Chapter 3

METHODS OF PRESENTING ART

Subject, as defined in the previous chapter, is the term used for whatever is
represented in a work of art. It could be a person, thing, event or situation depicted by
the artist. It answers the question “what is the artwork about?”.

Kinds or sources of art subjects:

1. portraits 7. history

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2. everyday life 8. legend
3. still life 9. religion

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4. animals 10. mythology
5. figures 11. dreams
6. scapes 12. fantasy

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Artists have choices as to what ways or methods to use to present their
subjects or to express their ideas. These methods have their own background stories
as well as characteristic ways of being presented which are recognizable to most art
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enthusiasts or easily understood by would-be art enthusiasts.
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The following are the most common ways of presenting art subjects:
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1. Realism
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Realism is a way of presenting a subject the way it looks in everyday life, the
way as seen by the naked eye. The artist tries to approximate on canvas or in any
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medium how something or someone authentically appears without any addition,

embellishment or interpretation by the artist. If a tree is colored brown, the artist
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colors it brown. If a flower is red, the artist colors it as red. If someone is beautiful or
ugly, he is drawn as such. This method is sometimes disturbing or offending for if
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something looks or sounds gory, gross or shocking, it is depicted also as such.

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Generally, realism portrays the objective truth about people, life or

situations, whether good or bad, pleasant or harsh, ugly or beautiful. It favors the
portrayal of actual life in real settings, no matter how disturbing or offending, and
tries to send out socio-political or moral messages of the harsh realities of living a life
under industrialism and capitalism. In the visual arts, the subject is presented in “true-
to-life” manner; in theater, people are presented as impotent or struggling subjects
who are burdened in a troubled world; in literature, characters have flaws in an
imperfect life where the author injects commentaries about social, political or
religious issues. It also avoids the use of exaggerated heroes in favor of ordinary
people.

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 Below are examples of realism paintings by Fernando Amorsolo, the “Grand
Old Man of Philippine Art”, Philippine’s National Artist in Painting, and Philippines’
foremost portraitist and painter of rural Philippine landscapes.

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Landscape Painting Countryside Scene in Oil

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Detail from Fernando Amorsolo’s

1945 Defense of a Filipina Woman’s Honor,
which is representative of Amorsolo’s
World War II-era paintings UP Oblation by Guillermo E. Tolentino,
National Artist in Sculpture

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2. Abstraction

The word abstract means to “move away” or “to separate from”. It is a way of
moving away from reality or separating oneself from the objective truth; it is the
opposite of realism or the objective representation of art. In abstraction, the artist
does not present his subject the way it is found in the actual setting. The artist uses his
ideas to reflect things or images in a highly personal interpretation. He depicts his
subject the way he thinks or feels about it; he tries to represent his subject (either
visually or verbally) in a manner that eliminates some measure of physical details
and retains, in his mind, only the essential characteristics. It is subjective, highly
personal, opinionated, and extra-challenging for it constantly asks the viewer to
discover its meaning.

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Abstraction can be used through:

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a. Distortion. In distortion, the artist bends, twists or misshapes the image
to achieve an unnatural deviation of shape or position of any part of the subject’s

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body producing visible deformity. What appears is a subject, misshapen or twisted,
totally unlike as it appears in reality.
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b. Cubism. In this method, the artist uses geometrical shapes to represent his
subjects. The subjects are presented as a series of cubes, cones, or spherical shapes
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which can be seen from different angles or viewpoints all together at the same time.
According to Wikipedia, “in cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-
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assembled in an abstracted form—instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint,

the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in
a greater context… the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a
coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one
another to create the shallow ambiguous space, one of cubism’s distinct
characteristics.”

Spanish painter Pablo Picasso is often credited as the first Abstract artist who
co-developed with Georges Braque the Cubist method between 1908 and 1912.

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 Guernica by Pablo Picasso Prayer Before Meals
by Vicente Manansala

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Ang Kiukok
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Fisherman, 1995, oil on canvas,

House of the Black Madonna, 24 x 48 inches
first example of Cubist architecture
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in Prague
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c. Elongation. This is a method used by the artist when he intentionally lengthens or

elongates the figure of his subject to achieve a desired effect. This method shows a
subject or a part of the subject as irregularly proportional to other parts of the subject
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like the very long neck of the Madonna or the unusual length of the child and the long
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arms of David as seen in the pictures below.

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Madonna of the Long Neck

in Prague David by Michaelangelo

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d. Mangling. This is an uncommon way used by the artist to present his subject. He
achieves the effect by cutting, chopping, mutilating, lacerating, or hacking the
image.

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e. Abstract Expressionism
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Abstract expressionism is a movement of painting which began in New York
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City that tried to declare its independence from European styles. It is, according to
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www.answers.com , “a school of painting that flourished after World War II until the
early 1960s, characterized by the view that art is nonrepresentational and chiefly
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improvisational…. The movement comprised many styles but shared several

characteristics. The works were usually abstract (i.e., they depicted forms not found
in the natural world); they emphasized freedom of emotional expression, technique,
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and execution; they displayed a single unified, undifferentiated field, network, or

other image in unstructured space; and the canvases were large, to enhance the visual
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effect and project monumentality and power.”

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In this method, the act of painting becomes an art itself as the process of
painting becomes a drama of its own. The artist becomes the star as he unleashes his
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ideas on canvas, showing the glorification of the act of painting as a means of visual
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communication. This method is also called “action painting”. The following

pictures are of Jackson Pollock, the quintessential action painter executing his craft
by interlacing lines of dripped and poured paint on a very large canvas.

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Other abstract expressionist works:

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Peculiar Velocity, Jackson Pollock Vessel by Jose Joya

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Mark di Suvero, Aurora, 1992-1993 Forearmed,1967

by Alfonso Ossorio
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3. Symbolism

Symbolism is the artist’s way of presenting his idea or feeling using a

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representation or sign to stand for something other than itself. . Some of the symbols
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used are globally known like # for number, % for percentage, $ for dollars, white for
purity, red for war, a dove for peace or a snake for a traitor. An artist uses these signs
to stand for things which he wants to be represented, and these are oftentimes
universally understood because of conventional usage, connection or general
relationship.

Symbolism in literature can be achieved by representing the story’s theme on

a physical level. An example might be the occurrence of a storm at a critical point of
the story when there is conflict or high emotions. Similarly, a transition from day to
night or spring to winter could mean a move from goodness to evil, or hope to
despair. A river could represent the flow of life, from birth to death and flowers can
symbolize youth or beauty.
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 The play MacBeth by William Shakespeare uses blood, both real and
imagined, as a symbol of guilt of MacBeth and Lady MacBeth. Another symbol used
in the play is a raven, which usually represents bad fortune.

The movie series Star Wars symbolizes faith and religion in a world
overcoming evil. The design of some buildings is also meant to be symbolic. Below
is a picture of the Canadian War Museum building. Its facade represents the bow of
the ship, symbolizing the navy and the role it played in wartime.

The UP Oblation, the iconic symbol of the University of the Philippines, is a

3.5 meter concrete sculpture painted to look like bronze, symbolizing the 350 years
of Spanish rule in the Philippines. It represents selfless dedication and service to the

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nation, and as Guillermo E. Tolentino, the sculptor himself, describes it as a:

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“… completely nude figure of a young man with outstretched arms and open
hands, with tilted head, closed eyes and parted lips murmuring a prayer, with breast
forward in the act of offering himself…”

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Canadian War Museum UP Oblation

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4. Dadaism
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Dadaism is a short-lived art movement which began in Switzerland in 1916

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and ended in 1922. It got its name from the French word dada which means “hobby
horse”. According to www.historymania.com, the basis of Dada is nonsense. It
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began as a protest movement against World War I for it sees war as an absurd and
barbaric exercise. It sought to ruin art for a world which did not deserve it. It attacked
the bourgeois (capitalists) for allowing war to happen and this movement became
known as an anti-art association. With the order of the world destroyed by World War
I, Dada was a way to express the confusion felt by many people as their world turned
upside down. There was no attempt to find meaning in disorder, but rather to accept
disorder as the nature of the world.

This movement rejects the traditional way of art appreciation and how art is
defined in contemporary art scenes. Dadaists produced art works that showed the sad
and sorry state of the world which the capitalists did not like and opined as
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“ridiculous and irrelevant and therefore should be destroyed.” This movement
attacks the reason and logic of the capitalist society by producing works of art which
uses chaos and irrationality. This method ignores aesthetics and intends to offend
man’s sensibilities. If art was to have at least an implicit or latent message, Dada
strove to have no meaning — interpretation of Dada is dependent entirely on the
viewer. Dada became a commentary on art and the world, thus becoming art itself. It
rejects traditional culture and aesthetics which hoped to reach a personal
understanding of the true nature of the world.

This method then uses chaos, irrationality, and nonsense as a way of

presenting its subject.

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Mona Lisa Fountain After Us Motherhood

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painting of da Vinci by Marcel Duchamp

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5. Fauvism
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Fauvism is rooted in the French word “fauve” which means “wild beast”.
This is an early-20th-century movement (1898 -1906) in painting begun by a group
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of French artists and marked by the use of bold, often distorted forms and vivid
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colors. The movement’s name is derived from the judgment of a critic who visited the
Fauvists’ first exhibit in Paris (1905) and referred to the artists disparagingly as “les
fauves” (“wild beasts”).

Painters who use this method use bold colors, oftentimes unmixed and
straight from commercially-produced tubes, spontaneous and rough execution
(oftentimes referred to as abnormal painting techniques) coupled with turbulent
emotionalism. The dominant figure of the group was Henri Matisse; others were
André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Raoul Dufy, Georges Braque, and Georges
Rouault.

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 Woman with a Hat, 1905 The Dance

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by Henri Matisse by Henri Matisse

6. Surrealism

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Surrealism is a combination of two words, super and realism. Surrealism

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developed out of the Dada activities of World War I and the most important center of
the movement was Paris. Like the Dadaists, Surrealists believe that excessive
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rational and bourgeois thinking brought about World War I. Its leader, Andre Breton,
a medical/psychiatric doctor who treated shell-shocked army soldiers using
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psychoanalysis, believed that Freud’s work with free association, dream analysis and
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the hidden unconscious was of great importance in developing methods to liberate

imagination. It aimed to revolutionize human experience, including its personal,
cultural, social, and political aspects, by freeing people from what they saw as false
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rationality, and restrictive customs and traditions.

In literature, surrealists believe in “automatic writing”, spontaneously
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writing without censoring one’s thoughts. It values the significance of dreams and
disdains literal interpretations of objects, It gives more significance to poetic
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undercurrents as well as to connotations and overtones. Although automatic writing

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may appear to be spontaneous and totally unplanned, “it is actually edited and well
thought of”, according to Breton.
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In music, several works by musicians like Edgard Varese’s Arkana was

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inspired by a dream sequence. Surrealism is also found in the improvisation in jazz

and blues music (http.en.wikipedia.org).
Politically, surrealism is leftist, anarchist or communist, believing in man’s
freedom and in anti-colonial revolution.
In the visual arts, it is a method which is a combination of the depictive, the
abstract, and the psychological— to stand for the alienation which many people felt
in the modern period, combined with the sense of reaching more deeply into the
psyche, to be “made whole with one’s individuality”(http.en.wikipedia.org).
In theater, Antonin Artaud tried to create a new theatrical form which would
be “immediate and direct, linking the unconscious minds of performers and

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spectators,…. where emotions, feelings, and the metaphysical were expressed not
through text or dialogue but physically, creating a mythological, typical, symbolic
vision, closely related to the world of dreams.” This was called the Theater of
Cruelty, the predecessor of the theater of the absurd.

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The Persistence of Memory Indecision Renewal
by Salvador Dali by Jon Jaylo by Danny Sillada

7. Futurism

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In this method, the artist draws, paints or chooses subjects borne out of
modern technology or products of modern living and tries to capture the essence and
vitality of modern life. The Futurists admire speed, technology, youth and violence,
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the car, the airplane and the industrial city, all that represented the technological
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triumph of humanity over nature, and they are passionate nationalists. Suffice to say,
they do not like the past and abhor tradition. They often painted modern urban
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scenes and vehicles in motion while futurist music rejected tradition and introduced
experimental sounds inspired by machinery. In literature, it can be characterized by
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its “unexpected combinations of images and hyper-conciseness (not to be confused

with the actual length of the poem). The Futurists called their style of poetry parole in
libertà (word autonomy) in which all ideas of meter were rejected and the word
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became the main unit of concern. In this way, the Futurists managed to create a new
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language free of syntax punctuation, and metrics that allowed for free expression.”
(http.en.wikipedia.org)
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In theater, futuristic works are characterized by scenes that are of few

sentences long, have an emphasis on nonsensical humor, and attempt to discredit the
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deep rooted traditions via parody and other devaluation techniques.

Umberto Boccioni, 1913 Dancing House

’Unique Forms Of Continuity In Space’ in Prague
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8. Impressionism


Impressionism as an art movement and method began in Paris during the late
1860’s and early 1870’s. French impressionism was spontaneous, colour-sensitive
style of painting. It rejected the conventions of the academic art and gave way to
naturalistic and down to earth treatment of subject matter. Impressionist artists
sought to capture fleeting moments and use natural colour schemes offering a whole
new pictorial language. Impressionistic painting includes visible brush strokes, light
colors with emphasis on light in its changing qualities to accentuate the effects of
passage of time and unusual visual angles. The movement indirectly paved the way
for the artistic style of the 20th century. Famous artists of the Impressionist
movement included Claude Monet (1840-1926), Camille Pisarro (1803), Pierre

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Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Alfred Sisley (1839-1899), Edgar Degas (1834-1917),
Edouard Manet (1832-83), Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), Berthe Morisot (1841-95)

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and Mary Cassatt (1845-1926)


In literature, impressionism presents a subject through the prism of the

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artist’s sensibility and thru the creative process to bring about aesthetic awareness.
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Impressionistic writing seeks not to convey a message but rather to evoke a mood or
an atmosphere where both artist and reader find significant meaning. Notable
writers like Emil Zola claimed to have applied impressionistic techniques in his
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literary works and praised Monet’s Naturalism; Stephane Mallarme’ called by
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Victor Hugo “Cher Poete Impressioniste” and novelists James Joyce in his novels
“Ulysses” and his semi-autobiographical work “A Portriat of the Artist as a Young
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Man” as well as Virginia Woolf in her novel “The Lighthouse” and “Mrs. Dalloway”.
used literary techniques called “Stream of Consciousness” where character unfolds
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by means of the ebb and flow of personal impressions, feelings and thoughts.
Impressionistic literature attempts to represent through syntactic variation the
fragmentary and discontinuous nature of the sensations of modern men in urban
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civilization.
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Rouen Cathedral Landscape at Chaponval Peonies in a Vase

West Portal Dull Weather by Camille Pissarro by Edouard Manet
by Claude Monet

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9. Expressionism

Expressionism refers to “art that expresses intense emotion”. The artists

work is an expression of his inner experience rather than solely realistic portrayal.

According to www.artmovements.co.uk, expressionism is “an artistic style in

which the artist attempts to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective
emotions and responses that objects and events arouse in him. He accomplishes his aim
through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, and fantasy and through the vivid,
jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal elements. In a broader sense
Expressionism is one of the main currents of art in the later 19th and the 20th centuries,
and its qualities of highly subjective, personal, spontaneous self-expression are typical

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of a wide range of modern artists and art movements. The expressionist artist substitutes
to the visual object reality his own image of this object, which he feels as an accurate

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representation of its real meaning. The search of harmony and forms is not as important
as trying to achieve the highest expression intensity, both from the aesthetic point of
view and according to idea and human critics.

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In literature, the writer uses expressionism through disturbing incidents,
tense dialogue, exaggerations and distortions characterized by chaotic, frenzied
imagery and vehement tone.
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In music, expressionism puts the emotional expression above everything else.

Expressionistic music is often dissonant, fragmented, and densely written, portraying
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what is going on inside the composer’s mind; it is an expression of what is felt.

In theater, expressionist plays often dramatize the spiritual awakening and

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sufferings of their protagonists, The protagonists in a typical expressionist play

journey through a series of incidents that are often not causally related, often
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dramatizing the struggle against bourgeois values and established authority. The
speech is heightened, either expansive and rhapsodic, or clipped and telegraphic;
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most speeches consist of one or two lines, though these sections of short speeches
alternate with long lyrical passages. Expressionist plays are often highly subjective:
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the dramatic action is seen through the eyes of the protagonist which seems distorted
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or dreamlike. Expressionist drama is often opposed to society and the family.

In architecture, expressionism refers to architecture of any date or location

that exhibits some of the qualities of the original movement such as distortion,
fragmentation or the communication of violent or overstressed emotion.

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 Starry Starry Night

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by Vincent Van Gogh

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The Scream by Edvard Munch

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Einstein Tower, Berlin by Erich Mendelsohn

Black Bouquet by Juvenal Sanso

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Study Notes:
1. What are the different kinds or sources of art subjects?
2. How does a realist tackle objectivity in his art work?
3. What are the different methods of abstraction?
4. In what way does dadaism reject the traditional way of art presentation?
5. How does modern technology influence futuristic artists?
6. Discuss subjectivity in the following art methods:


a. symbolism


b. impressionism

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c. expressionism

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