M1

HUMANISTIC DISCIPLINE
History refers to a branch of knowledge that records and explains past events.
Language refers to the subjects (such as reading, spelling, literature, and
composition) that aim at developing the student's comprehension and capacity for
use of written and oral language.
Philosophy refers to a search for a general understanding of values and reality by
chiefly speculative rather than observational means.
Art refers to the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the
production of aesthetic objects.
 
VISUAL ARTS
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture,
ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many
artistic disciplines (performing arts, conceptual art, textile arts) involve aspects of the
visual arts as well as arts of other types. Also included within the visual arts are the
applied arts such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design
and decorative art.
Current usage of the term "visual arts" includes fine art as well as the applied or
decorative arts and crafts, but this was not always the case. Before the Arts and
Crafts Movement in Britain and elsewhere at the turn of the 20th century, the term
'artist' had for some centuries often been restricted to a person working in the fine
arts (such as painting, sculpture, or printmaking) and not the decorative arts, craft, or
applied art media. The distinction was emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts
Movement, who valued vernacular art forms as much as high forms. Art schools
made a distinction between the fine arts and the crafts, maintaining that a
craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner of the arts.
The increasing tendency to privilege painting, and to a lesser degree sculpture,
above other arts has been a feature of Western art as well as East Asian art. In both
regions painting has been seen as relying to the highest degree on the imagination of
the artist, and the furthest removed from manual labour – in Chinese painting the
most highly valued styles were those of "scholar-painting", at least in theory practiced
by gentleman amateurs. The Western hierarchy of genres reflected similar attitudes.
 
PERFORMING ARTS
Performing arts are a form of art in which artists use their voices, bodies or inanimate
objects to convey artistic expression. It is different from visual arts, which is when
artists use paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects.
Performing arts include a range of disciplines which are performed in front of a live
audience.
Theatre, music, dance and object manipulation, and other kinds of performances are
present in all human cultures. The history of music and dance date to pre-historic
times whereas circus skills date to at least Ancient Egypt. Many performing arts are
performed professionally. Performance can be in purpose built buildings, such as
theatres and opera houses, on open air stages at festivals, on stages in tents such
as circuses and on the street.
Live performances before an audience are a form of entertainment. The development
of audio and video recording has allowed for private consumption of the performing
arts.
The performing arts often aim to express one's emotions and feelings.
 
LINGUISTIC
Linguistic arts is the study and improvement of the arts of language. Traditionally, the
primary divisions in language arts are literature and language, where language in this
case refers to both linguistics, and specific languages. Language arts instruction
typically consists of a combination of reading, writing (composition), speaking, and
listening. In schools, language arts is taught alongside science, mathematics, and
social studies. It is the scientific study of language. It involves analysing language
form, language meaning, and language in context.

M2

ANALYSIS OF ART BASED ON THREE HUMAN FACULTIES

Visual Elements
Color refers to the light reflected off objects. Color has three main characteristics:
hue (red, green, blue, etc.), value (how light or dark it is), and intensity (how bright or
dull it is). Colors can be described as warm (red, yellow) or cool (blue, gray),
depending on which end of the color spectrum they fall.
Shape and form define objects in space. Shapes have two dimensions–height and
width–and are usually defined by lines. Forms exist in three dimensions, with height,
width, and depth.
A line is an identifiable path created by a point moving in space. It is one-dimensional
and can vary in width, direction, and length. Lines often define the edges of a form.
Lines can be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal, straight or curved, thick or thin. They
lead your eye around the composition and can communicate information through
their character and direction.
Representation
To represent is "to bring to mind by description," also "to symbolize, to be the
embodiment of;" from representer (12c.), from L. repraesentare, from re-, intensive
prefix, + praesentare "to present," lit. "to place before".
A representation is a type of recording in which the sensory information about a
physical object is described in a medium. The degree to which an artistic
representation resembles the object it represents is a function of resolution and does
not bear on the denotation of the word.
Emotional Suggestion
One central feature of aesthetic experiences is their ability to arouse emotions in
perceivers. It feels natural to experience joy, pleasure shivers down the spine, awe in
sight of grandiose artworks, or sometimes even negative emotions of fear, anger or
disgust in front of visually challenging stimuli. However, although it is generally
agreed that the arts can readily evoke emotions, the nature of these experiences and
specifically how emotions in the arts are perceived and represented on a subjective,
bodily, and evaluative level is a heavily debated issue (see e.g., Konecni, 2015;
Matthew Pelowski, Markey, Forster, Gerger, & Leder, 2017; Scherer, 2005).
Intellectual Meaning
Sometimes when we look at a piece of art we understand it. It’s meaning is obvious
to us. Sometimes we do not understand it on a rational level, we simply feel
something when we look at it. We can’t always tell why. Artists rarely provide a clear
explanation of what their work is about. The only thing we can tell is that there is a
reason behind it. No act of creativity can be said to come without meaning or
substance.
Not every artist understands why he creates something, but one thing that we can
say beyond doubt is that culture and surroundings are of constant impact on the
artist. And their work will often reflect in part their own culture and surroundings and
often impart to us their own reactions to such things, although not always. In this all
art is connected. Nothing is truly devoid of meaning. Everything is a reaction to
something.
 
ART AND THE PERCEPTION OF REALITY
Perception in art stands for a complex relation between visual stimuli and a personal
understanding of them. It is a theoretical postulate that aims to clarify the relation
between artworks and individual opinions and evaluations. Far from being a
universally established matrix of understanding art, perception is conditioned by a
context from which observation and evaluation are made. Instead of general models
of understanding, it is conditioned by numerous factors, including political, social,
cultural, gender and racial. It affects how we see art and what meanings we attribute
to it, but is also an active factor in artistic creation. It would be hard to make
assertions about the meaning of art without the previously established notions of
value that come from multifaceted perceptual conditionings. The views of both an
artist and an observer contribute to the understanding of art, and the first is not
distinguished in its importance from the second.
As seen from numerous historical examples perception affects the meaning we
attribute to art, and often such understandings change over the course of time. Some
universal postulates may persist, but most of them are dependent on the particular
social mores of a given time. Perception and our opinions are closely linked. Turning
to art, we can see that throughout history evaluation of artistic styles changed over
the course of time, which contributes to the above assertion of a connectedness
between our opinions and perception of art.
At its most basic, the representational theory states that the fundamental, definitive
quality of art is the ability to capture some aspect of reality. In short, if it's not a
reflection of something that actually exists, then it's not art. This means that art can
be defined foremost as an extension of human perception; it's a way to reflect the
ways that the mind perceives and understands reality. This makes representational
theory distinct from other ideologies, such as the expressive theory, which sees the
fundamental role of art as the expression of emotion.
The roots of representational theory date all the way back to ancient Greece, when
imitation theory was the foundation of artistic principles. According to the ancient
Greeks, the definitive role of art is to imitate nature in its most perfect forms, which is
why everybody in Greek sculpture is so impossibly (and perhaps frustratingly) good-
looking.
Later theorists would revise imitation theory, claiming that the purpose of art was not
to strictly imitate nature, but to represent it in any form. The representational theory
has been an important part of Western art since the fall of Rome, after which art
became less naturalistic for a while. The direct imitation of reality in art was seen as
an act of hubris - a human attempt to recreate the creation of God. However, through
slight abstractions, artists could still represent reality without blaspheming.
To these and later theorists, art should represent reality, but could do so in a myriad
of ways. Artists can focus on the ugly, the horrific, and even things that cannot be
physically seen. A perfect example is the representation of God. While God cannot
be seen, the figure of God or the presence of God is one of the most ubiquitous
motifs of Western art. The job of art is not to directly imitate the appearance of God,
since God cannot be seen, but to find ways of representing divinity.

M3

AESTHETICS
The word aesthetic is derived from the Greek αἰσθητικός (aisthetikos, meaning
"esthetic, sensitive, sentient, pertaining to sense perception"), which in turn was
derived from αἰσθάνομαι (aisthanomai, meaning "I perceive, feel, sense" and related
to αἴσθησις (aisthēsis, "sensation"). Aesthetics in this central sense has been said to
start with the series of articles on “The Pleasures of the Imagination” which the
journalist Joseph Addison wrote in the early issues of the magazine The Spectator in
1712. The term "aesthetics" was appropriated and coined with new meaning by the
German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten in his dissertation Meditationes
philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus ("Philosophical considerations of
some matters pertaining the poem") in 1735; Baumgarten chose "aesthetics"
because he wished to emphasize the experience of art as a means of knowing.
Aesthetics, a not very tidy intellectual discipline, is a heterogeneous collection of
problems that concern the arts primarily but also relate to nature. even though his
later definition in the fragment Aesthetica (1750) is more often referred to as the first
definition of modern aesthetics.
Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and appreciation of
art, beauty and good taste. It has also been defined as "critical reflection on art,
culture and nature". The word "aesthetics" derives from the Greek "aisthetikos",
meaning "of sense perception". Along with Ethics, aesthetics is part of axiology (the
study of values and value judgments).
In practice, we distinguish between aesthetic judgments (the appreciation of any
object, not necessarily an art object) and artistic judgments (the appreciation or
criticism of a work of art). Thus aesthetics is broader in scope than the philosophy of
art. It is also broader than the philosophy of beauty, in that it applies to any of the
responses we might expect works of art or entertainment to elicit, whether positive or
negative.
Aestheticians ask questions like "What is a work of art?", "What makes a work of art
successful?", "Why do we find certain things beautiful?", "How can things of very
different categories be considered equally beautiful?", "Is there a connection between
art and morality?", "Can art be a vehicle of truth?", "Are aesthetic judgments
objective statements or purely subjective expressions of personal attitudes?", "Can
aesthetic judgments be improved or trained?"
In very general terms, it examines what makes something beautiful, sublime,
disgusting, fun, cute, silly, entertaining, pretentious, discordant, harmonious, boring,
humorous or tragic.
 
Theories of art and art itself exist within a context—philosophical, cultural, class and
gender specific—from which it emerges and without which it does not exist.
Philosophers and art theorists cannot escape the influence of past philosophers and
theorists any more than they can remain untouched by current trends in film,
technology, and architecture. Art and culture and theories of art and culture are
inseparably and organically linked together. Furthermore, this is not a static or eternal
pattern but one that is dynamic, fluid, constantly changing historically over time.
Principal changes in philosophy (generally) are likely to become more influential in
the philosophy of art. There is a profound convergence between general philosophy
and philosophy of art. Let me express three general trends that are important to keep
in mind  as we discuss pre-aesthetic, aesthetic, and postmodern theories over the
duration of this course.   As Sartwell points out, (p8)Europe only developed the
concept of the aesthetic in the 18th century.
Here are the three broad movements in philosophy that are important to remember
when we reflect upon questions concerning art:

1. Deep suspicion that we cannot hope to fix any single ontology, any
universally adequate unchanging account of human cognition or human interests
or human concerns.

   2.  We must reflect upon the contingent and tacit practices of human life. These are
central to philosophical reflection
   3.  There cannot be any canon or principles or conceptual priorities in accord with
which philosophical theories may be shown to be approaching systematic closure on
any questions.
Aesthetics (as the study of art and beauty), aesthetic experience (the proper way of
approach and experience art and beauty), and modern art (art for art’s sake) all
arose together at approx. the same time as expressions of modernist culture
(somewhere between the Renaissance and the middle of the 20th century).
Aesthetics is the name of the philosophical study of art and natural beauty. It is a
relatively new branch of philosophy that arose in the early 18th century (early
1700’s )in England and Germany, over 2000 years after the beginnings of other
branches of Western philosophy (which began in Greece around 600 B.C.E.)
Aesthetics is closely related to the concept of aesthetic experience. Baumgarten who
coined the term aesthetics, claimed that humans experience the world in two
fundamentally ways—logically and aesthetically.
Logically—that is a thorn, it will hurt if it pricks me
Aesthetically—enjoying a sunset, looking at seashells, enjoying a work of art. These
things are beautiful because you are looking at them aesthetically.
What we call art, or more properly fine art, is therefore, according to the 18th +19th
century tradition of the aesthetic, those objects made by humans to be enjoyed
aesthetically. So, Paleolithic European cave paintings, Native American wood
carvings are not really art according to some because they were made by people
before the emergence of aesthetic experience.
So, art created as art, aesthetic exp. And aesthetics are notions that all arose
together. These human ways of interpreting the world have not always existed since
the dawn of human society and not even since the beginning of Western civilization.
Philosophy is often thought of as a kind of systematic reflection of our ordinary
commonsense intuitions and deeply rooted beliefs and assumptions. This would
mean that aesthetics is a reflection on ideas we already have about art, artists. If
aesthetics is a branch of philosophy and philosophy is a reflection of our ordinary
commonsense intuition, then, in a sense, we already know what art, aesthetics, and
artists are.
But these commonsense intuitions may be so deeply engrained and internalized that
we may take them for granted. Perhaps we can more fully experience artworks if we
enlarge our perspective. How do we do this?
Our way of viewing art from an aesthetic point of view is only one way of looking at
things. It appears at a certain point in the history of certain cultures and may just was
easily disappear and be replaced by another way of viewing things.
The ideas of aesthetic enjoyment and fine art and artist arose in what we call the
modern period (end of 17th century to middle of 20th). Main points of modernist
aesthetics

1. Aesthetic experience is nonutilitarian

2. AE is detached from ordinary self-interested pursuits (is disinterested)
3. Works of art are made to be viewed aesthetically—and so just to be enjoyed
(For no other purpose)
4. Everyone can appreciate art just by adopting the aesthetic point of view
5. Artists see things in a unique way and creatively find innovative ways of
communicating that vision to us
6. Artists show us how to look at the world, how to understand ourselves, who
we are
7. Works of art express these unusual ideas of artists
8. Great works of art must be innovative and creative, expressing new ideas in
new ways
9. The history of art is the history of these great innovations by these great
artists
10. Art is not hard to understand—it just requires that we adopt the aesthetic
point of view

The story of aesthetics begins with Hobbe’s claim that all human perception is self
interested. Many people disagreed with Hobbes and though that some human
actions were disinterested, that is, done for their own sake, enjoyed and appreciated
for their own sake. And one large subset of such disinterested actions were those
associated with art and natural beauty.
The reaction began in Britain with the Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713) who said we
can love things for themselves (good wine, a beautiful sunset, a painting). Deciding
what we should love and appreciate in this way is a matter of taste, a kind of inner
sensation, or feeling. It is not something you can learn from a book.
As I mentioned earlier, In the 1750’s Alexander Baumgarten pursued this idea by
dividing all human thought into two broad categories—logic and aesthetics. After
Baumgarten, the British worked on the idea of good taste as kind of refined sensibility
available to anyone who would adopt the detached, disinterested aesthetic point of
view. And still later, at the very end of the 18th century, the German philosopher,
Immanuel Kant synthesized the work of the British taste theorists and the German
attempts to define the aesthetic as differentiated from the logical, and Kant’s efforts
pretty well defined and stabilized the tradition of the aesthetic attitude for the next
150 years.