Introductory Notes for ART APPRECIATION

Art appreciation refers to the pursuit of knowledge and

understanding of the universal and timeless qualities
characterizing works of art. The activity of “appreciation”
invokes understanding, criticism, analysis and synthesis of art
works based on the acknowledged elements of composition and
principles of design through which the study of art is greatly
enhanced.

The study of the arts significantly exposes students to the so

called “tradition of humanization” as it attempts:

• To provide students with a general perspective of art,

making them see and appreciate the arts from critically
informed perspectives;
• To introduce students to visual arts (painting,
architecture, sculpture), auditory arts (music and
literature), and performing arts/theatre arts (drama and
dance) through the study of the types, medium, basic
elements and principles of organization of each form;
• To familiarize APP students with some of the materials and
processes involved in the production of art;
• To aid in the analysis of the formal structure of various
works of art considering the historical period and cultural
framework in which they were produced;
• To promote the development of critical thinking in the
field of arts and in other academic areas which move in
consonance with the arts; and
• To develop among APP students an awareness of the current
times and associate them with their cultural heritage,
thereby integrating the past and present.

With the many disposition of the arts, we pose the question:

“Why study the arts?”

There is a need to examine the place of the arts, the humanities

in general, when juxtaposed to the sciences. Science believes
that it could procure everything that man needed or wanted.

Consider their methodologies:

Natural Sciences – empirical and they employ the scientific

method
Introductory Notes for ART APPRECIATION

Art appreciation refers to the pursuit of knowledge and

understanding of the universal and timeless qualities
characterizing works of art. The activity of “appreciation”
invokes understanding, criticism, analysis and synthesis of art
works based on the acknowledged elements of composition and
principles of design through which the study of art is greatly
enhanced.

The study of the arts significantly exposes students to the so

called “tradition of humanization” as it attempts:

• To provide students with a general perspective of art,

making them see and appreciate the arts from critically
informed perspectives;
• To introduce students to visual arts (painting,
architecture, sculpture), auditory arts (music and
literature), and performing arts/theatre arts (drama and
dance) through the study of the types, medium, basic
elements and principles of organization of each form;
• To familiarize APP students with some of the materials and
processes involved in the production of art;
• To aid in the analysis of the formal structure of various
works of art considering the historical period and cultural
framework in which they were produced;
• To promote the development of critical thinking in the
field of arts and in other academic areas which move in
consonance with the arts; and
• To develop among APP students an awareness of the current
times and associate them with their cultural heritage,
thereby integrating the past and present.

With the many disposition of the arts, we pose the question:

“Why study the arts?”

There is a need to examine the place of the arts, the humanities

in general, when juxtaposed to the sciences. Science believes
that it could procure everything that man needed or wanted.

Consider their methodologies:

Natural Sciences – empirical and they employ the scientific

method
Social Sciences / Commercial Sciences / Technical Sciences –
statistical and they employ surveys of large populations as well
as empirical evidence

Humanities (the study of the arts) – neither empirical nor

statistical. The only methods we enjoy in art appreciation are
intuition, feeling, opinion, judgment, debate and criticism

Generalization: The sciences capitalize on methods that are

objective and fixed. The humanities draw its strength from
subjectivity, which is should not be seen as a weakness for the
field, but rather a ground to be further exposed to the so
called “tradition of humanization” – a avenue for diversity,
plurality, peculiarity and individualism – the individual /
human person becomes the champion.

The Artist and His Work / Art as a Silent Historian and Witness
and a Humanizing Agent

• The arts can tell us about how men thought and felt in the
historical period which produced them
• The arts have seen the changing image of man as he journeys
across time, searches for the reality, and strives to
achieve the ideals that create life

Question: Why is art said to be the representation of the

individual genius of its creator?

One of the prominent definitions of art is that it is a record

of the particular vision of an artist. The artist has selected
something he has seen, felt, experience, and thought and has
recorded it in an arrangement of design, color, line, mass,
tones or words leading to the satisfaction of his aesthetic
purpose.

But the artist has also been influenced, consciously or

unconsciously, by other determining factor such as the
environment, traditions, national traits, religious beliefs,
economic condition, geography and climate.
Lecture Notes on the Function of Art

Every art form has a definite function since it satisfies a

particular need. To the layman, art may have little function.
Some find meaning in art in its ability to serve the purpose for
which it was designed. As an exemplification:

 Architecture is directly and almost entirely functional

because buildings and other structures are always built for
some special purpose.
 Music and dance were used in ancient rituals and worship of
the gods and for social and folk entertainment.
 Painting and sculpture may be used to narrate events, to
portray people or events, to instruct (as in the case of
Christian art), to commemorate individuals or historical
events and to serve as vehicles of personal expression.

Metal works such as gates, grills, lamps, Christian religious

objects, armor, weapons, tools, ceramics, glassware, stained
glass, mosaic, tilework, textile and furniture are among the
many types of crafts or arts. Each of these examples is made for
some definite and specific use:

1. Aesthetic Function – Through art, man becomes conscious of

the beauty of nature. He benefits from his own work and
from those done by his fellowmen. He learns to love, use
and preserve them for his enjoyment and satisfaction.
2. Utilitarian Function – Through art, man is provided with
shelter, clothing, food, light, medicine, beautiful
surroundings, personal ornamentals, entertainment,
transportation and other necessities of life.
3. Cultural Function – Through the printed matter, art
transmits and preserves skills and knowledge from one
generation to another. It makes man aware of his/her
cultural background making him more knowledgeable and life
more enduring and satisfying.
4. Social Function – Through civic and graphic arts, man
learns to love and help each other. International
understanding and cooperation are fostered and nations
become more unified, friendly, cooperative, helpful and
sympathetic.

The Scope/Classification of Art

There are many ways by which art can be classified:

There are two general dimensions of arts:

  Fine Arts or Independent Arts – made primarily for
aesthetic enjoyment through the senses especially visual
and auditory (music, painting, sculpture, architecture,
literature, dance and drama)
 Practical or Utilitarian Arts – includes the development of
raw materials for utilitarian purposes (industrial art,
household art, commercial art, agriculture art, business
art, graphic art)

Other Ways of Classifying Art:

 Graphic Arts – these include painting, drawing,

photography, graphic process (printing), commercial art
(designing of books, advertisements, signs, posters, and
other displays). For the graphic arts, portrayals of forms
and symbols are recorded on a two-dimensional surface.
 Plastic Arts – these include all fields of visual arts for
which materials are organized into three-dimensional forms
such as structural architecture, landscape architecture
(gardens, parks, playgrounds, golf course), city physical
planning and interior arranging (designing of wallpaper and
furniture)

Classifying Visual Arts

 Major Arts – these include painting, architecture,

sculpture, literature, music, dance, painting
 Minor Arts – these include decorative arts, popular arts,
graphic arts, plastic arts, and industrial arts.
 Performing Arts – theatre, play, dance, music
 Literary Arts – prose and poetry
 Popular Arts – film, newspaper, magazine, radio, television
 Decorative Arts – these include beautification of houses,
offices, cars and other structures
 Gustatory Art of the Cuisine – refers the art of cooking
(tasting, blending, mixing and plating)

Art according to purpose:

 Practical Arts – directed to produce artefacts and utensils

for the satisfaction of human need (ex.: basket and mat
weaving, embroidery, ceramics, iron, metal crafts, tin can
manufacturing)
  Liberal Arts – directed toward intellectual growth (ex.:
philosophy, psyschology, literature, mathematics, sciences)
 Fine Arts – focused towards creative activity for the
contemplation of the mind and upliftment of the spirit
(ex.: painting, sculpture and architecture)
 Major Arts – characterized by actual and potential
expressiveness such as music, poetry and sculpture
 Minor Arts – concerned with practical uses and purposes.

Art according to media and form:

 Plastic Arts – works which exist in a physical space and

perceived by the sense of sight
 Kinetic Arts – art with an element of rhythm and movement
(ex.: dance)
 Phonetic Arts – utilize sound and words as medium of
expression (ex.: music, drama and literature)
 Mixed Arts – they take more than one medium such as the
opera, for example, which combines music, poetry, drama and
movement.
Lecture Notes – 2-20-2019

The Problems and Issues in the Pursuit and Understanding of the Arts

Notional life is the life encouraged by governments, mass education and the mass media.
Each of those powerful agencies couples an assumption of its own importance with a
disregard for individuality. Freedom of choice is the catch phrase but streamlined
homogeneity is the objective. A people who think for themselves is hard to control and
what is worse, in a money culture, they may be sceptical of product advertising. Since
our economy is now a consumer economy, we must be credulous and passive. We must
believe that we want to earn money to buy things we don't need. The education system
is not designed to turn out thoughtful individualists; it is there to get us to work. When
we come home exhausted from the inanities of our jobs we can relax in front of the
inanities of the TV screen. This pattern, punctuated by birth, death, marriage, and a new
car, is offered to us as real life. Children who are born into a tired world as batteries of
new energy are plugged into the system as soon as possible and gradually drained away.
At the time when they become adult and conscious they are already depleted and
prepared to accept a world of shadows. Those who have kept their spirit find it hard to
nourish it and between the ages of twenty and thirty, many are successfully emptied of
all resistance. I do not think it an exaggeration to say that most of the energy of most of
the people is being diverted into a system which destroys them. Money is no antidote.

Money culture recognises no currency but its own. Whatever is not money, whatever is
not making money, is useless to it. The entire efforts of our government as directed
through our society are efforts towards making more and more money. This favours the
survival of the dullest. This favours those who prefer to live in a notional reality where
goods are worth more than time and where things are more important than ideas.

- From Jeanette Winterson’s essay titled “Imagination and Reality”

Essential Questions:

Q: Are you living the notional life?

A:Yes, because living the notional life means that you are surrounded with symbolic
realities.

Q: What do we mean by these symbolic realities?

A: Symbolic realities are the articles, items, paraphernalia that you can acquire because
of profit or money (example: latest model of the iphone or laptop, a car that you drive
on your own).

Q: Do we need these symbolic realities?

A: Yes, because these realities are what makes life convenient and easier to manage.

Q: Having read the excerpts from the essay of Winterson, what do you call the
economic system being upheld by the notional life?
A: As the notional life emphasizes the importance of money/profit, it is obvious that
this economic system is none other than the system of capitalism. Practically speaking,
we need profit in order to sustain life. People need to pay their utilities, students need
to study in order to land a job in the future. Everybody has a price according to Jessie J.
in the song “Price Tag”. The song speaks of capitalism at its finest.

Q: In the latest powerpoint that I gave you on the assumptions of art, look at the
pictures on slides 18 and 19. Ponder on why these photos serve as a problem in the
pursuit and understanding of the arts.
A: The photo on slide 18 shows the city life with remarkable labels. What can we say
about these labels? These are the actions/endeavours that render us as passive subjects.
Such labels make life routinary and formulaic. If it is routinary and people are already
used to living this kind of life, it is understandable that people will become submissive
to money culture and capitalist life. People will not be thinking subjects. People will just
be contented with the status quo. What is the status quo? The labels that we see in the
city life devoid of color and vibrancy. Why does this serve as a problem in the pursuit
and understanding of the arts? It is a concern because people are rendered as passive
subjects. Remember that the arts possess intellectual value, spiritual value,
suggestiveness and universality.

Q: Why does the photo in slide 19 serve as a problem in the pursuit and
understanding of the arts?
A: You see a wealthy man with tentacles. The things that he is grasping on each
tentacles are reflective of the things that he can control in life with money. What are
these?
- Power
- Resources
- Justice
- Warfare
- Agriculture
- Media
- Truth
- Labor

Q: From these images, what can we say about capitalism? What are the characteristics
central to capitalism?
A: Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of
production and their operation for profit. Here are the characteristics central to
capitalism:
 - Private property
- Capital accumulation
- Wage Labor
- Price System
- Competitive Markets
-
Capitalism is based around the accumulation of capital, whereby financial capital is
invested in order to make a profit and then reinvested into further production in a
continuous process of accumulation. Capital accumulation forms the basis of capitalism
where economic activity is structured around the accumulation of capital – defined as
an investment in order to realize a financial profit.

Q: From the excerpts, what is the very idea being emphasized by Winterson?
A: Money culture. Capitalist ideology, particularly the notion of money culture, is the
reason for our materialism/consumerism (if we have the means, we can acquire the
latest cellphones, laptop and automobiles); lack of spirituality (we recognize money as
the only currency); our mockery of art (we regard art as something that useless,
something that does not benefit man); and most importantly, our utilitarian attitude to
education (what is the reason why you are studying? Not all will answer “because I
really wanted to study”, “because I have this thirst for knowledge” – Majority will
answer “because I want to earn money, get a job and secure the future”) The reason for
all these problems is none other the capitalist ideology.

Q: Why does Winterson regard the arts as the antidote to money culture?
A: The arts go beyond money culture and is not just satisfied with the necessities given
by capitalism. Capitalism renders the people as passive subjects. We are greatly
dehumanized by the capitalistic world. We work 8 hours and sometimes with overtime
just to acquire profit. The more labor it costs to make a product, the more it is worth and
inversely, the less labor it costs to make a product, the less it is worth.

The arts appeal to our senses and it is one of the most powerful domains by which we
are remarkably “humanized.” Money culture makes us machines and unreceptive for
we only “obey”, “consume”, “sleep”, “work 8 hours”, “play 8 hours” (if we have the
means to do so) and “buy”(the labels that we see in photo on slide 18).

Q: Why study the arts amidst the intricacies of money culture?

A: Amidst the intricacies of money culture, art is the very avenue by which we become
human. We sing, dance, draw, speak our thoughts (spoken poetry for example) and we
create something all for the very reason that we want to express our innermost
thoughts, feelings and preoccupations. This is highlights the importance of the arts. We
will not be human without the arts. As humans endowed with faculty and intellect, we
are the thinking, feeling and performing subjects. Remember the cognitive, conative and
the performative domains of being human. The arts encompass all these domain of
being human. For example, when you listen to a music, the music appeals to your
cognitive skills as it provides with you an altitude of spirit leading you to experience a
difference state of mind and disposition. It then compels you to experience something.
It may uplift your spirit or it may upset your soul. It engages the “human” in you and
not just your financial profit (that is why you call it the “humanities”).

Amidst all the complexities of capitalism and money culture, art exposes passive and
unreceptive subjects to the so called of “tradition of humanizing.” This is the very
power of art that Winterson is highlighting in bringing up the concept of the “notional
life” and “money culture”

It is only in the arts/humanities where you can become a thinking (cognitive), feeling
(affective) and acting subject (conative).

Q: What is the role of art then in a consumer economy?

A: In slide 26, you will see that the artist is grounded on the notional life. The challenge
for the artist is to produce artworks/masterpieces that goes beyond reality. It must not
just be formulaic making the people passive subjects. For example in local films, when a
filmmaker makes a film about third party/infidelity, just by looking at the first scenes
of the film, we already know what is going to happen in the latter scenes because it is
already formulaic. The film already follows a kind of a template. It already weakens our
capacity to think destroying the suggestive, intellectual and artistic value of art. The
goal of producing such a film is to just make profit not mindful of the fact that artistic
values and ideologies are being sacrificed and destroyed. This is the challenge of
Winterson for the artist. The artist must go beyond the realities and the commonplace.
A great work of art must possess the power to harness the values and standards of
universality, artistry, intellectual values, suggestiveness, spiritual value, permanence
style in a world that is placed under the mercy of capitalism.

Art exposes us to the tradition of humanizing.

The Philosophical Perspectives on Art (Theories on Art)

Art as an Imitation
- According to Plato in his masterpiece The Republic, art is
imitation and artists are mere imitators. In his
description of the ideal republic, Plato advises against
the inclusion of art as a subject in the curriculum.
- In Plato’s view of reality, everything that we see in the
physical world is only a shadowy replica of the things that
are in the ideal world. This is further supported by Plato
in his allegory of the cave or humanity’s state of
enlightenment. People are chained inside the cave and they
only see the shadows inside which they believe are the true
forms of things.
- Plato was deeply suspicious of arts and artists for two
reasons: they appeal to the emotion rather than to the
rational faculty of men and they imitate rather than lead
one to reality.
- For Plato, art is dangerous because it provides a faulty
substitute for the real entities in the ideal world.
- When an artist creates something, for Plato, it is already
“twice removed from reality”---merely a copy of a copy.

Art as Mimesis or Representation

- Aristotle argued that art is representation and it is
considered as an aid to philosophy in revealing truth. This
kind of imitation is not antithetical to the reaching of
fundamental truths in the world.
- For Aristotle, the arts exist because it is an attempt to
represent what things might be
- All kinds of art (poetry, music, dance, painting and
sculpture) aim to represent reality and the myriad
possibilities of reality.
- We delight in imitation. Art gives us pleasure and
entertainment.

Art as Universal Objective Perception and Subjective Judgment of

Beauty
- The philosopher Immanuel Kant considered the judgment of
beauty, the cornerstone of art, as something that can be
universal despite its subjectivity. Kant mentioned that
judgment of beauty, and therefore, art, is innately
autonomous from specific interests. It is the form of art
that is adjudged by one who perceives art to be beautiful
or more so, sublime.
- For Kant, aesthetic judgment is a cognitive activity.
 - When one judges a painting as beautiful, one in effect is
saying that the said painting has induced a particular
feeling of satisfaction from. This is the subjective aspect
of the interpretation. What makes it objective is the fact
that our perception and the free play of our faculties
recognizes the beauty that is inherent in a work of art.
- When one looks at the Mona Lisa, for example, we have
various suppositions or interpretations concerning the
identity of the mysterious woman. Our interpretations are
subjective. The action of perception is objective. This is
made possible through the suggestive nature of art.

Art as Catharsis and Communication of Emotion

- Leo Tolstoy, in his book What is Art, he mentions that art
plays a huge role in communication to its audience’s
emotions that the artist previously experienced. Art then
serves as a language, a communication device that
articulates feelings and emotions that are otherwise
unavailable to the audience. In the same way that language
communicates information to other people, art communicates
emotions.
- In listening to music, in watching an opera, and in reading
poems, the audience is at the receiving end of the artist
communicating his feelings and emotions
Reader Response Theory
- Iconology is the interpretation of iconography. The subject
may simply be referred to as the “what” – what is readily
seen and related to the artwork, its inspiration and the many
kinds of translation. But apart from what is made explicit, to
recognize the meaning and message of the work, the viewer
may sometimes need to go beyond the visible.
- Reader response theory in art is explained as: Reader/Critic +
Text/Art = Meaning. There should be a special chemistry that
must be formed during the process of meaning making and
these can on three levels:
o Veritable Meaning – the rudimentary level of meaning
for it may be extracted from the recognizable forms in
the artwork and understanding how elements relate to
one another
o Orthodox Meaning – the acknowledged interpretation
of the artwork using motifs, symbols and other elements
as bases of meanings. These conventions are
established through time, strengthened by the recurrent
use and wide acceptance by viewers, audience and
scholars who study them.
o Impressionistic Meaning – the meanings that stem from
the viewer’s circumstances that come into play when
engaging with art. When looking at a particular painting,
perception and meaning are always informed by a
manifold of contexts:
▪ What we know
▪ What we learn
▪ What we experience
▪ The values that we stand for