Polytechnic University of the Philippines

Department of Humanities and Philosophy

Sta. Mesa, Manila

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIAL IN

GEED 10073
ART APPRECIATION

Prepared by

Anisco, Elmer
Arevalo, Archie C.
Cabrera, Dino Tristan C.
Dasig, Jeniel P.
Deyto, Jeffrey
Doctor, Mel Matthew
Lerida, Jerald
Malabanan, Jalaine Joyce
Tabon, Patrice
Pagana, Lorraine
Vibiesca, Renato C.
 COURSE SYLLABUS

Course Title : Art Appreciation

Course Code: : GEED 10073

Course Credit : 3.0

Pre-requisite : None

Course Description : Art Appreciation is a three-unit course that develop students’

ability to appreciate, analyze, and critique works of art. Through
interdisciplinary and multimodal approaches, this course equips
students with a broad knowledge of the practical, historical,
philosophical, and social relevance of the arts in order to hone
students’ ability to articulate their understanding of the arts. The
course also develops students’ competency in researching and
curating art as well as conceptualizing, mounting, and evaluating art
productions. The course aims to develop students’ genuine
appreciation for Philippine arts Philippine arts by providing them
opportunities to explore the diversity and richness and their
rootedness in Filipino culture.

Institutional Learning
Program Outcomes Course Objectives
Outcomes

Graduates with full capacity for

academic and practical
Creative and Critical Thinking application of the theoretical At the end of the course,
studies and critical analyses students are expected to:
instilled by the program.

Graduates have excellent • Demonstrate an

Effective Communication
communication skills as understanding and
manifested by their understanding appreciation of arts
of the subject matter as in general, including
exemplified in the manner they their function, value,
deal with others in their everyday and historical
life. significance.

Graduates are committed to • Define and

achieve excellence for the demonstrate the
Strong Service Orientation
success of any projects and elements and
programs assigned to them. principles of design.
 Graduates use the learnings they
gained from the course in general
Community Engagement
to pursue advocacies for the
development of communities.
• Explain and evaluate
different theories of
art

Graduates maintain a high literacy • Situate Philippine

Adeptness in the Responsible Use productions and, at the same time,
of Technology
Passion to Life-Long Learning
in the technologies used in theater
arts in global context
can adapt to any given situation
• Analyze and
with regards to technical
appraise works of art
equipment and facilities.
based on aesthetic
Graduates never cease to value, historical
improve their knowledge of the context, tradition,
ever-changing landscape of and social relevance.
educational setting in the
• Create their own
Philippines and in the world by
pursuing graduate studies or works of art and
joining workshops, conferences, curate their own
and theater productions. production or exhibit.

Graduates are capable of leading • Deepen their

High Level of Leadership and any responsibility given to them sensitivity to self,
Organizational Skills with exemplary organizational community, and
skills. society.

Graduates have a strong sense of

• Develop an
Sense of Personal and ethical conduct manifested in their
appreciation of the
Professional Ethics personal and professional attitude
local arts.
and set of values.

Graduates are rooted to a

nationalist perspective in the
theater to promote Philippine
Sense of Nationalism and Global
values and culture in general while
Responsiveness
exhibiting world-class caliber in
response to the demands of the
global stage.
 COURSE PLAN
Week Topic Learning Outcome Methodology Resources

Week • Course Introduction The students are • Lecture Course Outline

1-3 and Overview expected to: • Group
• Characterize discussion • Gardner’s
1. Functions of Art artistic expression Art through
and Philosophy based on the Ages: A
Concise
a. Personal personal
History of
b. Social experience with Western Art,
2. Subject art. Fred S.
a. Representation • Understand the Kleiner, 3rd
(with subject) effects of art to ed., 2012
b. Non- society. • Imagination
Representation • Distinguish in Teaching
(without and
between directly
Learning,
subject) functional and Kieran Egan,
3. Content indirectly 1992
a. Factual functional art Art Perception and
b. Conventional • Differentiate Art Appreciation,
Subjective content and Ortiz et al. 1976
subject
• Classify artworks
according to
subject
• Analyze how
artists present
their subjects in
relation to the real
subject
• Characterize
sources and kinds
of art

Week 1. Art and Artisans • Identify the medium in • Lecture • Alampat: An

4 a. Production various forms of art • Group Introduction to
Process • Define an artist’s or discussion / Art Appreciation,
Perez, Cayas
b. Medium artisan’s medium and activity
and Narciso,
c. Technique technique • Text 2013
Curation • Define the role of Analysis • Art Perception
managers, curators, • Film and Art
showing Appreciation,
Ortiz et al. 1976
 buyers, collectors, art • ‘Pioneers of
dealers in the art world Philippine Art,’
• Differentiate between video
documentary
artists’ and artisans’
directed by F.
approach/technique Capistrano-
Understand that the Baker, Ayala
artisans’ work is an end Museum, 2006,
in itself and the artists’ 29min
work is a means to an
end

Week 1. Elements of Art • Identify the elements • Lecture • Sining at

5-6 a. Visual of art • Group Lipunan,
b. Auditory • Analyze the various discussion / Flores and
c. Combined De la Paz,
elements present in Activity
2000
2. Principles of Art visual, auditory, and • Reporting • Art
a. Unity and combined arts Debate Perception
Harmony • Identify the principles and Art
b. Rhythm and of design Appreciation,
Variation • Define and translate Ortiz et al.
c. Balance and 1976
principles of design in
Proportion • The
an artwork Humanities,
Emphasis and
Dudley and
Subordination Faricy, 1968
Week Assumptions of Art: • Discuss the • Lecture • Art
7-9 a. Art as nature of art’s • Group Perception
Universal preliminary discussion/ and Art
b. Art as Cultural Appreciation,
expression Activity
Ortiz et al.
c. Art is not • Clarify the • Reporting 1976
Nature misconceptions • The
d. Art Involves about art Humanities,
Experience • Differentiate art Dudley and
e. Art as from nature Faricy, 1968
Expression • Characterize the
Art as a Form of Creation assumptions of
the arts
MIDTERM EXAMINATION
Week ART HISTORY • Identify the underlying • Lecture • Gardner’s Art
11-13 1. Western Art history, philosophy of • Group through the
a. Classical Art the era or movement discussion Ages: A Concise
History of
b. Medieval Art of art • Text Western Art,
c. Renaissance • Classify the various analysis Fred S. Kleiner,
Art art movements by 3rd ed., 2012
 d. Modern Art citing their important • Art in Focus,
e. Romantic Art characteristics such Mittler, 2006
f. Contemporary as historical • Cave to Modern
Art background, factors, Art, in Fleming’s
Art and Ideas,
2. Eastern Art influential person,
10th ed., Mary
f. Ancient socio-political issues, Warner Marien
Chinese Art and prevalent artists, and William
g. Medieval and art forms. Fleming, 2005
Chinese Art • Present the history • Art Perception
h. Modern and movements of art and Art
Chinese Art through a timeline. Appreciation,
Ortiz et al. 1976
i. Japanese Art
• Image to
j. East Asian Meaning:
Buddhist Art Essays on
3. Philippine Art Philippine Arts,
a. GAMABA Alice Guillermo,
National Artists 2001

Week ISSUES AND • Apply concepts and • Lecture • Art in Focus,

14-17 DISCOURSE theories on beauty • Group Mittler, 2006
1. Art and Religion/ and aesthetics in real discussion • Music as
Discourse:
Rituals life scenarios. • Film
Semiotic
2. Art and Beauty • Characterize how showing Adventure in
3. Art and Filipinos utilize space • Reporting Romantic Music,
Technology to determine its Agawu, 2009
4. Art and Politics implications for their • Alampat: An
5. Art and Criticism identities, history, Introduction to
6. Art and religion philosophy Art Appreciation,
Nationalism Perez, Cayas
and Narciso,
2013
FINAL EXAMINATION

COURSE GRADING SYSTEM

The basis of grade in a subject and their corresponding weights are as follows:

1. Class standing or participation: recitation, quizzes, unit test, projects, reports, reaction
papers, oral examination, etc. (CS)
2. Formal Examination ( First Grading period [Midterm] and Second Grading Period
[Final])

Formula: CS x 2 + ME = First Grading Period

 3

CS x 2 + FE= Second Grading Period

PG + PFG = Final Grade (FG)

SELF ASSESSMENT RUBRIC

Type of Assessment: Essay

Criterion Poor (55) Average (92) Good (100)

The content is not
Content and The content is comprehensive. The The content is
Development incomplete, the insight Information from comprehensive and
50 pts is not clear. The other sources did used proper citation.
content is from other not support the The content is clear.
sources that are not argument. (49-50)
properly cited. Inconsistent in terms
(1-30pts) of purpose and
clarity of the content
(31 -48)
The structure detracts It is not easy to
Organization / from the message of follow the The structure /
Structure the writer – poor organization of organization of thought
30pts transition or flow of thoughts. The is clear and easy to
ideas transition of ideas read
(1-15) needs improvement (19-20)
(16 – 28)
The paper follows
Format The student did not most of the The paper follows the
10pts follow the prescribed guidelines, but prescribed format and
format forgot the number of number of pages
(1-5) pages (9-10)
(6-8)
The paper contains Minimal grammatical Rules of grammar are
Grammar / Syntax numerous grammatical, errors, but the followed. Language is
10pts punctuation and language still lacks clear and precise
spelling errors. clarity (9-10)
(1-5) (6-8)
Outline:

Criterion Points Mark

Content and Development 50 pts
Organization / Structure 30 pts
Format 10 pts
Grammar / Syntax 10 pts
Total 100 pts

SELF-ASSESSMENT RUBRIC
Type of Assessment: Group dynamics / Group task
Criterion Poor Satisfactory Very Excellent
(15) (45) Satisfactory (100)
(80)
Student Student often Student Student shares
Insight / Idea comments are share his/her sometimes his/her insights
contribution mostly not insights related share his/her related to the task
50pts related to the to the task insights related and consistently
task (6-20) to the task. moves the
(1-5) (21 – 40) conversation
forward.
(41-50)
Student rarely or Student often Student
Use of never attends or makes effective sometimes Student makes
Collaboration makes effective use of makes effective effective use of
time use collaboration collaboration use of collaboration time
10pts time with his/ her time with his/her collaboration and always
follows fellows time and facilitates the task
(1-2) (3-5) sometimes (9-10)
facilitates the
task
(6-8)
Student is not Student is often Student respects Student respects
Initiative respectful and respectful, and his/her fellow his/her fellow and
20pts has no initiative sometimes has and sometimes sometimes
in his/her own initiative in initiate the initiate the
given task his/her given facilitation of the effective
(1-3) task task facilitation of the
(4-10) (11-16) task
(17-20)
Student Student often Student Student
Participation participates only participates but sometimes consistently
in the task if asked or sometimes participates participates
20pts refuses to needs to be without being effectively without
participate asked asked by his/her being asked by
(1-5) (6-10) fellows his/her fellows
(11-16) (17-20)
 Outline:
Criterion Points Mark
Insight / Idea contribution 50
Use of Collaboration time 10
Initiative 20
Participation in the task 20
TOTAL 100

The final grade will appear as its equivalent in the 5-point score in SIS indicated in the
matrix below

Grade / Percentage /
Mark Equivalent Description
1.00 97-100 Excellent
1.25 94-96 Excellent
1.50 91-93 Very Good
1.75 88-90 Very Good
2.00 85-87 Good
2.25 82-84 Good
2.50 79-81 Satisfactory
2.75 76-78 Satisfactory
3.00 75 Passing
5.00 65-74 Failure
INC Incomplete
W Withdrawn
D Dropped
 Table of Contents

Functions of Art and Philosophy……………………………………………………….…....…..……. 1

Subject, Content, and Art and Artisans…...…………………………………………….….…..……. 7

Elements and Principles of Art………….……………………………………………………….……. 9

Assumptions of Art…………………………………………………………..…………………..……. 17

Functionalism, Action Theory, Institutional Theory…………………………………….…. 18

Art History…………………………………………………...…………………………………………. 26

Western Art…………...………………………………………………………………………. 27

Eastern Art……………………………………………………………………………………. 43

Philippine Art……………….…………………………. ………………………..…………… 54

Issues and Discourse………………………………………...……………………………...………. 62

Authorship…………………………….………………………………………………………. 62
 FUNCTIONS OF ART AND PHILOSOPHY
OVERVIEW
There are various ways to define the nature and characteristics of arts. It is a concept which
basically provides color and substance to our everyday existence as humans. Life without art is
dull and without meaning. Art stimulates our senses and cognitive abilities as it allows the
expression of emotions and the subjective self.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end of this lesson, the students are expected to:

1. Distinguish directly functional and indirectly functional art

2. Explain and discuss the basic philosophical perspectives on art
3. Realize the functions and purpose of art forms in everyday life
4. Apply concepts and theories on politics and aesthetics in real life issues

COURSE MATERIALS
*note: Before starting the discussion and to better understand the lesson, the instructor/professor
is recommended to ask the students to watch the video links. Also, the instructor/professor can
modify the video links listed according to his/her preference.

1. Video link discussion on Function of Art:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYdkTW-wPlA
2. Video link discussion on Purpose and Function of Art:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tWjB_mB_Jo
3. Video link discussion of Alain de Botton, What art is for?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVlQOytFCRI
4. Video link discussion of Katerina Gregos, Why art is important?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPk56BR1Cmk
5. Video link presentation of 1st year anniversary of Surian ng Sining (SUSI):
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2706734962938036

Discussion

Philosophy as a World-view and Methodology by Alexander Spirkin

Philosophy, science, and art differ principally according to their subject-matter and also the
means by which they reflect, transform and express it. In a certain sense, art, like philosophy,
reflects reality in its relation to man, and depicts man, his spiritual world, and the relations between
individuals in their interaction with the world.

We live not in a primeval pure world, but in a world that is known and has been transformed,
a world where everything has, as it were, been given a "human angle", a world permeated with
our attitudes towards it, our needs, ideas, aims, ideals, joys and sufferings, a world that is part of
the vortex of our existence. If we were to remove this "human factor" from the world, its sometimes
inexpressible, profoundly intimate relationship with man, we should be confronted by a desert of
grey infinity, where everything was indifferent to everything else. Nature, considered in isolation
from man, is for man simply nothing, an empty abstraction existing in the shadowy world of
dehumanized thought. The whole infinite range of our relationships to the world stems from the
sum-total of our interactions with it. We are able to consider our environment rationally through
the gigantic historical prism of science, philosophy and art, which are capable of expressing life
as a tempestuous flood of contradictions that come into being, develop, are resolved and negated
in order to generate new contradictions.

No scientifically, let alone artistically, thinking person can remain deaf to the wise voice of
true philosophy, can fail to study it as a vitally necessary sphere of culture, as the source of world-
view and method. Equally true is the fact that no thinking and emotionally developed person can
remain indifferent to literature, poetry, music, painting, sculpture and architecture. Obviously, one
may be to some extent indifferent to some highly specialized science, but it is impossible to live
an intellectually full life if one rejects philosophy and art. The person who is indifferent to these
spheres deliberately condemns himself to a depressing narrowness of outlook.

Does not the artistic principle in philosophical thought deserve the attention of, and do
credit to, the thinking mind, and vice versa? In a certain generalized sense the true philosopher is
like the poet. He, too, must possess the aesthetic gift of free associative thinking in integral images.
And in general one cannot achieve true perfection of creative thought in any field without
developing the ability to perceive reality from the aesthetic standpoint. Without this precious
intellectual prism through which people view the world everything that goes beyond the empirical
description of facts, beyond formulae and graphs may look dim and indistinct.

Scientists who lack an aesthetic element in their makeup are dry-as-dust pedants, and
artists who have no knowledge of philosophy and science are not very interesting people either,
for they have little to offer above elementary common sense. The true artist, on the other hand,
constantly refreshes himself with the discoveries of the sciences and philosophy. While philosophy
and science tend to draw us into "the forest of abstractions", art smiles upon everything, endowing
it with its integrating, colorful imagery.

Life is so structured that for a man to be fully conscious of it he needs all these forms of
intellectual activity, which complement each other and build up an integral perception of the world
and versatile orientation in it.

The biographies of many scientists and philosophers indicate that the great minds, despite
their total dedication to research, were deeply interested in art and themselves wrote poetry and
novels, painted pictures, played musical instruments and molded sculpture. How did Einstein live,
for example? He thought, wrote, and also played the violin, from which he was seldom parted no
matter where he went or whom he visited. Norbert Wiener, the founder of cybernetics, wrote
novels, Darwin was deeply interested in Shakespeare, Milton and Shelley. Niels Bohr venerated
Goethe and Shakespeare; Hegel made an exhaustive study of world art and the science of his
day. The formation of Marx's philosophical and scientific views was deeply influenced by literature.
Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, Milton, Goethe, Balzac and Heine were his favorite
authors. He responded sensitively to the appearance of significant works of art and he wrote
poetry and fairy-tales. The radiance of a broad culture shines forth from the work of this genius.
Lenin was not only acquainted with art but also wrote specialized articles about it. His
philosophical, sociological and economic works are studded with apt literary references. And what
a delight he took in music!

In short, the great men of theory were by no means dry rationalists. They were gifted with
an aesthetic appreciation of the world. And no wonder, for art is a powerful catalyst for such

2
abilities as power of imagination, keen intuition and the knack of association, abilities needed by
both scientists and philosophers.

If we take the history of Oriental culture, we find that its characteristic feature is the organic
synthesis of an artistic comprehension of the world with its philosophical and scientific perception.
This blending of the philosophical and the artistic is inherent in all peoples, as can be seen from
their sayings, proverbs, aphorisms, tales and legends, which abound in vividly expressed wisdom.

If we are to develop effective thinking, we must not exclude any specifically human feature
from participation in creative activity. The gift of perception, penetrating observation of reality,
mathematical and physical precision, depth of analysis, a free, forward-looking imagination, a
joyful love of life—these are all necessary to be able to grasp, comprehend and express
phenomena, and this is the only way a true work of art can appear, no matter what its subject may
be.

Can one imagine our culture without the jewels of philosophical thought that were
contributed to it by human genius? Or without its artistic values? Can one conceive of the
development of contemporary culture without the life-giving rays of meditative art embodied in the
works of such people as Dante, Goethe, Leo Tolstoy, Balzac, Pushkin, Lermontov, Dostoyevsky,
Tchaikovsky, and Beethoven? Culture would have had a very different history but for the brilliant
minds that gave us their masterpieces of painting, music, poetry and prose. The whole world of
our thoughts and feelings would have been different, and incomparably poorer. And we, as
individuals, would also have been flawed. The intellectual atmosphere that surrounds us from
childhood, the style of thinking that permeates folk sayings, tales and songs, the books we have
read, the paintings and sculptures we have admired, the music we have heard, the view of the
world and humanity that we have absorbed thanks to our contact with the treasures of art, has not
all this contributed to the formation of our individual self? Did it not teach us to think philosophically
and perceive and transform the world aesthetically?

An indispensable feature of art is its ability to convey information in an evaluative aspect.

Art is a combination of man's cognitive and evaluative attitudes to reality recorded in words, colors,
plastic forms or melodically arranged sounds. Like philosophy, art also has a profoundly
communicative function. Through it people communicate to one another their feelings, their most
intimate and infinitely varied and poignant thoughts. A common feature of art and philosophy is
the wealth they both contain of cognitive, moral and social substance. Science is responsible to
society for a true reflection of the world and no more. Its function is to predict events. On the basis
of scientific discoveries one can build various technical devices, control production and social
processes cure the sick and educate the ignorant. The main responsibility of art to society is the
formation of a view of the world, a true and large-scale assessment of events, a rational, reasoning
orientation of man in the world around him, a true assessment of his own self. But why does art
have this function? Because in its great productions it is not only consummately artistic but also
profoundly philosophical. How deeply philosophical, for instance, are the verses of Shakespeare,
Goethe, Lermontov, Verhaeren! And indeed all the great writers, poets, composers, sculptors,
architects, painters, in short, all the most outstanding and brilliant exponents of art were imbued
with a sense of the exceptional importance of progressive philosophy and not only kept abreast
of but were often responsible for its achievements. How profound were Tolstoy's artistically
expressed meditations on the role of the individual and the people in the historical process (for
example, Napoleon and Kutuzov, or the Russian people in the war of liberation of 1812, as
portrayed in War and Peace), on freedom and necessity, on the conscious and the unconscious
in human behavior. Consider the psychological and philosophical depth and the artistic power with
which Balzac revealed the social types in the society of his day in all their diversity (the idea of
greed and acquisitiveness in the character of Gobseck!). How philosophical are the artistic and

3
publicistic works of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Thomas Mann, Heine, Herzen, Chernyshevsky
and many others. If we turn to science fiction, we find that it is full of scientific and philosophical
reflections, of varying visions of the future of science, technology and human existence in general.
Quite often its plot is a series of mental experiments. However, neither the scientific nor the
philosophical content, no matter how fully expressed in a work of art, constitutes its specific
element. We never speak of any work of art, no matter how powerful, as a study, whereas creative
work in philosophy is a study, an inquiry, and it is characterized above all not by its artistic but by
its scientific qualities, although its artistic aspect is highly valued and has more than purely
aesthetic significance. The crown of philosophical inquiry is truth and prediction, whereas in art it
is artistic truth, not accuracy of reproduction, in the sense of a copy of what exists, but a lifelike
portrayal of typically possible phenomena in either their developed or potential form. If art
produced only truths similar to scientific truths, there would be no masterpieces of world art. The
immortality of great masterpieces lies in the power of their artistic generalization, generalization of
the most complex phenomenon in the world—man and his relations with his fellow men.

Some people believe that the specific feature of art is that the artist expresses his own
intellectual world, his own intrinsic individuality. But this is not quite true. In any active creativity,
any act that reflects and transforms life, a person also expresses himself. And the higher the level
of creativity, in this case artistic, the higher the level of generalization, and hence the universal,
despite all the individuality of the form. "Man's individuality or singularity is not a barrier to the
universality of the will, but is subordinated to it. A just or moral, in other words, a fine action,
although performed by one individual, is nevertheless approved by all. Everyone recognizes
himself or his own will in this act. Here there occurs the same thing as in a work of art. Even those
who could not create such a work find their own essence expressed therein. Such a work is
therefore truly universal. The more its individual creator dissolves in it, the more approval it earns."

The aesthetic principle is not the specific element in philosophy although it is present there.
Naturally, philosophy is distinguished from the other sciences by its being related far more closely
to the aesthetic principle, to art. It synthesizes the everyday experience of the people and
something from the other sciences, and also something from art without confining itself to any of
them. The aesthetic element is also present in any science. By some scientists it is even regarded
as a criterion of truth: the true is elegant and highly refined in its structure. The beauty, the
elegance of an experiment, or of any theoretical construction, especially if it sparkles with wit, does
credit to scientific thought, evokes our legitimate admiration and affords us intellectual and
aesthetic pleasure. Quite often this elegance shows itself in a meaningful brevity, for genius is
usually simply expressed, without superfluous words. So truth and beauty are sisters, although
not always.

In philosophy this aesthetic principle is expressed more powerfully and fully. It is not only
more synthetic and integrated than science. In its very social purpose it is, or should be, closer
and more understandable to the masses of the people. It should not be separated from them by
the "barbed wire" of a formalized, let alone a mathematised language.

A considerable number of philosophical works have been written in poetic and artistic form.
Actually they are not poetry but philosophical thoughts expressed as poetry. Many brilliant works
of philosophy are couched in such fine language that they read like great works of both science
and art. Inspired by their genius, the great philosophers clothed their profound thoughts in images
of astonishing aptness.

Many people draw attention to the fact that the achievements of science, no matter how
significant they once were, are constantly being reviewed, whereas the masterpieces of art survive
the centuries in all the splendor of their individuality. But have you noticed that something similar

4
happens in philosophy too? The works of the great philosophers retain their inimitable value
through the centuries. So in philosophy, just as in art, history is of special importance. Whereas
the works of the classical natural scientists are expounded in textbooks and few people read them
in the original, the classical works of philosophy must be read in the original in order to gain a full
appreciation of philosophical culture. Every great philosopher is unique in his intellectual and moral
value; he teaches us to perceive the world and ourselves profoundly and in their most subtle
aspects.

What has been said does not, of course, imply that philosophy may ultimately be reduced
to a form of art. Philosophical treatises do not become works of art even when they are expressed
in the colorful and deeply symbolical language of poetry, as was often the case in ancient times,
in the philosophy of the Renaissance and the New Age. Take Plato, for example. He had a colorful
world-view, its very form evokes admiration. He is aesthetic all the way through. Or take the
philosophical views of the French materialists of the 18th century. They are simultaneously
splendid works of art, full of humor, satire and barbed witticisms aimed at religion, scholasticism,
and so on. Their works still delight us with the brilliance of their form, which clothes subtle and
profound thoughts. Or again, take the philosophical ideas of Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, in which their
masterpieces are steeped. We began by dealing with the aesthetic principle in philosophy. But to
a no less degree one can speak also of the philosophical principle in art. Probably the closest
thing to philosophy is poetry, which has the power to make laconic but profound generalizations
about both social and individual life, moral phenomena, and the relationship between man and the
universe. The metaphorical language of art, far from being alien to philosophy and other sciences,
is an essential condition for every new step into the unknown.

The similar and the specific in philosophy and art can also be seen in the nature of
generalization. Philosophy uses generalizations and its generalizations are of an extremely broad,
virtually universal character. Its categories of the general, the particular and the unique are both
interconnected and yet separate concepts. In art, on the other hand, the general, the particular
and the unique are alloyed in the very fabric of the artistic image. Philosophy is theoretical from
beginning to end, whereas art is sensuous and imaginal. Philosophical thought reflects its subject-
matter in concepts, in categories; art is characterized, on the other hand, by emotional and
imaginal reflection and by transformation of reality. This is not to say, of course, that art, particularly
in its verbal form, in belles lettres, and even more so in the intellectual type of novel, contains no
concepts. Dostoyevsky's novels are three-quarters philosophical. The same applies to the works
of Goethe, for example, for whom feeling and a philosophical understanding of nature, expressed
in both artistic form and scientific analysis, were his life's work. The scientific, philosophical and
artistic approaches were organic in Goethe. His work as a thinker is inseparable from that of the
artist. When composing his works of art, he is at the same time a philosopher. He achieves the
greatest aesthetic power in those very works (Prometheus and Faust) where the unity of artist and
philosopher is most organic. Can we distinguish clearly between the philosophical and aesthetic
principles in Faust? All that can be said is that no genius could have created such a work without
a synthesis of the philosophical, aesthetic and the scientific.

Without a certain degree of intellect there can be no subtle feelings and from this it follows
that art, which aesthetically expresses man's emotional-intellectual world in his relationship to the
environment, is bound to feel the impact of philosophy and the other sciences. A world-view may
come into art but not as an intrinsic part of it. We can speak of the philosophical content of art, just
as we can speak of the philosophical content of science, when the scientist begins to consider the
essential nature of his science, its moral value, social responsibility, and so on. These are actually
philosophical questions and they do not form part of the specific nature of the given science.
Rather they are the self-awareness of the science, just as the artist's reflections on the nature of
art, its social meaning, and so on, are the self-awareness of art. And this is in fact philosophy,
5
whose categories permeate all forms of thought, including that of the artist. Without them no artist
could generalize, identify the typical in the particular fact, assess the quality of his subject-matter,
preserve proportion, the most vital element in aesthetic imagination, or comprehend the
contradictions of life in such a way as to give them full expression.

The work of the artist is not spontaneous. It always follows some kind of plan and it is most
effective when talent is guided by a world-view, when the artist has something to tell people, much
more rarely is it effective when it comes about as a result of the accidental associative play of the
imagination, and never is it effective when it is a result of blind instinct. The keen attention that is
given to the problems of method is a sign of progress in both modern science and art, a sign of
the increasing interaction of all aspects of intellectual life—science, philosophy, and art.

ASSESSMENT/ SUGGESTED STUDY GUIDE

1. How is Philosophy and Art connected?
2. Discuss the various purposes and functions of art in our society.
3. Explain the meaning of “And no wonder, for art is a powerful catalyst for such abilities as
power of imagination, keen intuition and the knack of association, abilities needed by both
scientists and philosophers.”

6
 SUBJECT, CONTENT, AND ART AND ARTISANS
OVERVIEW

This module is an interlinked in the arts and philosophical concepts, theories vis-à-vis functions
of art, its subject, content, and art and artisans.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end of this lesson, the students are expected to:

1. Know and understand the essential feature of the functions of art and philosophy as well
as theories of representational art and non-representational art.
2. Compare and contrast representational art with the development of non-representational
art or art as expression.
3. Characterize sources and kinds of art through its content in art (levels of meaning).
4. Define an artist’s or artisan’s medium and technique.

COURSE MATERIALS
1. Chapters 1 and 2, Philosophy of Art, A Contemporary Introduction, Noel Caroll, Routledge,
Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York, 2002. (PDF included)

2. Mao Zedong’s Revolutionary Aesthetics and Its Influence on the Philippine Struggle by Alice
G. Guillermo (PDF included)

(https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-5i9GjfIVbs2pVI7JwbHN90QvtAAY3C_?usp=sharing)

Discussion

1. After Chapter 1 “Art and Representation” on “Philosophy of Art, A Contemporary Introduction”,

the instructor will facilitate the discussion on the following:

- Discuss / write (for offline students) how the earliest philosophies of art in the West
influence the art for centuries, like the imitative (mimetic) theory of art by Plato and Aristotle.
- Discuss / write at least one reflective question you have in mind about theories of
representation.

2. After Chapter 2 “Art and Expression “on “Philosophy of Art, A Contemporary Introduction”, the
instructor will facilitate the discussion on the following:
- Discuss / write by differentiating the theories of representation (imitation, representational,
nonrepresentational, visual, or pictorial representation-resemblance theory, illusion theory,
conventionalist theory, neonaturalist) with the expression theory of art.
- Discuss / write at least one reflective question you have in mind about the expression
theory of art.

7
3. After reading the article “Mao Zedong’s Revolutionary Aesthetics and Its Influence on the
Philippine Struggle” by Alice G. Guillermo, the instructor will facilitate the discussion on the
following:
- Discuss / write a short analysis on a particular subject in the article in relation to the study
of art appreciation course.

Suggested Study Guide

- Search the internet for sample of works by artists and artisans and write an analysis of
the difference or similarity between artists and artisans by discussing their medium and
techniques.
- Examine a work of art in your home or community and identify its features which you
appreciate and cite instances when the artists’ work may influence your ways of life,
feelings and thoughts.

ASSESSMENT
Aside from submission of all written articles based on the instructions during the discussions,
students will have to write and submit a reflection and general impressions on the texts and
lessons about the Functions of Art and Philosophy/Subject/Content/Artists and Artisans.

8
 ELEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES OF ART

OVERVIEW
There is no art without its elements. This formal quality of art in its distinct usage and
arrangement give art beauty and contribute to its meaning. In this topic, this different elements
and principles of art, and how these translate in an artwork will be discussed and examined.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end of this lesson, the students are expected to:

1. Identify the elements of art.

2. Analyze the various elements present in visual, auditory, and combined arts.
3. Identify the principles of design.
4. Define and translate principles of design in an artwork.

COURSE MATERIALS
1. Menoy, Jesus Z. Introduction to the Humanities (A holistic Approach). Books Atbp.
Publishing Corp., 2009
2. Reganio Jr. et al. Art Appreciation: Introductory Reading on Humanities Focus on
Philippine Art Scene. Books Atbp. Publishing Corp., 2013
3. Constantino Jr., Bienvenido B. Arts Across Time and Borders. Books Atbp. Publishing
Corp., 2014

Discussion

What are the forms of art?

1. Literary Arts are those presented in the written mode and intended to be read. These
include prose and poetry. (e.g. novels, short stories, sonnet, ballad, epic, essay)

2. Visual Art are those forms perceived by the eyes. These include painting,
sculpture, and architecture

a. Graphic Arts are those visual arts that have length and width; they are also called
two-dimensional arts. They are described as flat arts because they are seen of flat
surfaces.
b. Plastic Arts are those visual arts that have length, width, and volume; thus, they
are also called three-dimensional arts.

3. Audio Visual Art are those forms perceived by both ears (audio) and eyes (visual). They
are called performing arts in as much as the artists render a performance in front of an
audience.
9
 What are the elements of art?

I. Color
- gives meaning, value, intensity and saturation to an object. It has series of
wave lengths which strikes our retina.
- “element that is produced when light strikes an image”
- Its properties include:
1. Hue refers to the names we assign a color, such as yellow, blue, green
2. Saturation refers to the vividness of color.
3. Value refers to the lightness or darkness of the color.

Figure 1: The Color Wheel

Classification of colors:
o Primary colors- colors that cannot be formed from mixtures because they are pure
colors. Example: red, blue and yellow.
o Secondary colors- colors form out of combination of two primary colors.
Example: Blue + Yellow = Green; Red + Blue = Violet; Red + Yellow = Orange
o Intermediate colors- colors form out of mixing one primary and one secondary.
Example: Yellow + Green = Yellow green; Red + Violet = Red violet; Red + Orange
= Red orange
o Tertiary colors- form out of combination of two secondary colors. Example: Orange
+ purple = russet; Orange + green = citron; Purple + green = olives

10
II. Line - one or two dimensional art that indicates direction, orientation, movement, and
energy. It is considered as the oldest, simplest, universal element.
Types of Lines:
1. Solid line: used to define forms
2. Broken lines: used to suggest hidden forms

Direction of Line:

o Vertical line- basic framework of all forms, power, strength, stability,

simplicity, and efficiency.

o Horizontal line- creates an impression of serenity and perfect

stability. Rest, calmness, peace, and reposed.

11
 o Diagonal line- it shows movement and instability. Portrays
movement action.

o Jagged line- it shows violence, zigzag, confusion, and conflict.

o Curve line- it shows a gradual change of direction and fluidity. It

signifies subtle form.

III. Form
▪ “includes shape and perceived volume”*
▪ In 3D figures, the form is exemplified in its height, width, and depth*
▪ Shape which the expression of content takes
▪ The personal ways of handling tools to form shapes is allows an artist to create his
own unique technique
▪ Material, on the other hand, is the substance used in art and what is manipulated in
a distinct technique

(Left: Seated Youth by Wilhelm Lehmbruck; Right: The Thinker by Auguste Rodin)

12
IV. Space
▪ Provided by the artist for specific purposes*
▪ Includes the foreground, background, middle ground*
▪ It also includes the area between objects, which can either be positive space or
negative space;* positive space refers to the focal objects in the work of art, while
negative space refers to empty space surrounding the objects.
▪ Two types of perspective:
1. Atmospheric: utilizes the properties of light and air in depicting the illusion of
distance
2. Linear: involves the use of vanishing points and receding hidden lines

(Above: Linear Perspective; Below: Atmospheric Perspective)

13
 Background

Middle Ground

Foreground

(Above: Wanderer Over a Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich; Below: Still Life, Jar and Fruits
by Paul Cezanne)

Negative Space

Positive Space

14
 V. Texture
▪ “denotes the smoothness, ruggedness of the image or the object.”*
▪ Can either be:*
1. Real – can be felt
2. Implied – artificial

VI. Shape and Mass

▪ Refers to an area with boundaries identified or drawn using lines
▪ Two types of shapes:
1. Organic shape – based on natural or living forms and can be irregular
2. Geometric shape – based on measured forms

Principles of Art

o Emphasis – the composition refers to developing points of interest to pull the

viewer’s eye to important parts of the body of the work.

o Balance – it is a sense of stability in the body of work. It can be created by repeating

same shapes and by creating a feeling of equal weight.

o Harmony – achieved in a body of work by using similar elements throughout the

work, harmony gives an uncomplicated look to your work.

o Variety – refers to the differences in the work, you can achieve variety by using
difference shapes, textures, colors and values in your work.

o Movement – adds excitement to your work by showing action and directing the
viewer’s eye throughout the picture plane.

o Rhythm – a type of movement in drawing and painting. It is seen in repeating of

shapes and colors. Alternating lights and darks also give a sense of rhythm.

15
 o Proportion or scale – refers to the relationships of the size of objects in a body of
work. Proportions give a sense of size seen as a relationship of objects. Such as
smallness or largeness.

o Unity – is seen in a painting or drawing when all the parts equal a whole. Your work
should not appear disjointed or confusing.

ASSESSMENT

Create an artwork that would exhibit at least five elements of art using any form or media. Then
write a short essay on how the principles of art are used and integrated in your artwork.

16
 ASSUMPTIONS OF ART

OVERVIEW
Many people find art as a key to the meaning of their lives. Art for them is the source of
meanings. Theories of art are very important topic to be discussed in this module. In
this topic, at least five out of the many theories of art would be studied and imbedded in
the minds of the students. These theories are art as imitation, as expression of emotion,
as form, as what the artworld say it is and the end of art.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end of the discussion, the students are expected to:
1. Describe fully and enumerate the five theories of art
2. Identify and differentiate the Five Theories.
3. Explain the significance and uniqueness of each theory

COURSE MATERIALS

1. The discussion of the five theories of art is based on Manuel Velasquez’s

book called Philosophy: A Text with the Readings. The students are advised
to read Chapter 9: Art and Meaning, pages 665-697.
2. The students must also watch the following movies/documentaries:
a. The Russian Ark- A Russian film without editing
b. The Buried- a Hollywood film with only one character
*note: With these two films, the students can analyze and apply the
theories of art.
c. A BBC documentary ‘What is Beauty’ – this documentary film
explains the rules of proportionality being applied in the human face
and tackles the theories of art as well.

ASSESSMENTS

1. Clearly differentiate the five theories of art.

a. What are the assumptions of each theory?
b. What are the criticisms on each theory?
c. What are their commonalities?
2. Give at least one or two examples of each theory of arts being applied in
the nine major kinds of arts namely:
a. Sculpture f. Photography
b. Painting g. Film
c. Architecture h. Music
d. Literature i. Dance
e. Theatre
17
 ASSUMPTIONS OF ART: FUNCTIONALISM, ACTION THEORY
AND INSTITUTIONAL THEORY

OVERVIEW

This topic focuses on the assumptions of art in the vantage point of the theories of
Functionalism, Action Theory, and Institutional theory.

LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of this discussion, the students are expected to:
✓ To determine the relation between the study of art and study of philosophy
✓ To explain functionalism, action theory and institutional theory of Art
✓ To evaluate artworks based on functionalism, action theory and institutional theory of art
✓ To apply the theories to the analysis of art
✓ To write an analysis on the given topics

COURSE MATERIAL

FUNCTIONALISM THEORY OF ART

Functionalism asserts that the value of artworks is determined by and therefore reducible to
their practical function or purpose.
In "pure art," artworks such as paintings, poems, plays and partitas are produced with the sole
purpose of providing aesthetic experiences. In architecture and industrial design, objects are
created with the intention to satisfy not only aesthetic criteria but also, primarily, criteria of utility
and practical function. This combination gives rise to the crucial issue of how the two types of
value relate to each other. Is practical function independent of aesthetics or are they in some
way connected?
This was a central issue in the functionalist movement in architecture and design, one of the
most influential artistic and cultural movements of the early twentieth century. The term
'functionalism' is ambiguous, not least since the functionalist movement contained diverse and
partly contradictory artistic and social tendencies

18
Functionalism is as old as the functionalist perspective of the Ancient Greeks. In the
Symposium (Xenophon). Critoboulus asserts that one
can distinguish a beautiful project based on its specific
function.
CRITOBOULUS: I know, at any rate, that a shield is
beautiful, as well as a sword and a spear.
SOCRATES: And how is it that, although none of
these is similar to the other, they are all beautiful?
CRITOBOULUS: If, by Zeus, they've all been
wrought with a view to the tasks for which we
acquire them, or if they've been well adapted by
nature with a view to the things we need, then these
are beautiful.

Functionalist’s movements famous assertion is that was art’s form follows function, whose
one of the advocates was the American Architect Louis Sullivan.
He made an analogy with the forms and function, which all of us can find in nature. The form
of the eagle’s wing has been determined by its function, and the same apples to other objects
in nature. Form ever follows function.
In an artwork, functionalism believes that the function itself is more important than the
appearance, what makes the art beautiful is its use or function.

THE REDUCTION THESIS

The most far-reaching variant of functionalism can be
called the "reduction thesis." It consists in the claim
that there is nothing to aesthetics (beauty) in addition
to what follows from function. This has also been
called "austere functionalism;" it implies that aesthetic
considerations are altogether unnecessary, since
aesthetics will be automatically taken care of if
function is dealt with adequately

19
 FUNCTIONS OF ART

PERSONAL FUNCTION
Created artworks that serve’s its purpose based on
the artist’s perspective or the one who perceive the
artwork itself.
The personal functions of art vary from one person to
another, artist to artist etc. some create artworks that
gives them pleasure, as a therapy while others want
to express their thought through their arts.

For example:
Music is a means of an artist to express his feelings and ideas. We cannot deny that some
artforms serve as means of expression for us.

SOCIAL FUNCTION
We can consider that the art has a social function if it addresses aspects of collective life as
opposed to one person’s viewpoint or experience. Viewers can often relate in some ways to
social art and are sometimes even influenced by it.
Art also depicts the socio-political conditions and issues of times. Art is always related to every
aspect of social life.

20
 Credits : https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-01-14/group-exposes-social-woes-and-promotes-philippine-culture-
through-street-
art#:~:text=Ang%20Gerilya%20dedicated%20this%20artwork%20in%20support%20of%20the%20campaign

MONETARY VALUE OF ART

One of the important issues concerning art and the artists themselves is the monetary / material
value of artworks. We cannot deny the fact that our artists need to sell their artworks to support
their needs. They must also be compensated because being an artist requires mastery, it is also
a noble profession, like any other professions. But the question now are, what or who dictates
the price of an artwork and what makes an art more or less expensive?

21
 Watch this!
Why Makes Art so Expensive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGIuBJLd37I

INSTITUTIONAL THEORY OF ART

The property that all works of art have in common is
their existence within the institutional context of the
“artworld”

The art world is defined as an informal institution

which embodies and encompasses the various
formal and informal institutions within particular
“artworld systems,” each of which fosters and
supports the production and appreciation of a
particular kind of art.
Throughout several centuries stretching back to the era of philosophers such as Plato,
stakeholders in the art world have struggled to find a true definition of art. In the eighteenth
century, a cluster of disciplines, including sculpture, painting, architecture, music and poetry,
were classified as belonging to the umbrella category of fine ‘arts’
Understanding Institutional Theory https://www.herald.co.zw/understanding-institutional-theory/

22
 ACTION PAINTING
Action painting, sometimes called Abstract Expressionism, evolved
in the 1940s and 1950s, during a time of unrest following World War
II. There was much anxiety about the potential impact of the Cold
War, and the possible spread of Communism worldwide. The action
painting movement reflected this turmoil of the time. It was also
known as 'gestural painting', because it involved the vigorous,
sweeping application of paint to the canvas. This style was more
about the physical act of painting, and showing the emotion of the
artist, rather than accurately depicting realistic scenes and
recognizable forms. When looking at an action painting, your eyes
tend to constantly move back and forth across its surface, as you
take in the expressive and unconventional effects the artist has
created.
Source:
Action Painting Defined. https://study.com/academy/lesson/action-painting-definition-
characteristics.html
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM / PAINTING
Abstract painting conveys its subject without the use of such identifiable objects and is more
open to your own interpretations.
Watch this!
Action Painting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVtt-klbpCk
HAROLD ROSENBERG
✓ American writer, educator, and art critic.
✓ Rosenberg coined the term Action Painting in 1952, known as abstract expressionism.

The canvas began to appear as an arena in which to act…. What was to go on the
canvas is not a picture but an event.”

ART OF PAINTING
The process of putting, dripping,
pouring and splashing paints on the canvas.

23
INSTITUTIONAL THEORY OF ART

This “artworld” determines whether a thing is a work

of art. The institutions that support and analyze the
works of art are museums, universities / academies,
galleries and critics. There are certain conventions
that defines what art is.

Source: GMA Network

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/lifestyle/artandcul
ture/571952/ admission-to-national-museum-now-
permanently-free-to-all/story/

24
CRITICISM ON INSTITUTIONAL THEORY
Catherine Lord, a professor and art critic, argues that:
✓ If a work of art is defined as institutional, then the practice of making works of art is essentially
conservative.
✓ If the institution is conservative, then the institutional definition precludes creativity. .
✓ If a work of art is defined as institutional, then the institutional definition precludes creativity.
✓ The making of a work of art involves freedom, creativity, originality and spontaneity.
✓ A work of art is not to be defined as institutions, universities / academies, galleries and critics.
There are certain conventions that defines what art is.

Peggy Zeglin Brand. Lord, Lewis and the institutional Theory of Art. The Journal of Aesthetics
and Art Criticism Vol. 40, no. 3 (1993).

George Dickie defines “institution” as an established, continuing, traditional practice perhaps

complete with a unique history. The particular institution of art encompasses bundle of systems,
comprised of persons with learned roles and patterns of behaviour.
Although the definition he proposes is comprised of necessary and sufficient conditions, he
holds that his definition does not preclude the actual creative activity of artists. Rather it allows
for the constant expansion of the boundaries of art by its very looseness, its informal character
does not preclude experimentation in which subsystems become new artforms, and
subsequently, almost anything is allowed to become an art
Catherine Lord’s contention that institution is essentially conservative, self-perpetuating, and at
times punitive, leads her conclude that the practice of creating works of art, as an institution, is
similarly constituted.

Watch this!
The Institutional theory (Art World) - Extract from "What is Art“
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOOvIHVOIcU

Question:
Is this a work of Art or not?

25
ASSESSMENT

LET’S DO THE ACTIVITIES

Share your insights on the following topic:

✓ Functionalism theory of Art
✓ What do you think makes an artwork less or more expensive?
✓ Abstract Expressionism
✓ Institutional Theory of Art:
Is art only confined through the institution or convention of the society

Show your talent!

Do / create an action painting. Use watercolor and an Oslo paper.

26
 ART HISTORY: WESTERN ART

OVERVIEW

This module is created to help students understand how the historical background, philosophy,
art style and art forms of western art progressed. It would help them identify the distinctive
characteristics of western art from the eastern art and the different art movements in different
eras.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Identify the underlying history, philosophy of the era or movement of art;

2. Classify the various movements by citing their important characteristics such as historical
background, factors, influential person, socio-political issues, and prevalent artists, and
art forms; and
3. Present the history and movements of art through a timeline.

COURSE MATERIALS

4. Art in Focus by Genet Mittler pp. 166-207

5. https://www.theartstory.org/movement/classical-greek-and-roman-art/history-and-
concepts/
6. https://www.theartstory.org/movement/classical-greek-and-roman-art/
7. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/greek-art/beginners-
guide-greece/a/ancient-greece-an-introduction
8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bDrYTXQLu8 Ancient Greece 101 | National
Geographic
9. Ancient Rome 101 | National Geographic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXoEpNjgKzg
10. Greek art History: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtKgfS1QwLk
11. Rome Art History: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM2D7iJHWXQ
12. Ancient Greece: Classical Period: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7m6C1GWBhc
13. The classical orders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrRJkzXl4a4
14. Roman Temples VS Greek Temples - Understanding The Differences:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2Mn9Oplzdo

27
Discussion

Classical Art

Classical Art encompasses the cultures of Greece and Rome and endures as the cornerstone of
Western civilization. Including innovations in painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and
architecture, Classical Art pursued ideals of beauty, harmony, and proportion, even as those
ideals shifted and changed over the centuries. While often employed in propagandistic ways, the
human figure and the human experience of space and their relationship with the gods were
central to Classical Art.

The Spread of Greek Culture

Before Philip could extend his empire further, he was assassinated while attending his
daughter’s wedding. His successor was his 20- year-old son, Alexander the Great, who soon
launched an amazing career of conquest. Alexander, whose teacher had been the famous
Greek philosopher Aristotle, inherited his father’s admiration for Greek culture. Alexander was
determined to spread this culture throughout the world. As he marched with his army from one
country to another, the Greek culture that he brought with him blended with other, non-Greek
cultures. The period in which this occurred is known as the Hellenistic age. It lasted about two
centuries, ending in 146 B.C. when Greece fell under Roman control.

The Rising Power of Rome

Under the rule of Etruscan kings, Rome grew in size and importance. By the end of the sixth
century B.C., it had become the largest and richest city in Italy. The Romans, however, were
never happy under Etruscan rule, and in 509 B.C. they drove the Etruscans from the city and
established a republic.

The Roman Republic

Ridding themselves of the Etruscans did not end Rome’s problems. Finding themselves
surrounded by enemies, the Romans were forced to fight for survival. As nearby enemies were
defeated, more distant foes tried to conquer the young republic. Rome managed to defend itself
against these threats and extended its reach and influence until all of Italy was under its control.
An early victory over Carthage, its chief rival, won Rome its first overseas province, Sicily.
Eventually, Rome controlled territory from Britain in the west to Mesopotamia in the east

The Greek Influence

28
Much of Roman art was copied from the Greeks. From the very beginning, well-born and
cultured Romans exhibited a great admiration for Greek art forms of every period and style.
They imported Greek works by the shipload and even brought Greek artists to Rome to work for
them. Generally, it can be said that the Romans became the heirs of Greek art although they
also made important contributions of their own, especially in the development of architecture.

Roman Sculpture and Painting In sculpture and painting, Roman works reflect the tremendous
influence exerted by earlier Greek artists.

Making Connections
➢ Comparing Styles The Romans admired the architecture of the Greeks, but they used
the Greek architectural styles for very different purposes. The Greeks created structures
for beauty and harmony. The Romans often created theirs to show the power of the
Roman Empire.

The Early Medieval Period

Topic overview
At one time the Middle Ages were known as the “Dark Ages,” a label suggesting
that they represented many blank pages in the history of Western civilization. However, a closer
look has helped to fill in those pages with an impressive list of accomplishments. During this
period, many of the important features of our modern world were born, including parliamentary
government, common law, present-day languages, and modern nation states. In art, the Middle
Ages were anything but dark. It was the most splendid of all periods for bookmaking, a time of a
great architectural revival, and an era of important developments in sculpture.

The Age of Faith

Perhaps a more accurate label for this period would be the Age of Faith. The hearts
and minds of Medieval people were fixed on one all important goal—preparation for eternal life
after death. The Church, which had grown in power and influence since the collapse of the
Roman Empire, guided the people in this quest. The Church influenced the lives of kings and
peasants alike throughout western Europe. Virtually everyone was born into the faith, and all
were expected to place loyalty to the Church above everything else.

Three Periods of the Middle Ages

Because of its length, it is helpful to divide the Middle Ages into three overlapping
periods. They are the Early Medieval, which dates from about the last quarter of the fifth century
to the middle of the eleventh; the Romanesque, which, in most areas, took place during the
eleventh and twelfth centuries; and the Gothic, which The Early Medieval overlapped the
Romanesque and continued in some areas into the sixteenth century.

Early Medieval
From Charlemagne to Feudalism

29
 The fall of Rome is considered the start of the Early Medieval period. This was a
time of great uncertainty because the strong central government that had assured law and order
to all Roman subjects was gone. The period was marked by conflicts, open warfare, and mass
migrations of foreigners into and across lands formerly controlled by the Romans. Under these
trying conditions, the Carolingian dynasty was founded. Although it survived less than 150 years,
this dynasty managed to bring about the revival of a strong, efficient government. Furthermore, it
stimulated a renewed interest in learning and the arts.

The Rise of Feudalism

Feudalism was a system in which weak noblemen gave up their lands and much of
their freedom to more powerful lords in return for protection. The lord allowed the former owner
to remain on the land as his administrator. The administrator was the servant, or vassal, to the
lord. The vassal pledged his loyalty and military assistance to the lord. Most of the people,
however, were serfs, or poor peasants who did not have land to give in return for protection.
These people worked the land and were handed over with it when the land passed from one
nobleman to another.

The Spread of Monasticism

Throughout the long Medieval period, people labored in the service of learning and
art. Many were monks, devoted religious men who lived under a strict set of rules in remote
communities called monasteries. Monasticism refers to a way of life in which individuals
gathered together to spend their days in prayer and self-denial. It had its roots in the Near East
as early as the third and fourth centuries A.D. At that time, some people began to feel that the
Church had become too worldly. Eventually, groups of men with the same spiritual goals banded
together. They formed religious communities far removed from the rest of society where they
spent their lives in quiet contemplation and prayer.

Manuscript Illumination

30
 Monks often decorated manuscript pages with delicate miniature paintings done in
silver, gold, and rich colors. For nearly 1,000 years, these illuminations, or manuscript paintings,
were the most important paintings produced in Western Europe. Illuminated manuscripts were
created by dedicated men who worked anonymously to record and illustrate history.

The Romanesque Period

The feudal system, which had developed in the ninth century, reached its peak
during the Romanesque period. It contributed to the constant disputes and open conflict that
continued to mark the Medieval period. Under the feudal system, land was the only source of
wealth and power, but the supply was limited. Nobles, lords, and kings fought constantly to
protect or add to the land under their control.

Castles
With warfare unchecked, nobles found it wise to further fortify their dwellings.
Towers of stone were built by the late eleventh century, and by the twelfth century the now-
familiar stone castle had evolved. With its tower, walls, moat, and drawbridge, the castle became
the symbol of authority during the Romanesque period.

Romanesque art took shape in the eleventh century, initially developing in France then
spreading to Spain, England, Flanders, Germany, Italy, and other regions. As the first style to
spread across Europe, it symbolized the growing wealth of European cities and the power of
church monasteries.

Romanesque buildings were characterized by semi-circular arches, thick stone walls, and
durable construction. Sculptures were also prevalent during this time, where stone was used to
represent biblical subject matter and church doctrines. Other significant media during this period
include stained glass and the continued tradition of illuminated manuscripts.

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Gothic Period
Gothic is the term used to identify a period that began around the middle of the
twelfth century and lasted to the end of the fifteenth century and, in some places, into the
sixteenth. The name was coined by later critics who scorned the art of the period because it did
not hold to the standards of ancient Greek and Roman art. Because the Goths and other
barbarian tribes had brought about the fall of Rome, the term Gothic was given to buildings that
replaced classical forms. The name, then, is misleading; the Goths did not design or construct
Gothic buildings. The Romanesque style paved the way for the Gothic style and, in most
areas, merged with it. In fact, many buildings that were begun as Romanesque were completed
as Gothic. The lessons learned in producing Romanesque churches were put to good use
during the Gothic era. If the greatest of the medieval arts was architecture, then the Gothic
cathedral was Medieval architecture’s greatest triumph.

THE MEDIEVAL ART OF STAINED GLASS

With stories depicting the lives of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and saints, stained-
glass windows bring to mind the beautifully colored illuminations found in Medieval manuscripts.
These stories are preserved in scenes that have lasted for centuries.
• Size. In cathedrals such as those at Chartres, Reims, and Paris in France and at León in
Spain, huge areas were devoted to stained glass.
• Color. For color, artisans added minerals to the glass while it was still in a molten state. In this
way, the glass was stained rather than painted; the color was very bright.
• Design. Small pieces of this stained glass were then joined with lead strips and reinforced with
iron bars. The lead strips and iron bars often were made a part of the design.

Saint-Denis (Notre Dame de Saint-

Denis), begun 1137,
-first Gothic cathedral
exterior support structures which
take the weight off the walls
allowing for more windows, and
stained glass windows-colored glass
in mosaic style

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Late medieval art includes Gothic art, which originated in the 12th century with the rebuilding of
the Abbey Church in Saint-Denis, France. Gothic architecture offered revolutionary structural
advancements such as ribbed vaults, flying buttresses, and decorative pinnacles all contributing
to taller, lighter building designs.

Similarly, Gothic sculpture borrowed motifs from the architecture of the period since it was
primarily used to decorate exteriors of cathedrals and other religious buildings. Figures depicted
in Gothic sculpture became more realistic and closely related to medieval cathedrals. Paintings
also became more lifelike, and with the rise of cities, foundation of universities, increase in trade,
and creation of a new class who could afford to commission works, artists started to explore
more secular themes and non-religious subject matter.

Recommended Readings:
Art in Focus by Genet Mittler pp. 309-349

Must Watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHU5EPeZLkA&t=158s

Renaissance Art

Known as the Renaissance, the period immediately following the Middle Ages in
Europe saw a great revival of interest in the classical learning and values of ancient Greece and
Rome. Against a backdrop of political stability and growing prosperity, the development of new
technologies–including the printing press, a new system of astronomy and the discovery and
exploration of new continents–was accompanied by a flowering of philosophy, literature and
especially art. The style of painting, sculpture and decorative arts identified with the
Renaissance emerged in Italy in the late 14th century; it reached its zenith in the late 15th and
early 16th centuries, in the work of Italian masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and
Raphael. In addition to its expression of classical Greco-Roman traditions, Renaissance art
sought to capture the experience of the individual and the beauty and mystery of the natural
world.

Origins of Renaissance Art

The origins of Renaissance art can be traced to Italy in the late 13th and early 14th centuries.
During this so-called “proto-Renaissance” period (1280-1400), Italian scholars and artists saw
themselves as reawakening to the ideals and achievements of classical Roman culture. Writers
such as Petrarch (1304-1374) and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) looked back to ancient
Greece and Rome and sought to revive the languages, values and intellectual traditions of those
cultures after the long period of stagnation that had followed the fall of the Roman Empire in the
sixth century.

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The Florentine painter Giotto (1267?-1337), the most famous artist of the proto-Renaissance
made enormous advances in the technique of representing the human body realistically. His
frescoes were said to have decorated cathedrals at Assisi, Rome, Padua, Florence and Naples,
though there has been difficulty attributing such works with certainty.

Early Renaissance Art (1401-1490s)

In the later 14th century, the proto-Renaissance was stifled by plague and war, and its
influences did not emerge again until the first years of the next century. In 1401, the sculptor
Lorenzo Ghiberti (c. 1378-1455) won a major competition to design a new set of bronze doors
for the Baptistery of the cathedral of Florence, beating out contemporaries such as the architect
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) and the young Donatello (c. 1386- 1466), who would later
emerge as the master of early Renaissance sculpture.

The other major artist working during this period was the painter Masaccio (1401-1428), known
for his frescoes of the Trinity in the Church of Santa Maria Novella (c. 1426) and in the Brancacci
Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine (c. 1427), both in Florence. Masaccio painted
for less than six years but was highly influential in the early Renaissance for the intellectual
nature of his work, as well as its degree of naturalism.

Florence in the Renaissance

Though the Catholic Church remained a major patron of the arts during the Renaissance–from
popes and other prelates to convents, monasteries and other religious organizations–works of
art were increasingly commissioned by civil government, courts and wealthy individuals. Much of
the art produced during the early Renaissance was commissioned by the wealthy merchant
families of Florence, most notably the Medici family.

From 1434 until 1492, when Lorenzo de’ Medici–known as “the Magnificent” for his strong
leadership as well as his support of the arts–died, the powerful family presided over a golden
age for the city of Florence. Pushed from power by a republican coalition in 1494, the Medici
family spent years in exile but returned in 1512 to preside over another flowering of Florentine
art, including the array of sculptures that now decorates the city’s Piazza della Signoria.

High Renaissance Art (1490s-1527)

By the end of the 15th century, Rome had displaced Florence as the principal center of
Renaissance art, reaching a high point under the powerful and ambitious Pope Leo X (a son of
Lorenzo de’ Medici). Three great masters–Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael–
dominated the period known as the High Renaissance, which lasted roughly from the early
1490s until the sack of Rome by the troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Spain in
1527. Leonardo (1452-1519) was the ultimate “Renaissance man” for the breadth of his intellect,
interest and talent and his expression of humanist and classical values. Leonardo’s best-known
works, including the “Mona Lisa” (1503-05), “The Virgin of the Rocks” (1485) and the fresco “The
Last Supper” (1495-98), showcase his unparalleled ability to portray light and shadow, as well as

34
the physical relationship between figures–humans, animals and objects alike–and the landscape
around them.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) drew on the human body for inspiration and created works
on a vast scale. He was the dominant sculptor of the High Renaissance, producing pieces such
as the Pietà in St. Peter’s Cathedral (1499) and the David in his native Florence (1501-04). He
carved the latter by hand from an enormous marble block; the famous statue measures five
meters high including its base. Though Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor first and
foremost, he achieved greatness as a painter as well, notably with his giant fresco covering the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, completed over four years (1508-12) and depicting various scenes
from Genesis.

Raphael Sanzio, the youngest of the three great High Renaissance masters, learned from both
da Vinci and Michelangelo. His paintings–most notably “The School of Athens” (1508-11),
painted in the Vatican at the same time that Michelangelo was working on the Sistine Chapel–
skillfully expressed the classical ideals of beauty, serenity and harmony. Among the other great
Italian artists working during this period were Sandro Botticelli, Bramante, Giorgione, Titian and
Correggio.

Renaissance Art in Practice

Many works of Renaissance art depicted religious images, including subjects such as the Virgin
Mary, or Madonna, and were encountered by contemporary audiences of the period in the
context of religious rituals. Today, they are viewed as great works of art, but at the time they
were seen and used mostly as devotional objects. Many Renaissance works were painted as
altarpieces for incorporation into rituals associated with Catholic Mass and donated by patrons
who sponsored the Mass itself.

Renaissance artists came from all strata of society; they usually studied as apprentices before
being admitted to a professional guild and working under the tutelage of an older master. Far
from being starving bohemians, these artists worked on commission and were hired by patrons
of the arts because they were steady and reliable. Italy’s rising middle class sought to imitate the
aristocracy and elevate their own status by purchasing art for their homes. In addition to sacred
images, many of these works portrayed domestic themes such as marriage, birth and the
everyday life of the family.

Expansion and Decline

Over the course of the 15th and 16th centuries, the spirit of the Renaissance spread throughout
Italy and into France, northern Europe and Spain. In Venice, artists such as Giorgione (1477/78-
1510) and Titian (1488/90-1576) further developed a method of painting in oil directly on canvas;
this technique of oil painting allowed the artist to rework an image–as fresco painting (on plaster)
did not–and it would dominate Western art to the present day. Oil painting during the

35
Renaissance can be traced back even further, however, to the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck
(died 1441), who painted a masterful altarpiece in the cathedral at Ghent (c. 1432). Van Eyck
was one of the most important artists of the Northern Renaissance; later masters included the
German painters Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) and Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98-1543).

By the later 1500s, the Mannerist style, with its emphasis on artificiality, had developed in
opposition to the idealized naturalism of High Renaissance art, and Mannerism spread from
Florence and Rome to become the dominant style in Europe. Renaissance art continued to be
celebrated, however: The 16th-century Florentine artist and art historian Giorgio Vasari, author
of the famous work “Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects” (1550), would
write of the High Renaissance as the culmination of all Italian art, a process that began with
Giotto in the late 13th century.

Must Watch:

1. (Renaissance Overview) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf2G2Il8crw

2. (History of Ideas) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI1OeMmwYjU

ACTIVITIES/ASSESSMENTS

Art in Your Community

1. Identify a building or monument in your community that reflects Roman or Greek style. You
might check with a local museum or the chamber of commerce to find an appropriate building or
location to visit with your class. Activity Create sketches or a digital photo display showing
different views of the building or monument. Point out the historical and cultural influences
expressed in the structure you chose. How do you think the aesthetic qualities contribute to the
feeling created by this artwork?

2. The landmarks in your area are not as old as the Parthenon but might need some restoration
work. • Choose one historic building and write about its history and its current status. Does it
need to be restored in any way? Are efforts underway to do so? What would you do to save the
building or landmark? • Plan a campaign to help save the structure. Prepare a letter to your
school or local newspaper to promote the restoration efforts.

3. Collect visual examples of the architecture of Greece and Rome. Study the examples carefully
and try to determine similarities and differences in the examples. Do the buildings have the
same uses? Are the construction methods alike? How were the buildings named? Create a
presentation of your findings.

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 Art Timeline

After the industrial revolution (1760-1860), in the mid of 19th Century, rapid change took place in
manufacturing, transport and technology significantly affected the life of the people;
manufacturing, transport and technology made such great advancement to the consciousness of
the people which led to people demanding for an urban architecture, applied art and design.
Two of the major developments in this period were 1) John Rand invented the collapsible tin
paint tube and 2) photography was made. This gave birth to the now known as “impressionism”
which greatly affected how the artists painted the world around them and the way artists created
their art. Departing from the traditional way of involving religion and Greek mythology, the artists
started to diversify their artworks to ‘meaningful’ portraits and landscapes.

Impressionism Fauvism Expressionism Surrealism Contemporary

•1870 - 1890 •1905 -1910 •1905 -1925 •1924 Art
1950-Present

COURSE MATERIAL
Gardner’s Art through the Ages: A Concise Western History, Third Edition; Art in Focus, Mittler
(2006); A Histroy of Art History, Wood (2019); Art and Thought (2003); The Social History
of Art, Third Edition, Hauser (2005)

Impressionism

Impressionism was developed in France during the late 19th and 20th centuries. (1867-1886).
Due to the result of a chaotic transformation from the industrial revolution, which made the world
seem unstable and insubstantial, Impressionism was developed (in France during the late 19th
and 20th centuries, 1867-1886). As the poet and critic Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
observed in his 1860 essay The Painter of Modern Life: “Modernity is the transitory, the fugitive,
the contingent.” Impressionist built upon the departing of the realists from the traditional
mythological and religious themes.

Tired of displaying realistic artworks, and due to the invention of photography, impressionist
attempted to show the ‘real’. In which the artist started to involve their perspective of the world.
Artists started to manipulate the:

37
 • distinctive color palette;
• focused on the use of light;
• painted more the still life depictions of everyday life;
• tone;
• texture as an end-in-themselves;
• Minimized perspectival depth so that the viewer would look at the surface patterns and
relationships of the picture;
• Introduced the ‘creative cropping’ like in photographs but they made it appear natural;
and
• Usually finishes their painting outdoors to capture the natural light.
Impressionist Painters:

Impression:
Sunrise
Claude Monet.
1872.
Oil on canvas,
1′ 7 1–2 ″ × 2′
11–2″.
Musée
Marmottan,
Paris.

• Claude Monet – his painting ‘Impression: Sunrise’ became revolutionary and actually
gave birth to impressionism. This exhibition became controversial because he did not
disguise the brushstrokes and did not blend the pigment to appear a smooth tonal
gradation and an optically accurate scene in comparison to realistic depiction of artworks.
Monet bridged the connection of the artist and his work. Impressions is the ground of the
artists in actualizing their perception of the world; may be objective perception or solely
subjective responses or an interaction between the two. They were sensations—the
artists’ subjective and personal responses to nature.

38
 Pierre-auguste
renoir, Le
Moulin de la
Galette, 1876.
Oil on canvas,
4′ 3″ × 5′ 8″.
Musée d’Orsay,
Paris.

• Pierre-Auguste Renoir – modern and industrialized Paris pave the way for an ample
leisure time for the Parisians. In Renoir’s famous painting Le Moulin de la Galette (1876),
showed the Parisian dance hall. It depicted the lively and energetic crowd in which
showed dancing and socializing people that enable the viewers to hear the sound of that
casual occasion that Parisian typically enjoyed.

Renoir’s painting of this popular Parisian dance hall is dappled by sunlight and shade,
artfully blurred into the figures to produce just the effect of floating and fleeting light the
Impressionists cultivated.

Fauvism

In 1905 a group of young painters exhibited canvases so simplified in design and so shockingly
bright in color that a startled Critic Louis Vauxcelles (1870–1943), described the artists as wild
beasts (fauves). Their desire was to develop an art having directness of Impressionism but with
use of intense color (in comparison with impression paintings which uses low intensity value of
color) for expressive ends. Fauves liberated hue from its descriptive function and explored the
effects of the uses of different colors in portraying emotions.

39
 Henri Matisse, Red
Room (Harmony in
Red), 1908–1909.
Oil on canvas, 5′
11″ × 8′ 1″.
State Hermitage
Museum, Saint
Petersburg.

• Henri Matisse - The dominant figure of the Fauve group was Henri Matisse (1869–
1954), who believed color could play a primary role in conveying meaning and focused
his efforts on developing this notion.
Matisse believed painters should choose compositions and colors that express their
feelings. Here, the table and the wall seem to merge because they are the same color
and have identical patterning.

Expressionism

The use of bold and striking color appealed to German Expressionists. Although color played
vital role in expressionism in the early 20th century, the expressiveness is also seen in the
distortedness, ragged outlines and frantic brushstrokes.

40
 Hernst Ludwig KircHner, Street,
Dresden,
1908 (dated 1907). Oil on canvas,
4′ 111–4 ″ × 6′ 6 7–8 ″. Museum
of Modern Art, New York.

• Ernst Ludwig Kirchner- German Expressionist (die brücke) group, under the leadership
of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, gathered in Dresden in 1905. The members thought of
themselves as the bridge (hence, the name) between the old and the new, perfecting a
better age. They protested the hypocrisy and materialistic decadence of those in power.
Kirchner focused more on the negative effects of industrialization and the alienation of
individuals in the cities.
Kirchner’s perspective distortions, disquieting figures, and color choices reflect the
influence of the Fauves and of Edvard Munch (fig. 13-16), who made similar expressive
use of formal elements.

Vassily
KandinsKy,
Improvisation 28
(second
version), 1912.
Oil on canvas,
3′ 7 7–8″ × 5′ 3
7–8 ″.
Solomon
R.Guggen heim
Museum, New
York

41
 • Vassily Kandinsky- A second major group of the German Expressionists- Der Blaue
Reiter (The Blue Rider), under the leadership of Kadisnky and his founding partner Franz
Marc selected the name of their group for the reason that they both like color blue and
horses. The Bridge group produced paintings that captures the artist’s feelings in visual
form and at the same time eliciting visceral message to the viewers.
Kandinsky believed artists must express their innermost feelings by orchestrating color,
form, line, and space. He was one of the first artists to explore complete abstraction in
paintings he called Improvisations.

Surrealism

Sought to channel the unconscious as a means to unlock the power of our imagination. Cultural
Movement expressed through art which took away from rationalism. The movement represented
a reaction against what its members saw as the destruction wrought by the “rationalism” that had
guided European culture and politics in the past and that had culminated in the horrors of World
War I (1914-1918, Sarajevo Bosnia- Hungary). Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious
and unconscious realms of experience so completely that the world of dream and fantasy would
be joined to the everyday rational world in “an absolute reality, a surreality.” – Andre Breton, The
Surrealist Manifesto, 1924). Heavily adapted from Sigmund Freud’s concept of the unconscious
which Breton saw it as the origin of the imagination.

Pop Art

Pop art movement aimed to haze the boundaries between "high" art and "low" culture. Although
Pop art incorporates a wide variety of work with very different attitudes and postures, much of it
is somewhat emotionally removed. Pop artists seemingly embraced the post-World War II
manufacturing and the booming of media. Commercial Art.

Just What Is It That Makes Today's

Homes So Different, So Appealing?
Richard Hamilton, 1956

42
 EASTERN ART
OVERVIEW
The history of Eastern art includes a vast range of influences from various cultures and religions.
From ancient times, China has been the dominant and referential culture in East Asia. However,
neighboring archipelago and peninsula suggests an exchange between East Asian cultures and
the early introduction of Chinese influence.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this lesson, the students are expected to:

1. Identify the underlying history and philosophy of the Eastern art movement.
2. classify the various art movements by citing their important aspect such as places, Art
pieces, historical background, factors, influential person, prevalent artists, and art forms.
3. Relate these historical art forms to contemporary piece of art.
4. Understand the history and the relationship between Arts of eastern culture.

COURSE MATERIALS

1. Handbook of Oriental Studies, Handbuch der Orientalistik. Early Buddhist art of China and
Central Asia. _ Volume 1, Later Han, Three Kingdoms, and Western Chin in China and
Bactria to Shan-Shan, Rhie, Marylin M., Leiden, Boston (2007).
2. Art of India, Vincent Arthur Smith - (Temporis collection) Parkstone International (2012)
3. Visions from the Past: The Archaeology of Australian Aboriginal Art, M.J. Morwood,
Douglas Hobbs, D.R. Hobbs - (2002)
(https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qe65NrVf_dR14qX0GBAedkJX_l-6uaxa)

Discussion
a. Ancient Chinese Art
b. Modern Chinese Art
c. Japanese Art
d. East Asian Buddhist Art
e. Aboriginal Art

Ancient Chinese Art

From the Bronze Age to the Cultural Revolution, Chinese art shows a stylistic unity unparalleled
in any other culture. From about the 1st century AD Buddhism inspired much sculpture and
painting. The Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) produced outstanding metalwork, ceramics, and
sculpture. The Song dynasty (960-1278) established standards of idyllic landscape and nature
painting in a delicate calligraphic style.

43
44
45
 Japanese Art

Early Japanese art was heavily influenced by China and Korea. Like other Far Eastern
countries, Japanese art represented nature from a more spiritual perspective rather than
pursuing scientific realism; nature was seen as a part of a whole to be projected through the life
and experience of the individual artist, a view that became more clearly expressed with the
arrival of Buddhism in the 6th century.

The elements and tendencies common to the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese cultures are vast,
but two kinds of visual expression are especially important: a strong affinity for the clay-formed
vessel and calligraphic expression through the ink-charged brush.

• ZEN BUDDHISM AND MINIMALISM- The less is beautiful, in a Japanese sense of

beauty.

46
ZEN Paintings

The cause of suffering in life is attachment to material things. The lesser the possessions, the
lesser the suffering. So the secret to happiness is living a simple life.

47
Southeast Asian Art and Architecture

Includes works from the geographical area including the modern countries of Thailand,
Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. The
area is also known as Indochina. The art of this region draws from three major sources:
indigenous traditions, China, and India.

1. Buddhist Archaeology

The geography of early Buddhist archaeological sites is in general associated with rivers,
ancient coastlines, and trade routes by land and water.

Buddhist Art

Art and design of the Buddhist world, since the foundation of Buddhism, a philosophy that seeks
enlightenment, by the Buddha Sakyamuni in the 5th century BC. The earliest Buddhist art
developed in India to accommodate the new religion, including pillars and stupa, domed
reliquary shrines that became the focus for pilgrims

Indian Art and Architecture

Works of art and architecture produced on the Indian subcontinent, which is now divided among
India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. In the Western world, notable collections of Indian art can be
seen in the British Museum, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and in the Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston.

Hindu Art

The main features of Hindu culture origiated in India. Its earliest sacred texts, the Vedas, date
from c. 1500-900 bc, but the true flowering of Hindu art did not occur until the Gupta period ( ad
c. 320-c. 540), when Buddhism began to wane.

48
Gautama Buddha sitting under a pipal tree in the Dharmachakra Parvartana Mudra and the crowned Maitreya seated under the
asoka tree, 5th-6th century C.E., late Gupta period. Detail of a fresco above the doorway. Ajanta caves (Cave XVII), near
Aurangabad, Maharashtra.

49
Lingaraj Temple with one hundred and fifty smaller shrines, 11th century C.E., Keshari dynasty/Somavamsi dynasty. Red sandstone.
Bhubaneswar, Orissa.

Khajuraho Group of Monuments (detail of the Vishvanath Temple with amatory sculptures), 1020, Chandella Dynasty. Sandstone.
Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh.

o Early Period

50
 Western Gateway (torana) of the Great Stupa. The pillar capitals depict four yaksha-like figures standing back-to-back with
upraised hands supporting the architraves, 70 B.C.E., Satavahana dynasty. Sandstone, gateway height: 10.36 m, pillar height:
4.27 m. Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh.
• Aboriginal Art

Art of the Australian Aborigines. Traditionally almost entirely religious and ceremonial, it was
directed towards portraying stories of the Dreamtime, a creation mythology reflecting the
Aboriginal hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Perishable materials were used, as in bark painting and
carved trees and logs, and few early works of this type survive.

51
Australian Aboriginal Rock Art

52
Suggested Study Guide

Self-reflect/ observe on how neighboring places influences various Art forms in your community.

1. Historical
2. Cultural
3. Religious

Research and explore further on how these various art forms preserved throughout time despite
outside influence.

ASSESSMENT

Research/ Essay: [Font: Arial, Size : 1, Spacing: 1.0 ]

Examine a work of art in your home or community, identify its features that you appreciate and
identify its possible influence from the Eastern culture/tradition.

53
 PHILIPPINE ART

OVERVIEW
This topic intends to revisit the idea of art that the students have procured during their
study of the Philippine Contemporary Arts from the Regions. This background knowledge would
be utilized in formulating a critical examination on the Philippine aesthetics. With the aid of Alice
Guillermo’s essay on Philippine Contemporary Aesthetics, this topic will focus on how and where
art can derive meaning and the limitations and challenges that it is currently facing.

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOME

At the end of the discussion, the students are expected to:

1. Know the foundations of Philippine art.

2. Carefully analyze the characteristics of Philippine art.
3. Critically understand the problems of the Philippine art.

COURSE MATERIALS

1. Guillermo, Alice. ‘Philippine Contemporary Aesthetics,’ Kultura.

https://www.scribd.com/document/414439958/Alice-Guillermo-Philippine-Contemporary-
Aesthetics-1
2. René B. Javellana, Associate Professor of the Fine Arts Program at Ateneo de Manila
University, discuss the intersection between Philippine art and social change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD-NDGmdVag

Guide Questions:

1. What defines the Philippine Contemporary Aesthetics?

2. What is art according to Alice Guillermo?
3. What are the styles or qualities that is unique to the Philippine traditional art?
4. Why is establishing a homogeneous identity of Philippine art significant to its
development? What is the relevance of the subject matter, content and meaning in
establishing a national identity in art?
5. How can the different planes or levels of visual art emit its meaning?
6. What are the challenges that the Philippine art is facing?

PHILIPPINE CONTEMPORARY AESTHETICS

By Alice G. Guillermo

Many artists in the Third World today are faced with the questions: What is aesthetics?
What is contemporary aesthetics? These questions become all the more crucial because of the

54
colonial history of most Asian countries. And it is for this reason that people of Asia and of the
Third World seek answers drawn from their particular historical experience, conditions and
needs.

Before considering these questions based on a study of artistic productions and

directions in recent years and, to assume a larger view, from the productions of a hundred
years, it is necessary to begin with a number of premises.

The first has to do with the definition and meaning of aesthetics. While often, aesthetics
is taken to mean only the formal, technical side of art, thus, in the visual arts, concerns of line,
texture, composition, etc., we would like to posit the definition of aesthetics as the philosophy of
art. Hence, being a branch of philosophy, it has to do with concerns of content, as well as of
form, with the nature of art and its place vis-a-vis society.

Some clarification also has to be made with respect to the relation between form and
content. The categories of form and content are mere categories of convenience, for meaning is
derived from the particular form of a work, and each work of art has a unique meaning particular
to it because it has an original and unique form and structure.

The second involves two interrelated premises. On one hand, art is socially and
historically situated and is shaped by the material conditions of society. On the other hand, art
has its specificity, its own language and vocabulary, which makes it a distinct area of cognition
and a signifying practice.

A third premise is that aesthetics itself, like art, is socially and historically situated and
shaped by the social conditions of a particular time and place. This implies that aesthetics is not
universal nor true for all men and for all time, and neither and Asian cultural heritage.

There is the fact that our cultural traditions continue to exist in the countryside, away
from the centers of power. They are found in the folk artistic expressions of the lowland
peasants in the rural areas, in their textiles, pottery, basketry, as well as in their music and
songs, their oral literature. They also exist in the expression of what are called the cultural
communities, cultural minorities or national minorities which historically resisted colonization by
isolating themselves from the subdued populations, as in the case of the T'bolis and the
Mangyans, or as in the case of Ifugaos by aggressively repulsing colonial encroachment. The
Maranaws and Tausogs, because of their higher socio-political organization as Islamic groups,
successfully resisted Spanish efforts to colonize them.

But culture is not an autonomous realm, divorced from the economic and political. And
therefore it is not enough to appreciate the products of our traditional and indigenous culture
and display them in museums in recognition of their artistic value. For these are, first of all,
artistic productions of people, of Filipinos, who have for centuries worked under conditions of
continuing colonial prejudice, conditions of neglect that have perpetuated their poverty and
subsistence economy, and even worse, conditions of exploitation, and which have endangered
their ancestral lands, their livelihood and expressions, their very lives. Because of this, all efforts
of retrieving our indigenous culture for our present edification would remain on a purely
superficial and formalistic level if no large and organized efforts are made to help free the rural
folk and the members of the many cultural communities from their present conditions. It is not
enough to patronize, collect and encourage fashions in indigenous art if one does not take part
in the movement to obtain a better quality of life for them, with equal opportunities in education
and livelihood, with guarantees of respect for their cultures and assurances for their personal
security and the survival and welfare of their communities. Retrieving our indigenous traditions
in art and culture is based on this premise of espousing the interests of these underprivileged

55
classes, sectors and groups, and working towards the human welfare of these Filipinos who
have been able to preserve and continue these traditions up to the present.

Along with these is the necessary, although we hope not, belated, perception that
Philippine culture is of a pluralist and diverse character. There are the cultures of the urban
cosmopolitan and the rural folk, there are those arising from the different religions in the country,
Christian and Islamic, there are the regional cultures with their distinct world views and their
particular occupations and productions, such as those of the Cordillera groups of the North, the
Mangyans of Mindoro and the T'bolis of Cotabato. And while indeed the majority of the
population is Christian, studies have been undertaken on the animist folk culture underlying our
Christianity, which has sometimes been called "folk Christianity" because of its syncretic
aspects. Moreover, the members of what are called the cultural communities constitute a
sizeable part of our national population. In view of our culture's pluralist character, rather than
thinking in terms of homogenizing and assimilating the various cultures into one, it is necessary
to respect and appreciate these diverse contributions to the large body of our national culture.
For the culture of a society is, after all, not one, but many, reflecting different, even conflicting,
social conditions and interests. What is important is that those in positions of authority not
measure these different cultures in terms of the dominant culture with its ingrained chauvinist
attitudes and biases.

Our traditional artistic expressions derive from an aesthetics different from that of the
West. To begin with, the traditional arts grew out of the bosom of the pre-colonial Baranganic
societies, highly communal in nature and based on kinship ties. They continued as a dominated
culture in the feudal system of large landed estates in the Spanish colonial period. These arts
are linked to religion and ritual, as well as to daily occupations. Linked to religion am ritual, they
express world views, the most ancient of these being animism in which the natural world and
the spirit world are in continuous interaction. Linked to daily occupations, they give evidence of
the simple technologies of rural life and answer the continual need for implements and vessels
of different kinds, at the same time that they show the innate artistic sense of design applied to
objects of use, an authentic unity of form and function. It is also their practical use that
contributes to their communal character. The finely wrought vessels of wood or bamboo with a
multitude of shapes corresponding to different uses and that answer communal needs imply
shared occupations with their own traditional lore. Originally, these material expressions of the
potter's or basket weaver's art circulated in a community to serve occupational purposes and
were not considered as commodities to be mass-produced and sold.

Studies have been made of the aesthetics of indigenous art with the goal of coming up
with a summary of indigenous qualities. Such qualities have often been identified as the
predominance of curvilinear lines and shapes as in the okir designs found in different variations
and forms all over the country, the use of bright colors of high saturation in all kinds of
combinations, and/or the horror vacui sense of space in which the entire space is covered with
figures. And indeed, efforts have been made to give psychological explanations for these
qualities. But such a typography has its hazards because the Philippine traditional arts have a
diversity that eludes facile conclusions. While it is to be admitted that there is indeed a penchant
for curvilinear lines, this is true for woodcarving and drawing or painting on flat surfaces, for the
style, curvilinear and organic or rectilinear and geometric is also relative to the medium used. In
all forms of weaving, whether textile, mat or most of basket weaving, rectilinear and geometric
forms necessarily predominate because the weaving technique for the different materials
involves working with right angles. There is, likewise, a clear penchant for bright colors, but then
again, this is true primarily of the art of the lowland folk and it is relative to the available of dyes.
Commercial dyes in bright colors are accessible to the lowland folk, but people who are more
isolated produce their own dyes from plant and mineral sources and thus have a different
chromatic code. The remarkable T'boli weave made of abaca fiber is in dark colors and Ifugao
blankets play on sharp contrasts of black and red. It is the decorative penchant which covers
56
entire surfaces with figures and motifs which all productions seem to share. An important
example of this is the San Isidro Maytime festival in which the entire facades of houses are
covered with kiping, thin and leaf-shaped rice flour wafers in bright color glazes, along with
sheaves of grain and first fruits of the season side by side with folk art such as fine buntal hats,
slippers and even papier mache figures.

Given these, artists have tried to paint using these qualities of indigenous art as they
saw in these the key to achieving national identity in art. Some may have indeed been
successful, as Carlos Francisco was who used these qualities in the development of a modern
idiom in the '50s. A number of younger artists have followed suit. There is, indeed, a point here
in developing a style which grows out of indigenous aesthetics and has a familiar appeal to the
folk and larger population. Yet, this direction has its limitations. For one, even in the interest of
national identity in art, one cannot envision the homogenization of contemporary Philippine art
as a desirable nor feasible goal. Stylistic homogeneity would only lead to boredom and
stagnation. There would be some outstanding works, to be sure, but the rest would be tired and
uninspired productions.

Another problem is that working within the perceived qualities of indigenous aesthetics
would limit the expressive and semiotic potential of the artist as he would be invariably choosing
curvilinear lines and forms, bright colors and a compositional space entirely covered with
figures. It seems that it would also be a project difficult to sustain. Different kinds of lines, colors
and compositions have their own semiotic potential: the meaning of bright colors, for example, is
different from that of dark hues; curvilinear lines convey a different set of meanings from those
conveyed by rectilinear lines. Curvilinear lines convey grace, suppleness, sweetness and
harmonious interplay; rectilinear lines convey discipline, order, formality, on the whole.
Compositions covering the entire visual field convey a sense of abundance of bountiful harvests
and celebration, a love of ornament, of flourishing life. What would happen is that the artist
would confine himself to certain sets of meanings but would lack the resources to convey a
larger range of meanings, intellectual and emotional. This also means that the artist will be
unable to cover the large and highly varied and nuanced field of contemporary experiences but
will be confined to what these indigenous artistic qualities can convey.

In the case of the Philippines, a discussion of indigenous aesthetics lays a heavy

emphasis on the qualities of these elements in the traditional arts because the Philippines,
unlike other Asian countries, does not have an indigenous figurative style. In China and India,
for instance, their distinct figurative style plays a large part in the artistic identity of their
countries. But it seems that the arts of these countries may suffer a greater tension between
tradition and modernism because tradition can be constricting when dealing with the large area
of contemporary consciousness and experience. In this respect, it is often the Mexican artists,
particularly Siquieros, Orozco and Rivera who are pointed out as models in achieving national
identity in contemporary expression. But a study of their works shows that each of them was
stylistically distinctive in the modern sense, in fact, they were highly innovative painters. It thus
would seem that the quest for national identity in art does not lie in style, nor even in form alone,
but in other areas which we shall explore.

Indeed, indigenous artistic traditions grew out of an earlier social context of primitive
communalism developing into feudal relations. In view of this, there are two ways of looking at
the traditional arts. Some view them as artifacts and relics of the past which have managed to
survive up to the present as beautiful anachronisms, residues which will be effaced in the
course of time. Others view them as constituting the body of the national-popular culture and the
deepest level of expression underlying our art in the country today.

The first view may have been detrimental to the indigenous arts because one views
them with regret and helplessness, thinking that as relics of the past they are inevitably doomed
57
to extinction and therefore no effort no matter how great can be effective enough to prevent this
from happening. It is the latter view which I consider the more valid. For how would one explain
the continued survival of much of the traditional arts, folk and ethnic, such as the textile
traditions, the oral traditions of chant and epic narrative, the folk song patterns. No doubt, the
task of preserving and retrieving these is a formidable challenge which must be met. And then,
as has been said earlier, it is artificial to speak of preserving these arts when one does not look
into the real conditions in which they are produced. For if they have shown an alarming decline
in the past decades it is because of an increasingly aggressive encroachment of exploiters into
the rural communities: big logging companies which denude their ancestral lands, mining
speculators, armed groups protecting their interests.

The traditional arts constitute the body of nationalpopular culture kept alive by the
lowland peasants in the rural areas and the cultural communities in less accessible areas, the
unHispanized or unChristianized Filipinos, such as the Maranaws and Tausogs who have
defended Islam religion against Christian colonization, and the many animist groups, such as
the Cordillera groups, T'bolis, the Tagbanuas, and the Mangyans, all over the archipelago. For
them, in fact, these are living traditions; that must be kept alive. And as living traditions, they are
not static, but possess a dynamism that adapts to historical change and permits their
transformation in the historical process.

It is, in fact, this process of transformation with which contemporary artists are most
concerned in the interest of revitalizing the indigenous traditions into the context of
contemporary life and art. And for urban artists, painters and sculptors this is not an easy
matter. For there is the need to recognize their original contexts in their communities and at the
same time draw them into the body of our living national culture to which different groups
contribute. In this process of transformation, they assume both a local and a national character.
There is always needed a respect for their social and cultural significations, for their dimensions
of meaning and value. Because of this, they cannot be reduced to mere decorative objects and
design motifs and appropriated without understanding into contemporary art forms.

A significant aspect of traditional art is the symbolic, as it is rich in symbols conveying

social and cultural values. These symbols form part of world views and ideologies. But their
original world views and ideologies necessarily encounter and interact with the world views and
ideologies of our present day and also necessarily show the effect of these encounters which
may change or modify the original world views of which the symbols are a part. These
indigenous arts imply values and have an axiological aspect; because of this, competing social
groups may want to articulate this body of national- popular culture into their discourse. The
Marcos years, for instance, made use of the traditions to make appeals for unity in the name of
the cultural heritage. On the other hand, the national popular culture must be recognized as
indeed belonging to the people and not be exploited to further the selfish interests of elites.

Alternative Materials

There are other concerns particular to Philippine and Asian contemporary art. One has
to do with medium and materials. In recent years, urban artists have realized the need to move
away from dependence on imported Western art materials, such as oils for paintings on canvas.
But this has not been easy, because it is precisely this dependence on materials produced by
giant Western industrial corporations that has crippled local initiatives to produce them. A
solution has been the trend in the use of traditional and indigenous materials' which are readily
accessible because found in the environment. This has challenged native ingenuity in the
discovery and use of materials hitherto ignored and disregarded for artistic purposes. Thus,
there has been the use of sawali panels, bamboo, coconut bark, treated shells, abaca and
burlap in collage or combined with painting and drawing. These indigenous materials and
58
mediums have their own significations different from those of the West. Often organic, they
convey the forms, textures and odors of the tropical environment and renew the links between
art and nature. They communicate a sense of the place, climate and material conditions from
which they were produced and thereby remove the sense of mystification and alienation from art
in the ordinary viewer that arises from the consistent use of highly specialized and expensive
therefore elite materials, like oil on canvas. Another result of this exploration into alternative
materials is the encouragement of more artists from the grassroots, because art-making
becomes an accessible and democratic activity. Of course, a good number of artists have
continued working in oil, and that is their choice, although the exclusive use of academic oils
and watercolors while rejecting efforts to discover and explore alternative art materials, will
eventually smack of conservatism in this time of mixed media and collages and assemblages of
all sorts of materials. But oil painting, however, is not a form to be simply discarded as Western
and colonial in the interest of developing a national art. One prefers to think that easel painting,
which was introduced by the Spaniards in the late 18th century and which developed
considerably in the 19th, has been in the course of time, with artistic practice and experience,
appropriated into the national culture to serve the interests of Filipino artists.

Subject, Content and Meaning

Resuming the issue of national identity, it is not so much in style that the solution lies, for
style will always be of personal domain, a reflection and expression of individual psychological
temperament and sensibility. Yet, before one can proceed, the question nevertheless arises as
to why the development of national identity in art is of considerable importance. It is of
importance especially to countries of the Third World like the Philippines with a colonial past.
The development of a national identity in art is, in fact, a cultural expression of the economic
and political struggle of the people versus the power bloc of the transnationals and their local
agents. While rejecting superpower domination in the economic, political and cultural fields, the
people are also engaged in the positive effort of building and affirming their own culture,
because, as we all know, culture is an expression of a people's spirit, of its legitimate desires
and aspirations. In fact, the active quest for national identity prevents the subjugation of a
people's consciousness by outside interests inimical to theirs and preclude the invisible tragedy
of a people's cultural alienation from their spiritual mainsprings. It is also part of the campaign
and movement for national sovereignty and independence that are the marks of a truly modern
society in this part of the world. There is, of course, the view that national identity in art will
surface naturally because the Filipino artist works in his particular natural and social
environment which will thus appear, whether he will it or not, in his work, or that the artist as
Filipino will intuitively express his national identity in his works, figurative or abstract. This is not
entirely untrue. However, this view disregards the role of intentionality. On one hand, some
artists may deliberately cultivate a cosmopolitan style which addresses a foreign First World
public and which seeks to insert itself into Western art which the artist perceives to be the
"mainstream" to which Philippine art must work towards and link with.

In this case, Philippine art becomes a mere appendix or addendum in the history of
American or Western art, if it be considered at all. This concept of art can only lead to the
formation of surrogate cultural structures in a country patterned after those of a dominant power
pursuing its own distinct economic and political interests and regarding such societies as
"penetrated" societies in which its interests are assured because of a congenial cultural
superstructure that it has carefully built through the years. At its worst, the young Filipino artist
risks losing his originality in producing what can be termed "catalogue art" from the latest
American or European productions in Artnews or Artforum, a situation which undoubtedly
serves foreign interests without their even having to acknowledge the existence and merit of
local productions in their aesthetic terms. On the other hand, in the artists' active quest for

59
national identity art becomes a political choice in which his art assumes a vital role in historical
development.

Subject matter, content and meaning have to do with this quest. The artist may reflect
the natural and social environment in his work, but it is not enough to be illustrative, for the work
of art must possess the dimension of a vision of man and society that goes beyond the empirical
and which is the mark of the best realist art. In abstract art, the motifs and design of indigenous
art are a rich source of content, for abstract art also conveys values, cultural and social. It may
foreground the qualities, elements and values of indigenous art. And in general, the qualities
that it conveys, such as dynamism, spontaneity or serenity, among many others, will not only
have a purely personal import but will be seen in the context of their times, in its issues and
ideologies.

Art derives its vitality from the social life from which it springs, and like other cognitive
fields and areas of human signification, it engages with the issues of its time. Because art bears
an axiological, value-producing, and value-conveying aspect, it cannot set itself apart from
human and social meaning. It is, in fact, a distinct, if not highly valuable, form of human
expression, combining as it does thought and feeling, the intellect, the emotions and the
imagination in expressive, aesthetic form. It is produced by the total human being and therefore
must be of importance to the total human person as individual and as member of society in all
its concerns and aspirations towards achieving full humanity in a free, just and truly human
order. And here we go back to one of the first premises, which is that art, while it enjoys relative
autonomy by virtue of its distinct vocabulary and language, its aesthetic concerns, yet since art
itself is produced under specific human circumstances and conditions, and since these values
that art conveys are themselves related, in the last instance, to interests of groups, sectors and
classes, art as an area of cognition and a signifying practice is situated within social and
historical coordinates.

Finally, this leads us to the matter of form and content which are traditionally taken to
constitute a work of art. Now, these are not ingredients that produce a work of art; they are, in
fact, categories that we have borne with for the convenience of art classes. While the subject
matter of a work of art may be familiar, even common, its unique meaning derives from the
original use of the elements, materials and resources of art. So that it would be possible to say
that there are interacting and interpenetrating levels in a visual work, be it a print, painting,
collage, sculpture or whatever visual form: the semiotic plane, the mimetic plane and the
thematic plane. Studying the semiotic plane of art requires developing a high degree of
sensitivity to the use of the elements, the medium, the format, and in general, the physical
aspect of the work as a visual text. This is because the elements have a semiotic potential or
meaning-conveying potential which arises from man's psychophysical experiences and from
social conventions, and significations arise when these semiotic elements of line, value, color,
texture, form and shape, composition in space, as well as the character of the medium and
format interrelate with each other, confirm, verify each other, point out contradictions with each
other, or bring out nuances or refinements of meaning in the visual text.

Likewise, techniques do not exist in themselves and for their own sake but because they
create effects that convey certain meanings. The very physical character of the medium, be it
paper, cloth, canvass, wood of whatever kind, contributes to its own significations. Handmade
paper with its deckle edge, for instance, conveys the personal touch that has a direct appeal
that manufactured paper does not have, at the same time that its organic quality, derived as it is
from the trees and plants of the local environment, evokes the fields and forests of its source. In
wood sculpture, the way that the sculptor makes use of the natural texture of the wood, its
grains and marks of time and weather again enhances the meanings of sculptural form.

60
 The second, the mimetic plane, which holds for figurative art, deals with the manner of
presentation of the image itself, and includes such matters as figurative style, symbols and
symbolic systems used, relationship of image to the viewer. The figurative style in which human
figures are represented, for instance, is not a mere matter of convention or style, for it reflects
and conveys a world view, vision of the world, or ideology. And this area has been a continual
challenge to artists who have to get away from the grip of the academic conventions of the
classical figure, transmitted through endless copying in schools and studios, since these convey
an idealist platonic world view of unchanging essences that find little place in our present fast-
changing world. This flight from academism has brought artists to explore precolonial figurative
styles, medieval or folk ways of representing the figure or develop a heightened realism as an
alternative to the classical undertones of dominant art. In fact, the traditional figurative styles of
the different Asian countries, the wayang figures of Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia have
recently been a rich source of inspiration to artists of the region who create in their work exciting
interactive situations between traditional forms and conventions of the figure with contemporary
idioms.

The third, the thematic plane, resituates the work with its themes, references and
allusions, direct or indirect, espousals often highly mediated, to contemporary events and
people and the values and attitudes it conveys through artistic form with respect to these, in its
particular time and place. It is in the interaction of these three planes or level that one draws out
the full meaning of the work.

Asian artists face the challenge of creating contemporary aesthetics proper to their
countries with their histories and struggles, an aesthetics that will fuse the post-colonial quest
for national identity with the wide range of contemporary resources and materials for an art that
will be truly national and of the people

Further Readings:

Guillermo, Alice. Protest/Revolutionary Art in the Philippines, 1970-1990 (Quezon City:

University of the Philippines Press, 2001).

______. ‘The History and Current Situation of Modern Art in the Philippines’
https://www.jpf.go.jp/j/publish/asia_exhibition_history/pdf/15_Symposium-
1994_Potential_ENG_Handout_2.pdf

ASSESSMENT

1. For both online and offline students, write an

analysis of this painting by Papo de Asis called
The Rehabilitation of the Marcoses using the
different planes of visual art. Further examine
how these visual planes link to the social and
political meaning of the artwork.
2. For offline students, answer the questions in the
guide questions.

61
 ISSUES AND DISCOURSE - AUTHORSHIP
OVERVIEW

In this module we will explore the notion of Authorship and how does it affect the appreciation,
the criticism, and even the valuation of a particular artwork. The notion varies depending on the
art discipline one practices. We will try to cover a general point of authorship that can be applied
to all disciplines and expound on the issues for each one relating to the notion of authorship.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this discussion, the students are expected to:

• Define the notion of Authorship

• Enumerate the aspects to consider when looking for the Authorship of the work
• Discuss the issues surrounding Authorship in contemporary art and apply their
understanding on how to approach this issue in an analysis of an artwork in an essay.

COURSE MATERIALS

Hito Steyerl, “If You Don’t Have Bread, Eat Art! Contemporary Art and Derivative Fascisms.” e-
flux 76. < https://www.e-flux.com/journal/76/69732/if-you-don-t-have-bread-eat-art-
contemporary-art-and-derivative-fascisms/>

Hito Steyerl, “Duty Free Art” e-flux 63. <https://www.e-flux.com/journal/63/60894/duty-free-art/>

John Berger, Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books, 1972.

Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author” from Image, Music, Text: Essays. London: Fontana
Press, 1977. pp. 142-148

Susan Sontag, “Against Interpretation” from Against Interpretation and Other Essays. New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1961. pp.3-14.

(https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tnj9kiR6Zc65OvCDU8oKmI0WDayS479M?usp=sharing)

Discussion

The notion of the author, initially, seeks a point of attribution. Authorship commonly refers to a
point of origin in dominant discourse. Often times, we source authorship to an individuality, a
specific individuality that expresses a kind of authenticity.

Authorship is often looked at in what connoisseurs refer to as “style”, or specifically, a

“signature.”

Valuation of the art work in modern or even contemporary sense has a lot to do with the names
associated with it.

A painting by Picasso can valuate up to 100 Million Dollars.

62
The talk about Authorship may have its aesthetic concerns, but ultimately, this is less of a
judgement of aesthetic convention. Picasso wouldn’t have valuated highly if he’s curated with
antiquity or renaissance standards. The modernist shift in world art placed more value on the
degree of artistic expressiveness, often looking at extreme degrees of individuality.

The modern notion of authorship in art oftentimes reflect a very modern capitalist attitude too
with its valuation. Roland Barthes criticized the idea of the author as the “epitome and
culmination of capitalist ideology.”1 That this single individual of a “genius” alone “nourishes” the
work, which is to say, the very meaning or value of the work resides in the person of the author.2

In an essay some years later than Barthes’ The Death of the Author, Susan Sontag criticizes
also this dependence to the artist (and his immediate reality) with the interpretation of a work.
For Sontag, this merely reflects the point of translation instead of appreciation.

Directed to art, interpretation means plucking a set of elements (the X, the Y, the Z, and
so.forth) from the whole work. The task of interpretation is virtually one of translation.
The interpreter says, Look, don't you see that X is really-or, really means-A? That Y is
really B? That Z is really C?3

The critique of authorship from Barthes and Sontag are often attacks on hermeneutic
approach on art which avowed only towards a kind of understanding which set itself as if it has a
universal truth, however, is situated to a dead past. This locution of the work of art in
hermeneutic interpretation via the notion of author brings about its own mystifying assumptions
that alienate us from the work. John Berger notes of this tendency for mystification as “fear for
the present.”4

Why does this happen? These intimidating notions that accompanies Authorship
(Genius, Beauty, truth, status, etc) prevents us from actually seeing the work on our own terms.
What this insistence to the core of authorship brings to us is a deprivation not just of our own
aesthetic agency, but also of history. Who benefits from it? Berger adds:

“In the end, the art of the past is being mystified because a privileged minority is striving
to invent a history which can retrospectively justify the role of the ruling class and such a
justification can no longer make sense in the modern times. And so, inevitably, it
mystifies.”5

In contemporary times, this mystification of the art, however, is precisely why there are
artworks that are so valuable in money terms even though we do not see them. So valuable that
artworks even function as alternative currencies for tax breaks and the black market.6 They are
even valuable even though there are artworks which are not displayed and are hidden on

1
Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author, 143.
2
Ibid, 145.
3
Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation, 5.
4
John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 11.
5
Ibid.
6
See Hito Steyerl, “If You Don’t Have Bread, Eat Art! Contemporary Art and Derivative Fascisms.” e-flux 76. <
https://www.e-flux.com/journal/76/69732/if-you-don-t-have-bread-eat-art-contemporary-art-and-derivative-
fascisms/>
63
freeports.7 The more that the artwork is being deprived the eyesight, the more that it becomes
valuable. Surely, a rarely seen Rembrandt would cost more than a more popular Rembrandt.

The question of Authorship is inevitably a question of value and meaning. It is a question

of where does the value reside? Surely, the labor of the artist are considered, but how much
labor does one needs to do to be valuated at 100 million dollars, like how Picasso’s Nude,
Green Leaves and Bust? Does this value adds to the meaning? Or is it the other way around: is
it valuated because of its meaning? If that’s the case, should all “meaningful” things cost the
same? Does this come from the “genius” and “individuality” of the author? Does this approach
towards individuality guarantees a fair valuation precisely based on such individuality? How
does evaluate individuality anyway?

ASSESSMENT/SUGGESTED STUDY GUIDE

Since the discussion above mostly revolve around visual art, for your assignment, respond to
one of the following questions:

• Looking at the issues of authorship in visual art, how do you think the issue plays out in
the other disciplines?
o For music?
o For dance?
o For performance?
• Cosidering the not-so contemporary condition of commissioning art work (paying an
artist to do an art at one’s direction), how do you think the issue of authorship plays out?
Who is the author of the commissioned work: the artist or the one who commissioned it?

7
See Hito Steyerl, “Duty Free Art” e-flux 63. <https://www.e-flux.com/journal/63/60894/duty-free-art/>
64
 REFERENCES

Art History Basix. “Ancient Greece: Classical Period,” YouTube video, 14:57. September 30,
2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7m6C1GWBhc

Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author” from Image, Music, Text: Essays. London: Fontana
Press, 1977.

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books, 1972.

Brand, Peggy Zeglin. Lord, Lewis and the institutional Theory of Art. The Journal of Aesthetics
and Art Criticism Vol. 40, no. 3 (1993).

Caroll, Noel. Philosophy of Art, A Contemporary Introduction. Routledge, Taylor & Francis
Group, London and New York, 2002.

Constantino Jr., Bienvenido B. Arts Across Time and Borders. Books Atbp. Publishing Corp.,
2014.

Esaak, Shelley. "The Most Important Functions of Art." ThoughtCo, Feb. 11, 2020,
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Guardian Culture. “What is art for? Alain de Botton’s animated guide | Art and design,” YouTube
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67

Content is the glimpse of something, an
encounter like a flash. It’s very tiny—very
tiny, content.
WILLIAM DE KOONING, in an
interview
It is only shallow people who do not judge
by appearances. The mystery of the world is
the visible, not the invisible.
OSCAR WILDE, in a letter
Against Interpretation
Susan Sontag
The earliest experience of art must have been that it was incantatory,
magical; art was an instrument of ritual. (Cf. the paintings in the caves at
Lascaux, Altamira, Niaux, La Pasiega, etc.) The earliest theory of art, that
of the Greek philosophers, proposed that art was mimesis, imitation of
reality.
It is at this point that the peculiar question of the value of art arose.
For the mimetic theory, by its very terms, challenges art to justify itself.
Plato, who proposed the theory, seems to have done so in order to
rule that the value of art is dubious. Since he considered ordinary material
things as themselves mimetic objects, imitations of transcendent forms or
structures, even the best painting of a bed would be only an “imitation of
an imitation.” For Plato, art was not particularly useful (the painting of a
bed is no good to sleep on nor, in the strict sense, true. And Aristotle’s
arguments in defense of art do not really challenge Plato’s view that all
art is an elaborate trompe l’oeil, and therefore a lie. But he does dispute
Plato’s idea that art is useless. Lie or no, art has a certain value according
to Aristotle because it is a form of therapy. Art is useful, after all, Aristotle
counters, medicinally useful in that it arouses and purges dangerous
emotions.
In Plato and Aristotle, the mimetic theory of art goes hand in hand
with the assumption that art is always figurative. But advocates of the
2
mimetic theory need not close their eyes to decorative and abstract art.
The fallacy that art is necessarily a “realism” can be modified or scrapped
without ever moving outside the problems delimited by the mimetic
theory.
The fact is, all Western consciousness of and reflection upon art have
remained within the confines staked out by the Greek theory of art as
mimesis or representation. It is through this theory that art as such—
above and beyond given works of art—becomes problematic, in need of
defense. And it is the defense of art which gives birth to the odd vision by
which something we have learned to call “form” is separated off from
something we have learned to call “content,” and to the well-intentioned
move which makes content essential and form accessory.
Even in modern times, when most artists and critics have discarded
the theory of art as representation of an outer reality in favor of the theory
of art as subjective expression, the main feature of the mimetic theory
persists. Whether we conceive of the work of art on the model of a picture
(art as a picture of reality) or on the model of a statement (art as the
statement of the artist), content still comes first. The content may have
changed. It may now be less figurative, less lucidly realistic. But it is still
assumed that a work of art is its content. Or, as it’s usually put today, that
a work of art by definition says something. (“What X is saying is…,”
“What X is trying to say is…,” “What X said is…” etc., etc.)
2
None of us can ever retrieve that innocence before all theory when art
knew no need to justify itself, when one did not ask of a work of art what
it said because one knew (or thought one knew) what it did. From now to
the end of consciousness, we are stuck with the task of defending art. We
can only quarrel with one or another means of defense. Indeed, we have
an obligation to overthrow any means of defending and justifying art
which becomes particularly obtuse or onerous or insensitive to
contemporary needs and practice.
This is the case, today, with the very idea of content itself. Whatever
it may have been in the past, the idea of content is today mainly a
hindrance, a nuisance, a subtle or not so subtle philistinism. Though the
actual developments in many arts may seem to be leading us away from
the idea that a work of art is primarily its content, the idea still exerts an
extraordinary hegemony. I want to suggest that this is because the idea is
now perpetuated in the guise of a certain way of encountering works of
art thoroughly ingrained among most people who take any of the arts
seriously. What the overemphasis on the idea of content entails is the
3 4
perennial, never consummated project of interpretation. And, conversely,
it is the habit of approaching works of art in order to interpret them that
sustains the fancy that there really is such a thing as the content of a work
of art.
3 appearances. The old style of interpretation was insistent, but respectful;
Of course, I don’t mean interpretation in the broadest sense, the sense in
which Nietzsche (rightly) says, “There are no facts, only interpretations.”
By interpretation, I mean here a conscious act of the mind which
illustrates a certain code, certain “rules” of interpretation. Directed to art,
interpretation means plucking a set of elements (the X, the Y, the Z, and
so forth) from the whole work. The task of interpretation is virtually one
of translation. The interpreter says, Look, don’t you see that X is really—
or, really means—A? That Y is really B? That Z is really C?
What situation could prompt this curious project for transforming a
text? History gives us the materials for an answer. Interpretation first
appears in the culture of late classical antiquity, when the power and
credibility of myth had been broken by the “realistic” view of the world
introduced by scientific enlightenment. Once the question that haunts
post-mythic consciousness—that of the seemliness of religious symbols—
had been asked, the ancient texts were, in their pristine form, no longer
acceptable. Then interpretation was summoned, to reconcile the ancient
texts to “modern” demands. Thus, the Stoics, to accord with their view
that the gods had to be moral, allegorized away the rude features of Zeus
and his boisterous clan in Homer’s epics. What Homer really designated
by the adultery of Zeus with Leto, they explained, was the union between
power and wisdom. In the same vein, Philo of Alexandria interpreted the
literal historical narratives of the Hebrew Bible as spiritual paradigms.
The story of the exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the desert for forty
years, and the entry into the promised land, said Philo, was really an
allegory of the individual soul’s emancipation, tribulations, and final
deliverance. Interpretation thus presupposes a discrepancy between the
clear meaning of the text and the demands of (later) readers. It seeks to
resolve that discrepancy. The situation is that for some reason a text has
become unacceptable; yet it cannot be discarded. Interpretation is a
radical strategy for conserving an old text, which is thought too precious
to repudiate, by revamping it. The interpreter, without actually erasing or
rewriting the text, is altering it. But he can’t admit to doing this. He claims
to be only making it intelligible, by disclosing its true meaning. However
far the interpreters alter the text (another notorious example is the
Rabbinic and Christian “spiritual” interpretations of the clearly erotic
Song of Songs), they must claim to be reading off a sense that is already
there.
Interpretation in our own time, however, is even more complex. For
the contemporary zeal for the project of interpretation is often prompted
not by piety toward the troublesome text (which may conceal an
aggression), but by an open aggressiveness, an overt contempt for
it erected another meaning on top of the literal one. The modern style of
interpretation excavates, and as it excavates, destroys; it digs “behind” the
text, to find a sub-text which is the true one. The most celebrated and
influential modern doctrines, those of Marx and Freud, actually amount
to elaborate systems of hermeneutics, aggressive and impious theories of
interpretation. All observable phenomena are bracketed, in Freud’s
phrase, as manifest content. This manifest content must be probed and
pushed aside to find the true meaning—the latent content beneath. For
Marx, social events like revolutions and wars; for Freud, the events of
individual lives (like neurotic symptoms and slips of the tongue) as well
as texts (like a dream or a work of art)—all are treated as occasions for
interpretation. According to Marx and Freud, these events only seem to
be intelligible. Actually, they have no meaning without interpretation. To
understand is to interpret. And to interpret is to restate the phenomenon,
in effect to find an equivalent for it.
Thus, interpretation is not (as most people assume) an absolute value,
a gesture of mind situated in some timeless realm of capabilities.
Interpretation must itself be evaluated, within a historical view of human
consciousness. In some cultural contexts, interpretation is a liberating act.
It is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping the dead past. In
other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly, stifling.
4
Today is such a time, when the project of interpretation is largely
reactionary, stifling. Like the fumes of the automobile and of heavy
industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of
interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities. In a culture whose
already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the
expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of
the intellect upon art.
Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To
interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world—in order to set up a
shadow world of “meanings.” It is to turn the world into this world.
(“This world”! As if there were any other.) The world, our world, is
5 6
depleted, impoverished enough. Away with all duplicates of it, until we
again experience more immediately what we have.
5 psychological melodrama now became intelligible: it was about
In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal
to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us
nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting
that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable,
comformable.
This philistinism of interpretation is more rife in literature than in any
other art. For decades now, literary critics have understood it to be their
task to translate the elements of the poem or play or novel or story into
something else. Sometimes a writer will be so uneasy before the naked
power of his art that he will install within the work itself—albeit with a
little shyness, a touch of the good taste of irony—the clear and explicit
interpretation of it. Thomas Mann is an example of such an
overcooperative author. In the case of more stubborn authors, the critic is
only too happy to perform the job.
The work of Kafka, for example, has been subjected to a mass
ravishment by no less than three armies of interpreters. Those who read
Kafka as a social allegory see case studies of the frustrations and insanity
of modern bureaucracy and its ultimate issuance in the totalitarian state.
Those who read Kafka as a psychoanalytic allegory see desperate
revelations of Kafka’s fear of his father, his castration anxieties, his sense
of his own impotence, his thralldom to his dreams. Those who read Kafka
as a religious allegory explain that K. in The Castle is trying to gain access
to heaven, that Joseph K. in The Trial is being judged by the inexorable
and mysterious justice of God…. Another oeuvre that has attracted
interpreters like leeches is that of Samuel Beckett. Beckett’s delicate
dramas of the withdrawn consciousness—pared down to essentials, cut
off, often represented as physically immobilized—are read as a statement
about modern man’s alienation from meaning or from God, or as an
allegory of psychopathology.
Proust, Joyce, Faulkner, Rilke, Lawrence, Gide…one could go on
citing author after author; the list is endless of those around whom thick
encrustations of interpretation have taken hold. But it should be noted
that interpretation is not simply the compliment that mediocrity pays to
genius. It is, indeed, the modern way of understanding something, and is
applied to works of every quality. Thus, in the notes that Elia Kazan
published on his production of A Streetcar Named Desire, it becomes clear
that, in order to direct the play, Kazan had to discover that Stanley
Kowalski represented the sensual and vengeful barbarism that was
engulfing our culture, while Blanche Du Bois was Western civilization,
poetry, delicate apparel, dim lighting, refined feelings and all, though a
little the worse for wear to be sure. Tennessee Williams’ forceful
something, about the decline of Western civilization. Apparently, were it
to go on being a play about a handsome brute named Stanley Kowalski
and a faded mangy belle named Blanche Du Bois, it would not be
manageable.
6
It doesn’t matter whether artists intend, or don’t intend, for their works to
be interpreted. Perhaps Tennessee Williams thinks Streetcar is about what
Kazan thinks it to be about. It may be that Cocteau in The Blood of a Poet
and in Orpheus wanted the elaborate readings which have been given
these films, in terms of Freudian symbolism and social critique. But the
merit of these works certainly lies elsewhere than in their “meanings.”
Indeed, it is precisely to the extent that Williams’ plays and Cocteau’s
films do suggest these portentous meanings that they are defective, false,
contrived, lacking in conviction.
From interviews, it appears that Resnais and Robbe-Grillet
consciously designed Last Year at Marienbad to accommodate a
multiplicity of equally plausible interpretations. But the temptation to
interpret Marienbad should be resisted. What matters in Marienbad is the
pure, untranslatable, sensuous immediacy of some of its images, and its
rigorous if narrow solutions to certain problems of cinematic form.
Again, Ingmar Bergman may have meant the tank rumbling down
the empty night street in The Silence as a phallic symbol. But if he did, it
was a foolish thought. (“Never trust the teller, trust the tale,” said
Lawrence.) Taken as a brute object, as an immediate sensory equivalent
for the mysterious abrupt armored happenings going on inside the hotel,
that sequence with the tank is the most striking moment in the film. Those
who reach for a Freudian interpretation of the tank are only expressing
their lack of response to what is there on the screen.
It is always the case that interpretation of this type indicates a
dissatisfaction (conscious or unconscious) with the work, a wish to
replace it by something else.
Interpretation, based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art
is composed of items of content, violates art. It makes art into an article
for use, for arrangement into a mental scheme of categories.
7 8
7 and still being good. For example, a few of the films of Bergman—though
Interpretation does not, of course, always prevail. In fact, a great deal of
today’s art may be understood as motivated by a flight from
interpretation. To avoid interpretation, art may become parody. Or it may
become abstract. Or it may become (“merely”) decorative. Or it may
become non-art.
The flight from interpretation seems particularly a feature of modern
painting. Abstract painting is the attempt to have, in the ordinary sense,
no content; since there is no content, there can be no interpretation. Pop
Art works by the opposite means to the same result; using a content so
blatant, so “what it is,” it, too, ends by being uninterpretable.
A great deal of modern poetry as well, starting from the great
experiments of French poetry (including the movement that is
misleadingly called Symbolism) to put silence into poems and to reinstate
the magic of the word, has escaped from the rough grip of interpretation.
The most recent revolution in contemporary taste in poetry—the
revolution that has deposed Eliot and elevated Pound—represents a
turning away from content in poetry in the old sense, an impatience with
what made modern poetry prey to the zeal of interpreters.
I am speaking mainly of the situation in America, of course.
Interpretation runs rampant here in those arts with a feeble and negligible
avant-garde: fiction and the drama. Most American novelists and
playwrights are really either journalists or gentlemen sociologists and
psychologists. They are writing the literary equivalent of program music.
And so rudimentary, uninspired, and stagnant has been the sense of what
might be done with form in fiction and drama that even when the content
isn’t simply information, news, it is still peculiarly visible, handier, more
exposed. To the extent that novels and plays (in America), unlike poetry
and painting and music, don’t reflect any interesting concern with
changes in their form, these arts remain prone to assault by interpretation.
But programmatic avant-gardism—which has meant, mostly,
experiments with form at the expense of content—is not the only defense
against the infestation of art by interpretations. At least, I hope not. For
this would be to commit art to being perpetually on the run. (It also
perpetuates the very distinction between form and content which is,
ultimately, an illusion.) Ideally, it is possible to elude the interpreters in
another way, by making works of art whose surface is so unified and
clean, whose momentum is so rapid, whose address is so direct that the
work can be…just what it is. Is this possible now? It does happen in films,
I believe. This is why cinema is the most alive, the most exciting, the most
important of all art forms right now. Perhaps the way one tells how alive
a particular art form is, is by the latitude it gives for making mistakes in it,
crammed with lame messages about the modern spirit, thereby inviting
interpretations—still triumph over the pretentious intentions of their
director. In Winter Light and The Silence, the beauty and visual
sophistication of the images subvert before our eyes the callow pseudo-
intellectuality of the story and some of the dialogue. (The most
remarkable instance of this sort of discrepancy is the work of D. W.
Griffith.) In good films, there is always a directness that entirely frees us
from the itch to interpret. Many old Hollywood films, like those of Cukor,
Walsh, Hawks, and countless other directors, have this liberating anti-
symbolic quality, no less than the best work of the new European
directors, like Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player and Jules and Jim, Godard’s
Breathless and Vivre Sa Vie, Antonioni’s L’Avventura, and Olmi’s The
Fiancés.
The fact that films have not been overrun by interpreters is in part
due simply to the newness of cinema as an art. It also owes to the happy
accident that films for such a long time were just movies; in other words,
that they were understood to be part of mass, as opposed to high, culture,
and were left alone by most people with minds. Then, too, there is always
something other than content in the cinema to grab hold of, for those who
want to analyze. For the cinema, unlike the novel, possesses a vocabulary
of forms—the explicit, complex, and discussable technology of camera
movements, cutting, and composition of the frame that goes into the
making of a film.
8
What kind of criticism, of commentary on the arts, is desirable today? For
I am not saying that works of art are ineffable, that they cannot be
described or paraphrased. They can be. The question is how. What would
criticism look like that would serve the work of art, not usurp its place?
What is needed, first, is more attention to form in art. If excessive
stress on content provokes the arrogance of interpretation, more extended
and more thorough descriptions of form would silence. What is needed is
a vocabulary—a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, vocabulary—for
forms.* The best criticism, and it is uncommon, is of this sort that
*
One of the difficulties is that our idea of form is spatial (the Greek metaphors for
form are all derived from notions of space). This is why we have a more ready
vocabulary of forms for the spatial than for the temporal arts. The exception among
the temporal arts, of course, is the drama; perhaps this is because the drama is a
narrative (i.e., temporal) form that extends itself visually and pictorially, upon a
stage…. What we don’t have yet is a poetics of the novel, any clear notion of the
9 10

dissolves considerations of content into those of form. On film, drama,
and painting respectively, I can think of Erwin Panofsky’s essay, “Style
and Medium in the Motion Pictures,” Northrop Frye’s essay “A
Conspectus of Dramatic Genres,” Pierre Francastel’s essay “The
Destruction of a Plastic Space.” Roland Barthes’ book On Racine and his
two essays on Robbe-Grillet are examples of formal analysis applied to
the work of a single author. (The best essays in Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis,
like “The Scar of Odysseus,” are also of this type.) An example of formal
analysis applied simultaneously to genre and author is Walter Benjamin’s
essay, “The Story Teller: Reflections on the Works of Nicolai Leskov.”
Equally valuable would be acts of criticism which would supply a
really accurate, sharp, loving description of the appearance of a work of
art. This seems even harder to do than formal analysis. Some of Manny
Farber’s film criticism, Dorothy Van Ghent’s essay “The Dickens World:
A View from Todgers’,” Randall Jarrell’s essay on Walt Whitman are
among the rare examples of what I mean. These are essays which reveal
the sensuous surface of art without mucking about in it.
sheer crowdedness-conjoin to dull our sensory faculties. And it is in the
light of the condition of our senses, our capacities (rather than those of
another age), that the task of the critic must be assessed.
What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see
more, to hear more, to feel more.
Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of
art, much less to squeeze more content out of the work than is already
there. Our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all.
The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of
art-and, by analogy, our own experience-more, rather than less, real to us.
The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it
is what it is, rather than to show what it means.
10
In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art.

[1964]
9

Transparence is the highest, most liberating value in art-and in criticism-

today. Transparence means experiencing the luminousness of the thing in
itself, of things being what they are. This is the greatness of, for example,
the films of Bresson and Ozu and Renoir’s The Rules of the Game.
Once upon a time (say, for Dante), it must have been a revolutionary
and creative move to design works of art so that they might be
experienced on several levels. Now it is not. It reinforces the principle of
redundancy that is the principal affliction of modem life.
Once upon a time (a time when high art was scarce), it must have
been a revolutionary and creative move to interpret works of art. Now it
is not. What we decidedly do not need now is further to assimilate Art
into Thought, or (worse yet) Art into Culture.
Interpretation takes the sensory experience of the work of art for
granted, and proceeds from there. This cannot be taken for granted, now.
Think of the sheer multiplication of works of art available to every one of
us, superadded to the conflicting tastes and odors and sights of the urban
environment that bombard our senses. Ours is a culture based on excess,
on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory
experience. All the conditions of modem life-its material plenitude, its

forms of narration. Perhaps film criticism will be the occasion of a breakthrough here,
since films are primarily a visual form, yet they are also a subdivision of literature.