Unit 4

Giving Meaning Behind the Art Subjects

Introduction

Every time we see a piece of art, the first question we ask is “What is all about?”
We got interested of the image which can be seen in the art. This is what we call
subject. However, not all artworks have this case. There are artworks which do not
have images or clear figures but shapes, lines, and colors to translate a particular
feeling, emotion, and concept.
This unit is designed for you to simply appreciate the art subjects used by the artists.

Unit Learning Outcomes

At end of this unit, you will be able to:

a. Distinguish representational from non-representational art;
b. Discuss the different subjects used by an artist; and
c. Present a research work.

Topic 1: Knowing the Subject in the Arts

Time Allotment: 3 hours

Presentation of Content

Subject in art refers to any person, object, scene, or event described or represented
in a work of art. In the case of a story, poem or music, subject is the main idea,
character or theme of a composition.
There are two types of art - representational art and non-representational art. Each
of them has thoroughly different styles of artwork and can be easily distinguished.
A. Representational or objective arts are works of art that have visible subject.
Painting, sculpture, the graphics arts, literature, and the theater arts are considered
 representational arts.
Representational art or figurative art represents objects or events in the real world,
usually looking easily recognizable. For example, a painting of a cat looks very
much like a cat – it's quite obvious what the artist is depicting.
The term "representational art" usually refers to images that are clearly
recognizable for what they purport to be, such as a human figure, a banana, a tree,
and so on. Such images need not be true to life. So a
tree does not have to be green, or even upright, but it
must clearly represent or be recognizable as a tree.
Briefly, it depicts something easily recognized by most
people. For example, the painting below is called
Thunder Magic by Marcia Baldwin. People can
generally recognize it as a horse without doubt.
Although the using of colour may not be realistic,
it represents an actual subject from reality.
http://korieworld.blogspot.com/2012/04/representation-art-vs-
non.html

B. Non-representational or non-objective arts are those that do not have visible

subject.
Music, architecture, and many of the functional
arts are non-representational.
They appeal directly to the senses primarily
because of the satisfying organization of their
sensuous and expressive elements.
Non-representational or abstract art consists of
images that have no clear identity, and must be
interpreted by the viewer.

Nonrepresentational art may simply depict

shapes, colors, lines, etc., but may also express
things that are not visible – emotions or feelings
for example.

Picasso is a well-known artist who used abstraction in

Pablo Picasso, Girl Before
many of his paintings and sculptures: figures are often a Mirror, 1932, MOMA
simplified, distorted, exaggerated, or geometric.
(https://learn.saylor.org/mod/page/view.php?id=21566&forceview=1)
 For example, the painting
below is The Persistence Of
Memory by a famous
artist, Salvador Dali. The most
eye-catching things in the
painting are the three soft
melting pocket watches.
According to some studies, the
soft watches may be a visual
depiction of the idea behind the
Einstein's theory of relativity.
The figure in the middle of the
picture has one closed eye with
Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory several eyelashes, it is possibly
suggesting the irrelevance of time
during sleep. However,
the perception of this picture may have somewhat difference between people.

Is subject synonymous to content?

Undeniably, the terms subject and content are too confusing. Sometimes if not most
of the time, they were interchangeably used.

Subject matter is the literal, visible image in a work while content includes the
connotative, symbolic, and suggestive aspects of the image. The subject matter is
the subject of the artwork, e.g., still life, portrait, landscape etc.

Further, content refers to what the artist expresses or communicates on the whole
in his work. Sometimes it is spoken of as the meaning of the work. In literature it
is called the “theme”. It reveals the attitude toward his subject.

Gerald Brommer in Emotional content: How to create paintings that communicate

notes that "Content is the reason for making a painting." He further elaborates:

"Content is not subject or things in the painting. Content is the communication of

ideas, feelings and reactions connected with the subject...... When we look at a
painting its content is what is sensed rather than what can be analyzed. It is the
ultimate reason for creating art." Something in the painting must appeal or speak
to the heart, spirit and soul of the viewer. He specifically calls this "emotional
content". http://margaretryall.blogspot.com/2009/11/compose-subject-vs-content.html
Subject matter may acquire different levels of meaning:

1. Factual meaning is the literal statement or the narrative content in the

work which can be directly apprehended because the objects presented are
easily recognized.

2. Conventional meaning refers to the special meaning that a certain object

or color has for a particular culture or group of people.
Examples:
Flag is the agreed-upon symbol for a nation.
Cross is a Christian symbol of faith
Wheel is the Buddhist symbol for the teachings of Gautama
Buddha

3. Subjective meaning is any personal meaning consciously or unconsciously

conveyed by the artist using a private symbolism which stems from his
own association of certain objects, actions, or colors with past
experiences. This can be fully understood only when the artist himself
explains what he really means.

Take a look at the example below applying the three levels of giving meaning to
an artwork.

Analysis
Subject: Biblical art
Factual meaning: Creation Story
(creation of
man)
Subjective meaning: Man was
created in the image and likeness
of God
Subjective meaning: Endowment
of intellect to man from God

Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam

https://www.thetapestryhouse.com/tapestries/view/1194/the-creation-of-adam
Common Subjects Depicted in Art
1. Landscape, seascape, and
cityscape
Artists have always been
fascinated with their physical
environment.
Filipino painters have captures on
canvas the Philippine countryside,
as well as the sea bathed in pale
moonlight or catching the
reflection of the setting sun.
Fernando Amorsolo romanticized http://www.artfreaks.com/forums/index.php?/album/5-fernando-amorsolo-paintings/
Philippine landscapes, turning the
rural areas into idyllic places where agrarian problems are virtually unknown.
Modern painters seem to more attracted to scenes in cities. Traffic jams, high-rises,
and skylines marked by uneven rooftops and television antennae have caught their
fancy.

2. Still life
Groups of inanimate objects
arranged in an indoors setting
such as flower and fruit
arrangements, musical
instruments, dishes of food on
dining tables.
The still lifes in Chinese and
Japanese painters usually show
flowers, fruits, and leaves still in
their natural setting, unplucked https://www.thephotoargus.com/35-superb-examples-of-still-life-photography/
from the branches.
3. Animals
The earliest known paintings are representations
of animals on the walls of caves.
In fact, the carabao has been a favorite subject of
Filipino artists. Romeo Tabuena’s stylized
carabaos have graced Philippine Christmas
cards. Napoleon Abuena’s bronze and marble
sculptures have captured the strength and beauty
of the animal.
William Blake wrote about the symmetry and
power of the tiger and the meekness of the lamb.
D.H. Lawrence celebrated the regal bearing of
golden snake in his poem, “Snake.”
In conventional religious art, the dove stands for
the Holy Spirit in representations of the Holy
http://happysiopao.smugmug.com/Travel/Batanes/Batanes-
Trinity. The fish and lamb are symbols of Christ; day-1/Batanes182/546496433_hnttQ-M.jpg

the phoenix, of the Resurrection, and the

peacock, of immortality.

4. Portraits
A portrait is a realistic likeness of a person in a
sculpture, painting, drawing, or print.
Besides the face, other things worth noticing in
portraits are the subject’s hand, which can be very
expressive, and his particular attire and accessories.
They reveal so much of the person and his time.
Portraits are also used to mark milestones in people’s
lives. Baptisms, graduations, and weddings are often
occasions for people to pose for their portraits.
In literature, Chaucer’s Prologue to Canterbury Tales
is an interesting portrait gallery of a cross-section of
English society during the 14th century. There are the http://www.luminarium.org/medlit
/knightimg.htm
unforgettable Knight and his son, the Squire, the
demure Prioress, the worldly Monk, and the inimitable Wife of Bath, to name a
few.
5. Human Figures
The sculpture’s chief subject has traditionally been
the human body, nude or clothed.
The grace and ideal proportions of the human form
were captured in religious sculpture by the ancient
Greeks. To them physical beauty was the symbol of
moral and spiritual perfections; thus, they portrayed
their gods and goddesses as possessing human
shapes.
Early Christian and medieval artists seldom
represented the nude figure. The figures they used
to decorate the entrances and walls of their churches
were distorted so as not to call undue attention to the
sensuous physical shape and distract the mind from
spiritual thoughts. However, Renaissance artists
reawakened an interest in the nude human figure.
Michaelangelo’s David shows a closer tie with the Michaelangelo’s David
Photograph: Courtesy CC/Wiki
Greek sculptures than with the Romanesque ones. Media/Livioandronico2013

6. Everyday life
Artists have always shown deep
concern about life around them.
Rice threshers, cockfighters, candle vendors, street musicians, children at play etc.
7. History and legend
History consists of verifiable
facts, legends of unverifiable
ones.
Juan Luna’s Blood Compact, not
at Malacanang, commemorates
the agreement between Sikatuna
and Legaspi which they
supposedly sealed by drinking
wine in which drops of each
other’s blood had been mixed.
Luna’s prize-winning Spoliarium
depicts a scene during the days of https://pinoy-culture.com/mount-makiling-and-the-goddess/
the early Roman Empire when
gladiatorial fights were a popular form of entertainment for the upper class.
At Ford Santiago are paintings showing incidents in the life of Jose Rizal.
Malakas and Maganda and Mariang Makiling are among the legendary subjects
which have been rendered in painting and sculpture by not a few Filipino artists.

8. Religion and myth

Most of the world’s religions have used arts
to aid worship, to instruct, to inspire feelings
of devotion, and to impress and covert non-
believers.
Some Filipino artists attempted to render in
art not only traditional religious themes but
folk beliefs in creatures of lower mythology
as well. Solomon Saprid has done statues of
the tikbalang. He is a sculptor best known
for his bronze “Tikbalang” series which he
began in 1971. He created them welding
scraps of metal, producing a characteristic
jagged effect. “Taking of the Tikbalang”
was one of his major works at the Makati
commercial center. He represented
Phillippines in 1971 Indian Triennale, and Solomon Saprid' s Tikbalang
the 1973 Australian Biennial.
 Unit 4: Giving Meaning Behind the Art Subjects

9. Dreams and fantasies

Dreams are usually vague and
illogical. Artist, especially the
surrealist, have tried to depict
dreams, as well as the
grotesque terrors and
apprehensions that lurk in the
depths of the subconscious.
The Great Masturbator is
one of the earliest Salvador
Dalí‘s surrealist works from
the period he was fascinated
by Freud’s psychoanalytic
theory and obsessed Featured image: Salvador Dali – The Great Masturbator, 1929 via sartle.com

by
analyzing
unconscious aspects of self
as
well as sexual repressed mechanism and ego structure. Therefore, painting The
Great Masturbator is kind of a self-portrait, view on a artist’s overgrown ego and
its transformations, posed in dreamlike surreal landscape along with various
objects of desire – beloved Gala or desert oasis but also accompanied by paranoid
fears of unknown faceless figures and insects. (https://www.widewalls.ch/surrealist-
paintings/salvador-dali-1/)

Summary Unit
In this Unit, we have learned that subject and content are two different terms. Subject in art
refers to the object depicted by the artist, while content refers to what the artist expresses or
communicates on the whole in his/her work. Further, arts can be representational (arts that
have subject) and non-representational (arts that do not subject).
Subject matter may acquire different levels of meaning such as factual, conventional,
subjective levels. Common subjects in arts include landscapes, seascapes, and cityscapes,
animals, portraits, everyday life, history and legend, religion and mythology, and dreams and
fantasies.
 Unit 4: Giving Meaning Behind the Art Subjects

References
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