ENG 111

Reading Visual Art

West Visayas State University- Janiuay Campus

- ladonico@14
What is art?

- also called visual art, is a visual object of experience

consciously created through an expression of skill or
imagination. The term art encompasses diverse media
such as painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing,
decorative arts, photography, and installation.
(Britannica, 2022)

https://www.Britannica.com/art/visual-arts
 There is no one universal definition of visual art
though there is a general consensus that art is the
conscious creation of something beautiful of meaningful
using skill and imagination. (Marder, 2019)

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-thw-definition-of-art-182707
Etymology:

- The term art is related to the Latin word “ars”

meaning art, skill or craft. The first known use of the
word comes from the 13th- century manuscripts.
However, the word art and its many variants (artem, eart,
etc.) have probably existed since the founding of Rome.
(Marder, 2019)

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-thw-definition-of-art-182707
 It is known that man engaged in the visual art as
early as the Paleolithic Era or the Stone Age period. Wall
paintings discovered in caves in Lascaux, France and
Altamira, Spain were proven to have been painted
somewhere between 15, 000 to 13, 000 B.C.

It can be surmised that as early as when man learned

to relax, to recognize beautiful things in nature and in
his environment, man learned to draw, paint and carve.
Lascaux, France Altamira, Spain
 In the history of man, the visual arts were used to
several purposes: 1) to decorate or adorn things, places
of domicile, and the environment; 2) to serve as objects
for religious worships, rituals and practices; and, 3) to
record or document events and happenings.

Although the same purposes are served by the visual

arts today, in modern times these acquired intellectual
and scientific purposes, and in many cases, ceased to
become mere objects for decoration and adornment.
 Many modern artworks, for example, are made
primarily not to decorate or adorn, but to stimulate the
intellect and imagination of the viewers, or to advance
certain philosophies and discoveries in art.

Every country has its history of the visual arts. Some

countries engaged in these activities with more passion
and devotion, while in others these were just a part of
their way of life.
 Countries belonging to the former are now those
countries that we refer and look up to whenever we
examine development, or when we talk of excellence in
the visual arts. Some of these countries are: Egypt,
Greece, Turkey and China in ancient times; Italy, France,
Germany, England, and Japan in the Medieval and
Renaissance periods; France, England, and the United
States of America in the modern era.
 In the Philippines, the development of the visual arts
may be summarized according to these periods:

Pre- Historic- a period of which we have no actual

records; it is somehow presumed that Filipinos during
this period engaged in some forms of the visual arts,
such as paintings on the walls of caves, and carving on
trunk of trees, or carving anitos or wooden images in
relation to their religious practices.
Anitos
Pre- Colonial – the period immediately prior to the
arrival of the European colonizers in the 16th century,
were Filipinos developed more sophisticated forms of
the visual arts, such as tattoo- making, pottery, carving,
and jewellery making.
Colonial – the period of the colonization of the
Philippines by the Europe and the Western World; a
period when the arts of these colonizers were
introduced and incorporated into the Philippine
experience, the products which we now call colonial art.
Modern – approximately, the period beginning with the
early 1900s until the present times. The arts here are
basically characterized as exhibiting a combination of
Philippine experiences- the indigenous, the colonial, the
Asian, and the Global.
 These arts have three basic aspects: they are the
result of an experience, they are the forms of expression,
and they are forms of communication.

The visual arts are those arts which we are primarily

perceived by the visual sense or our sense of sight.
Although under this definition a good number of arts can
be included in the context of this course.
 Two Categorical Classifications of Visual Arts

a. Two- Dimensional Expression – arts that are

rendered on flat surfaces and can be measured only
in terms of its length and width, under this would fall
painting and graphic arts.
b. Three- Dimensional Expression – arts rendered on, or
made of solid materials and can be measured in
terms or its length, width, and thickness, under this
would fall sculpture and architecture.
 Painting is defined as the
application of pigments on a
surface. As an art, it has basically
to do with colors applied on
different kinds of surfaces.
 Graphic arts concern themselves
with lines. These are arts that
endeavour to be precise, clear and
detailed. Although concerned
primarily with lines, due to the rapid
advance of technology in recent years
and to the changes in art making
processes, these arts have
incorporated the use of colors.
 Sculpture involves the addition
and subtraction of materials to or
from a three- dimensional medium
to arrive at shapes, forms, images,
or a composition.
 Architecture often described as art of building, this
involves the planning and construction of functional or
non- functional structures, such as houses, buildings,
fountains, etc.
 A good number of the so- called traditional arts can
be classified under the visual arts since they can be
perceived by our visual sense; however, they are more
properly categorized as arts that emanate from the
customs and traditions of a people, arts that are handed
down from generation to generation and done generally
by people who have not undergone formal education or
training in the arts. Some examples of traditional arts
are: pottery, weaving, embroidery and metal- craft.
Pottery
Weaving
Embroidery
Metal Craft
 That’s it for today!

Hope you learned something.

