INTRODUCTION TO HUMANITIES 1

MODULE 2

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 primevally 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 dehumanised 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.
Reflective Questions:

 Does art always have a function

 If artwork did not have any function, will it remain art?
 Which is more important, the artist or the artwork?
 What is communicated by a vase, a furniture, a church?
Traditional categories within the arts include literature (including poetry, drama, story, and so
on), the visual arts (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.), the graphic arts (painting, drawing,
design, and other forms expressed on flat surfaces), the plastic arts (sculpture, modeling), the
decorative arts (enamelwork, furniture design, mosaic, etc.), the performing arts (theatre,
dance, music), music (as composition), and architecture (often including interior design).
Technical and historical discussions of decorative arts and furnishings can be found in
basketry, enamelwork, floral decoration, furniture, glassware, interior design, lacquerwork,
metalwork, mosaic, pottery, rug and carpet, stained glass, and tapestry.

Input
Within art, there exist purposes referred to as functions for which a piece of art may be
designed, but no art can be "assigned" a function—either in scholarly studies or casual
conversation—outside of the proper context. Art forms exist within very specific contexts that
must be considered when classifying them. Whether a particular piece of art has existed for
centuries or has yet to be created, it is functional in some way—all art exists for a reason and
these reasons make up the functions of art.
 Ideally, one can look at a piece of art and guess with some accuracy where it came
from and when. This best-case scenario also includes identifying the artist because they are in
no small way part of the contextual equation. You might wonder, "What was the artist thinking
when they created this?" when you see a piece of art. You, the viewer, are the other half of this
equation; you might ask yourself how that same piece of art makes you feel as you look at it.
These- in addition to the time period, location of creation, cultural influences, and etc.—
are all factors that should be considered before trying to assign functions to art. Taking
anything out of context can lead to misunderstanding art and misinterpreting an artist's
intentions, which is never something you want to do.
Functions of Art
The functions of art normally fall into three categories: physical, social, and personal.
These categories can and often do overlap in any given piece of art. When you're ready to
start thinking about these functions, here's how:
1. Physical
The physical functions of art are often the easiest to understand. Works of art that are
created to perform some service have physical functions. If you see
a Fijian war club, you may assume that, however wonderful the
craftsmanship may be, it was created to perform the physical
function of smashing skulls.
A Japanese raku bowl is a piece of art that performs a
physical function in a tea ceremony. Conversely, a fur-covered
teacup from the Dada movement has no physical function.
Architecture, crafts such as welding and woodworking, interior
design, and industrial design are all types of art that serve physical
functions.

2. Social
Art has a social function when it addresses aspects of (collective)
life as opposed to one person's point of view or experience. Viewers
can often relate in some way to social art and are sometimes even
influenced by it.
For example, public art in 1930s Germany had an overwhelming
symbolic theme. Did this art exert influence on the German population?
Decidedly so, as did political and patriotic posters in Allied countries
during the same time. Political art, often designed to deliver a certain
message, always carries a social function. The fur-covered Dada
teacup, useless for holding tea, carried a social function in that it
protested World War I (and nearly everything else in life).
Art that depicts social conditions performs social functions and often this art comes in
the form of photography. The Realists figured this out early in the 19th century. American
photographer Dorothea Lange (1895 - 1965) along with many others often took pictures of
people in conditions that are difficult to see and think about.
 Additionally, satire performs social functions. Spanish painter Francisco Goya (1746 –
1828) and English portrait artist William Hogarth (1697 – 1764) both went this route with
varying degrees of success at motivating social change with their art. Sometimes the
possession of specific pieces of art in a community can elevate that community's status. A
stabile by American kinetic artist Alexander Calder (1898 – 1976), for example, can be a
community treasure and point of pride.
3. Personal
The personal functions of art are often the most difficult to explain.
There are many types of personal functions and these are highly
subjective. Personal functions of art are not likely to be the same from
person to person.
An artist may create a piece out of a need for self-expression or
gratification. They might also or instead want to communicate a thought
or point to the viewer. Sometimes an artist is only trying to provide an
aesthetic experience, both for self and viewers. A piece might be meant
to entertain, provoke thought, or even have no particular effect at all.
Personal function is vague for a reason. From artist to artist and viewer to viewer, one's
experience with art is different. Knowing the background and behaviors of an artist helps when
interpreting the personal function of their pieces.
Art may also serve the personal function of controlling its viewers, much like social art. It
can also perform religious service or acknowledgment. Art has been used to attempt to exert
magical control, change the seasons, and even acquire food. Some art brings order and
peace, some creates chaos. There is virtually no limit to how art can be used.
Finally, sometimes art is used to maintain a species. This can be seen in rituals of the
animal kingdom and in humans themselves. Biological functions obviously include fertility
symbols (in any culture), but there are many ways humans adorn their bodies with art in order
to be attractive to others and eventually mate.

Determining the Function of Art

The functions of art apply not only to the artist that created a piece but to you as the
viewer. Your whole experience and understanding of a piece should contribute to the function
you assign it, as well as everything you know about its context. Next time you are trying to
understand a piece of art, try to remember these four points:
1. context
2. personal,
3. social, and
4. physical functions.
Remember that some art serves only one function and some all three (perhaps even more).
 Philosophical Importance of Art

1. Integrity or Artistic integrity

Integrity or Artistic integrity is generally defined as the ability to omit
an acceptable level of opposing, disrupting, and corrupting values that
would otherwise alter an artist's or entities’ original vision in a manner
that violates their own preconceived aesthetic standards and personal
values. This does not necessitate that an artist needs to ignore external
influences in the creation process.
Soft Construction with Boiled Beans
(Premonition of Civil War)
Location: Philadelphia Museum of Art
What is artistic integrity:

 Always painting with passion

 Never copying but taking ideas and tweaking them to make them our own
 Being original, not normal
 Having the courage to take a chance
 Always remembering your artistic vision comes from your life, your thoughts, and your
courage
 Creating a painting because it comes from your soul and not for recognition or prizes
 Being willing to be scared....to create on the edge
 To continue creating when doubt in yourself appears
 Doing your very best each and every day

2. Proportion

Proportion refers to a the relative size of objects, a ratio between parts or entities
in some visual representation (most often visual, but proportion also applies in
music and other arts). Visually, proportion is most immediately relevant to so-called
“representational art” — say, painting — where it is important in rendering a
realistic or believable image of some object or scene with which we have some
familiarity - for example a portrait of human being, or a cityscape in Paris
Vitruvian
Man
Artist: Leonardo Da Vinci
3. Radiance
Radiance signifies the luminosity that emanates from a beautiful object,
which initially seizes the attention of the beholder. This trait is closely related to the
medieval notions concerning light. For example, in terms of natural light, there is a
sense in which the paintings in a gallery lose some of their beauty when the lights
are turned off because they are no longer being perceived.
St. Thomas Aquinas
 The Subject of Art

What is a Subject?

 To a majority of people, the appeal of most works of art lies in the representation of
familiar objects.
 Their enjoyment of painting, sculpture and literature comes not from their perception of
the meaning but from the satisfaction they get out of recognizing the subject or
understanding the narrative content.
 The subject of art refers to any person, object, scene or event described or represented
in a work of art.

1. Representational or Objective
 Arts that have subject (Painting, Sculpture, Graphic Arts, Literature and
Theatre Arts)

2. Non-Representational or Non-Objective

 Arts that do not have subject.

 Music, Architecture and many of the Functional Arts
 They do not present descriptions, stories, or references to
identifiable objects or symbols. Rather they, appeal directly to
the senses primarily because of the satisfying organization of
their sensuous and expressive elements.
o Many contemporary painters have turned away from representational to non-objective
painting. They have shifted their attention to the work of art as an object in itself, an
exciting combination of shapes and colors that fulfills an aesthetic need without having
to represent images or tell a story.
 Many modern paintings are like this making them more difficult to comprehend.

Sources of Subject

1. Nature
2. History
3. Greek and Roman Mythology
4. Judeo-Christian Tradition
5. Sacred Oriental Texts
6. Other Works of Art
 Kinds of Subject

1. Landscapes, Seascapes, and Cityscapes

 Artists have always been fascinated with their physical environment

 Favorite subject of Chinese and Japanese painter
 Fernando Amorsolo, is well known for having romanticized Philippine landscapes
 In Europe, the paintings of pure landscapes without human figures was almost unheard
of until the Renaissance. They only served as backgrounds prior to this.
 Modern painters seem to be attracted to scenes in cities. Vicente Manansala, Arturo
Luz and Mauro Malang Santos are some who have done Cityscapes

2. Still Life
 These are groups of inanimate objects arranged in an indoor setting (flower and fruit
arrangements, dishes food, pots and pans, musical instruments and music sheets). The
arrangement is like that to show particular human interests and activities.
 The still lifes of Chinese and Japanese painters usually show flowers, fruits and leaves
still in their natural setting, unplucked from the branches.
 Today, focus is on the exciting arrangement and combinations of the object’s shapes
and colors.

3. Animals

 They have been represented by artists from almost every age and place. In fact, the
earliest known paintings are representations of animals on the walls of caves.
 The carabao has been a favorite subject of Filipino artists.
 The Maranaws have an animal form of have an animal form of sarimanok as their as
their proudest prestige symbol.
 Animals have been used as symbols in conventional religious art.
 The dove stands for the Holy Spirit in representations of the Trinity
 The fish and lamb are symbols of Christ
 The phoenix is the symbol of Resurrection
 The peacock is the symbol of Immortality through Christ

4. Portraits

 People have always been intrigued by the human face as an index of the owner’s
character. As an instrument of expression, it is capable of showing a variety of moods
and feelings.
  It is a realistic likeness of a person in sculpture, painting, drawing or print but it need to
be a photographic likeness. A great portrait is a product of a selective process, the
artist highlighting certain features and de-emphasizing others.
 It does not have to be beautiful but it has to be truthful.
 Besides the face, other things are worth noticing in portraits are the subject’s hands,
which can be very expressive, his attire and accessories for it reveals much about the
subject’s time.
 Statues and busts of leaders and heroes were quite common among the Romans but it
was not until the Renaissance that portrait painting became popular in Europe.
 Many artists did self-portraits. Their own faces provided them unlimited opportunities for
character study.
5. Figures

 The sculptor’s chief subject has traditionally been the human body, nude or clothed. The
body’s form, structure and flexibility offer the artist a big challenge to depict it in a variety
of ways, ranging from the idealistic as in the classical Greek sculptures to the most
abstract.
 The grace and ideal proportions of the human form were captured in religious sculpture
by the ancient Greeks. To them, physical beauty was the symbol of moral and spiritual
perfection; thus they portrayed their gods and goddesses as possessing perfect human
shapes.
 Early Christian and medieval artists seldom represented the nude figure. The figures
they used to decorate the walls and entrances of their churches were distorted so as not
to call undue attention and distract people from their spiritual thoughts.
 But Renaissance artists reawakened an interest in the nude human figure.
 A favorite subject among painters is the female figure in the nude.

6. Everyday Life

 Artists have always shown a deep concern about life around them. Many of them have
recorded in paintings their observation of people going about their usual ways and
performing their usual tasks.
 Genre Paintings – representations of rice threshers, cockfighters, candle vendors, street
musicians and children at play.

7. History and Legend

 History consists of verifiable facts, legends of unverifiable ones, although many of them
are often accepted as true because tradition has held them so far. Insofar as ancient
past is concerned, it is difficult to tell how much of what we know now is history and
how much is legend.
  History and Legend are popular subjects of art.
 While many works may not be consciously done historical records, certain information
about history can be pieced from them. The costumes and accessories, the status
symbols, the kinds of dwellings or the means of transportation.
 Malakas and Maganda and Mariang Makiling are among the legendary subjects which
have been rendered in painting and sculpture by not a few Filipino artists.

8. Religion and Mythology

 Art has always been a handmaiden of Religion. Most of the world’s religions have used
the arts to aid in worship, to instruct, to inspire feelings of devotion and to impress and
convert non - believers.
 The Christian Church commissioned craftsmen to tell the stories about Christ and the
saints in pictures, usually in mosaics, murals and stained glass windows in churches. It
also resorted to the presentation of tableaux and plays to preach and teach.
 Some religions however, forbid the representation of divinity as human beings or animal
forms, although they allow the use of some signs or symbols in their place.
 Pictures of God, human beings, or animals are forbidden in Judaism and Islam
because people might worship the images themselves
 Other religions have taught that a god may sometimes assume human or other
visible forms.
o Thus he is distinguished from human beings by a halo, wing, or a darker
complexion, or by the use of some attributes
o The ancient Egyptians portrayed their gods as part human and part animal

» The ancient African tribes distorted their god’s features

» Among the Hindus, Shiva is shown as a four-armed god

» Buddha, is symbolized by his footprints, a wheel or a true

 In the early Christian world, representation of divinity were also symbolic. There were
precise conventions in rendering them. – The serpent has been used to mean evil
 The Four Evangelists were represented by animal forms:
 St Luke by an Ox
 St John by an Eagle
 St Mark by a Lion
 St Matthew by a Winged Man
9. Dreams and Fantasies

 Dreams are usually vague and illogical. Artists especially the surrealists have tried to
depict dreams as well as the grotesque terrors and apprehensions that lurk in the
depths of the subsconscious.
 A dream may be lifelike situation.
 Therefore, we would not know if an artwork is based on a dream unless the artist
explicitly mentions it.
 But if the picture suggests the strange, the irrational and the absurd, we can classify it
right away as a fantasy or dream although the artist may not have gotten from the idea
of a dream at all but the workings of his imagination.
 No limits can be imposed on an artist’s imagination.

Content in Art (Levels of Meaning)

1. Factual Meaning
 the literal statement or the narrative content in the work which can be directly
apprehended because the objects presented are easily recognized.
 the most rudimentary level of meaning for it may be extracted from the identifiable or
recognizable forms in the artwork and understanding how these elements relate to one
another.
2. Conventional Meaning
o refers to the special meaning that a certain object or color has a particular culture or
group of people. Examples: Flag- symbol of a nation, cross for Christianity, crescent
moon – Islam.
o pertains to the acknowledged interpretation of the artwork using motifs, signs, and
symbols and other cyphers as bases of its meaning.
o this conventions are established through time, strengthened by recurrent use and wide
acceptance by its viewers or audience and scholars who study them.
3. Subjective Meaning
o any personal meaning consciously or unconsciously conveyed by the artist using a
private symbolism which stems from his own association of certain objects, actions or
colors with past experiences.
o when subjectivities are consulted, a variety of meanings may arise when a particular
work of art is read.
o these meanings stem from the viewer’s or audience’s circumstances that come into play
when engaging with art (what we know, what we learn, what we experience; what
values we stand for).
o meaning may not be singular, rather, multiple and varied.