporary readers who
share a similar poetic vision and are
inspired by the emotional life of the poet.
• His artistic personality impels him to
express himself in order to be
understood by people and unless his
message captures public admiration, he
shall never attain the crown of glory and
success.
• Man has lost his capacity for the
enjoyment of art and contemplation things
in the same proportion that he has learned
more a more about the practical use of
these things.
• But the measure of his culture is not his
mastery over nature and his knowledge of
the elements of the word.
10. The three principles of
artistic composition
A survey of the three main
characteristics of fine arts-unity,
dominance, and equilibrium- will reveal
that all arts have similar patterns and that
they are related among themselves.
UNITY
Every work on art is based on unity. Just
as natural things, like trees, flowers,
animals, or rocks exist as one as individual
reality. This unity appears stronger in
some works of arts than in others. The
movements and sequences of the dance,
play, drama are some works of arts,
however, unity is not so necessary, as in
“one thousand and one nights” or in the
decameron.
3 kinds of unity in works of art
a) Harmonious unity
-This result from combination of identical
qualities or invariable patterns. For
instance, the repetition of the same
space-form in arches and capitals; the
uniform distance between columns and
geometric designs in window-panes; the
monochromatic paintings with gradation
of hues, like “St. Jerome Reading,”
b. Contrasting unity
another outstanding quality of fine arts
is the composition of the various
elements and forms within the balance
and unity of the whole work.
Ex. Strong and delicate lines, brilliant and
somber colors. Light and shadow in
painting; loud and soft sounds in music,
etc.
The dance avoids monotony by a
continuous contrasting of its
movements.
c. Progressive unity
The richness of integration can be
transmitted either simultaneously as in
the visual arts or successively as in the
progressive movements of melodies,
dramas, dances, and songs, and in other
kinetic and phonetic arts.
 DOMINANCE
• The variety of things in nature has no limits.
In some respect all things are unequal and
unique. Some are superior; others are
underground. Some things are durable;
others are perishable, etc.
• Artists are aware of the paramount
importance of dominance in fine arts and its
dynamic role. Painters, for example direct
our attention towards the center or the edge
of the canvas; architects, towards the
façade of buildings.
EQUILIBRIUM OR BALANCE
The solidity of a building depends on the
mathematical computations and strength
of materials. Its functionability,
however, is focus on particular details.
a perfect example of equilibrium in art is
Dante’s “Divine Comedy” where each
scene contributes to the aggregate
pictures and each word is packed with
meaning and beauty.
11. Educational for art Appreciation and
the standards of taste..
• Art appreciation means more than
aesthetic enjoyment. The latter is
related to the experience derived from
the contemplation of artistic works. The
former involves an ability to judge and
to appreciate art. The impressionists, on
the other hand, say there is no
fundamental ground for agreement in
art appreciation.
• According to them, the criteria to
determine the excellence of the works
of art depend on individual feelings and
opinions. They claim that the art is the
expression of the personality and
spontaneity of the individual; that
tastes are relative and personal; that
artistic techniques vary according to
different periods and cultures; and that
works of art do not admit comparison
because each one is supposed to be
unique and original.
• How do we form good standards for art
appreciation and judgment?
-as was mentioned, successive experiences
reveal to us the insight of beauty and the
meaning of art, building up in our mind a
kind of measurement or standard by which
we evaluate our own experiences and pass
judgment on dramatic performances,
concerts, exhibits, oratorical contest, etc.
each new experience contributes to the
maturity of our judgment and to a deeper
understanding of art.
• Once we are awakened to the
appreciation of the arts, we can
develop a critical attitude and
reflection toward them. It is
then that we can comment,
criticize, pass judgment, write
reviews, and make
recommendations.
 12. The role of art criticism
• Criticism is the method of verifying or
testing artistic works. It is also a technique
to stimulate the understanding of art and to
develop artistic sensibility.
• The main concern of a good of art is to help
the public in the understanding, appreciation,
and selection of works of art. He calls our
attention to the technique, merit, originality,
personality of artists. The critic prepares
the way for our encounter with art “with
sense and intelligence properly attuned”
 13. Aesthetic judgment
• To judge properly the a work of art, we
must take into consideration both its
objective and subjective characters. The
judges of a mathematical contest easily
select the winners and their objective
decision cannot be contested. The
subjective verdict of the judges in an
oratorical contest or art exhibit
frequently displeases the audience. The
decision is “justified or unjustified”, never
“true or false.”
 3 basic factors concur in
making final decisions in art
appreciation.
1) an attempt to evaluate the objective
merits of the work;
2) An analysis of the skill, techniques, and
originality of the artists; and
3) The personal interpretation of each
judge.
 How can we verify the intrinsic
value and the objective merits of
a work of art?
1) Through a critical study of the
properties of beauty-order, proportion,
clarity; unity, balance, dominance.
2) Through the general consensus of the
experts and connoisseurs and other
recognized authorities in the field of
art appreciation and aesthetics.
3. In the last analysis, the time factor
will be the final arbiter in the
judgment of the works of art. Bad art
is ephemeral and transitory. Good art
is immortal.
4. finally, in order to judge a work of
art correctly, we must first get rid of
prejudices, race, religion, traditions,
taboos, moral scruples, and, above all,
ignorance.