Chapter 1

Humanities and Art Appreciation: An Introduction

At the end of this chapter, the students should be able to:

understand the importance of Humanities and Art Appreciation in every individual’s life;

gain a general knowledge of the creation and functions of arts; and

recognize the certain purpose of art as well as its classification and discuss their characteristics.

As a preliminary activity for the topic, the teacher will ask the students of the following questions:

Do you think of yourself as a creative person? If you do, why? If you don’t, why not?

Are you more creative and most productive when feeling happy? Do you suffer if you are not?

How do you determine whether a particular art is an original work of an artist?

What talent/s would you like to improve as a person? Why?

Meaning and Importance of Humanities

tymologically, the term “Humanities” is from a Latin word humanus which means educated. It refers to
the learning of arts such as architecture, dance, literature, music, painting, theatre, and sculpture
(Sanches, 2011).They are branches of knowledge that focuses on the human opinions, and relationships
(Machlis, 2003). As a branch of learning, the artwork is considered as the material object while its
creativity and appreciation is the formal object (Menoy, 2009& Marcos, et al., 2010).
 Likewise, Humanities is more concerned on how a person expresses his/her feelings. These feelings
can be in facial manifestations or body movements. Laughing, crying, clenching our fists, curling our
toes, stretching out our fingers, and crossing our arms are representations of humanities (Menoy, 2009).