CHAPTER 5

The Mediums of Art

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of this topic/chapter, you must be able to:
1. Familiarize with the different mediums in all forms of art:
2. Identify the mediums and technique used by artist in used by the artist in the
artwork present in their locality:
3. Make use of the available medium in one’s surrounding to create art.

Definition

Many widely diverse objects go under the name of art. A song, a sonata, a
symphony, a statute, a skyscraper, a tapestry, a tragedy, an epic, a dance, a novel,
a lyric – all these and more are classified as art. The song, symphony, sonata, an
oratorio belong to the art of music; the cathedral, palace, and skyscraper are
examples of architecture; the poem, tragedy, epic and lyric are literature. The bases
for these classifications are, first of all, the way the artist has communicated an idea
to an audience – the medium. The word medium denotes the means by which an
artist communicates an idea. Art medium refers to the art materials or artist
supplies used to create a work of art. Basically, it's whatever artists use to make
a mark upon a surface. Medium is more essential to art than subject and function.
There is art without subject, and there is art without function, but there is no art
without medium. A work can only exist in some medium.

The Artist, Medium and Technique

An artist’s choice of the medium to employ is usually influence by such practical
consideration as:
a. The availability of material
b. The use to which the art object will be put
c. The idea to that he/ she wants to communicate and
d. The nature and special characteristics of the medium itself.

The Artist and the Technique

A good artist makes the medium for him/ her to produce effects that cannot
be possibly attained in any other means. Technique refers to the artist’s knowledge
of the medium and the skill in making it to achieve what he/ she wants to.

The Distinctive Character of Mediums

1. Each medium determines the way it can be worked and turned into a work of
art.
2. The medium also determines what can be expressed through it.
3. Each medium has its own range of characteristics which determine the physical
appearance of the finished product.
4. Each medium has intellectual limitations as well as potentials.
Classification of arts According to Medium
The following are the classification of arts according to medium.

Painting and the Related Arts

Painting is the process of applying pigments on a smooth surface – paper,

cloth, canvas, wood or plaster – to secure an interesting arrangement of forms, lines
and colors.
The following are the mediums in painting:
a. Encaustic – one of the earliest mediums is the application of a mixture of
hot beeswax resin and ground pigment to any porous surface, followed by
application of heat to set the colors and bind them to the ground.
b. Tempera – paints that are made of earth or material pigments mixed with
egg yolk and egg white.
c. Fresco – the application of earth pigments mixed water on plaster wall
while the plaster is still damp so the color sinks into the surface and
becomes an integral part of the wall.
d. Watercolor – tempered paint made of pure ground pigment bound with
gum Arabic Painters apply damp so that the color in thin, almost
transparent films.
e. Oil – pigments ground on linseed oil is applied primed canvas.
f. Acrylic – synthetic paints using acrylic polymer emulsions as binder are
the newest mediums and the ones that are widely used by the painter
today. It is a combination of transparency and quick- drying
characteristics of watercolor and the flexibility of oil.

The following are related to painting:

a. Mosiac – are wall or floor decoration made of small cubes or regular cut
pieces of colored stones or glass called tesserae.
b. Stained Glass – is the use of translucent glass colored by mixing metallic
oxides into molten glass or by fixing them onto the surface of the clear
glass.
c. Tapestry – are fabrics into which colored have been woven.
d. Drawings – most fundamental of all skills needed in the arts.
e. Printmaking – the process duplicating a graphic image to make many
faithful copies of it.
 f. Relief Printing – this involves cutting away from a block of wood or linoleum
the portions of the design that the artist does not want to show, leaving the
design to stand out on the block.
g. Intaglio Printing – are exactly the opposite of those of the relief printing.
The design is scratched, engraved or etched on a metal plate.
h. Planographic Process – also called the surface printing is done from an
almost smooth surface which has been treated chemically or mechanically
so that some areas will print and the others will not.
i. Stencil Process – done by cutting designs out of special paper, cardboard,
or metal sheet in such a way that when ink is rubbed over it, the design is
reproduced on the surface beneath.
j. Photography – literary mean drawing or writing with light.

Sculpture

A work in sculpture is a three-dimensional form constructed to represent a

natural or imaginary shape. It can be free-standing, cared in relief or kinetic.
The following are the mediums in sculpture:
a. Stone – the media most commonly used for sculpture because of its
durability, resistance to the elements of fire, water and the other hazards.
b. Wood – it is lighter and the softer to work with than stone.
c. Ivory – come from tusks of elephants and wild boars but intrinsically
beautiful and easy to carve into intricate designs.
d. Metals – possesses 3 unique qualities: tensile strength, ductility and
malleability.
e. Plaster – finely ground gypsum or burned limestone that when mixed with
water forms a solid material with new qualities of workability.
f. Clay – moistened to a putty-like plasticity, it is kneaded and coaxed into
form by the sculptor’s bare hands.
g. Glass – it can also be used to make beautiful but very fragile sculptures
with the use of glassblowing.
h. Plastics – one of the human’s most successful inventions in the search for
new materials to meet the construction and designing needs in plastics.
i. Luminal Sculpture – the newest materials for sculpture are electronic
devices that make the beams of light travel in patterns or just remain in
place to subtly light up a sculptural form.
 Architecture and the Related Arts

Architecture is the art designing and constructing a building which will serve a
definite function, ranging from providing the simplest shelter to meeting the
technological demands of our modern cities.
Most architectures use material like wood, stones, steel and concrete. They have
relative durability and high tensile and compression strength. The usefulness and
beauty of a building are directly related to the choice and handling materials
employed in the construction principle to be employed. They are used in assembling
architectural styles like the following:
a. Post-and-lintel – the oldest construction systems, which makes use of
two vertical supports (posts) spanned by a horizontal beam (lintel). Most
of our houses are built on this principle.
b. The arch – consists of separate pieces of wedge-shaped blocks, called
voussoirs, arranged in semicircle.
c. The truss – a system of triangular forms assembles into a rigid
framework and functioning like a beam or lintel.
d. Skeleton Construction – employs reinforced steel and concrete.
e. The cantilever – makes use of beam or slab extending horizontally into
space beyond its supporting post, yet strong enough to support walls
and floors.

Related to architecture are:

a. Interior design – concerned with the selection of space and furnishings to

transform an empty shell of a building into livable area.

b. Landscaping – the artificial arrangement of the outdoor areas to achieve a

purely aesthetic effect.

Mediums of Music
The material of the music is the sound. Musical sounds – tones – are produced
by artificial instruments and by the human voice. Thus we have two musical
mediums: the instrumental and the vocal mediums.

1. Musical Instruments – have three things common: a part which vibrates,

a apart which amplifies the sound by bouncing off the vibrations away from
which the instrument, and a system for producing and regulating fixed
pitches.
a. The Stringed/ Bowed Instruments – these instruments have hollow sound
box across which nylon, wire, or gut strings are stretched. These strings
are made to vibrate by means of a horsehair bow which is rubbed over
 them. Violin, viola, violoncello (cello) and the double bass consists of the
string choir.
b. The Wind/ Blown Instruments
1. The Woodwinds – they are found behind the string choir in an
orchestra. They are sounded by blowing into them, thus setting a
column of vibrating. The instruments of the woodwind family consist
of tubes, usually made of wood, which have holes on the side.
Examples of these are the flute, piccolo, clarinet, English horn,
bassoon and contrabassoon and saxophone.

2. The Brass Instruments – all of brass instrument consist of cylindrical

brass tube of varying length. This tube is either doubled on itself or
coiled (for easy handling) and expands into a bell-shaped end. The
trumpet, horn, trombone, tube, and bugle belong to this group of
instruments.
c. The Percussion/ Struck Instruments – the complete set of percussion
includes any instrument that is sound by striking, shaking, or scratching
with the hands or with another object. These instruments are used to
emphasize the rhythm, generate excitement and enliven the orchestral
sound.
• The kettledrum or tympani, chimes, glockenspiel, xylophones and
vibraphone are percussion instruments which are able to produce
different tones with definite pitches.
• The bass drum, the snare or side drum, the tambourine, the
castanets, the cymbals, the woodblock, the maracas, and the
Chinese gong on the other hand, are those which have indefinite
pitch.
d. The Keyboards – instruments equipped with keyboard occasionally play
with the symphony orchestra. Instruments that are belong to this group
are the piano, the harpsichord, the celesta and the organ.
Instruments Groups – musical instruments are played either singly or in a group
of various sizes.
a) Orchestra – a big gathering of instrumentalist having the string section is
its nucleus. It is usually composed of four choirs: strings, woodwinds,
brasses and percussion.
b) Band – smaller in a size; composed mostly of wind and percussion
instruments with only a few strings or none at all.
c) Rondalla – best known Philippine instrumental grouping today; a band
made up of mostly stringed instruments.

The Conductor – the person entrusted with the tremendous task of controlling
 some one hundred player at a time and keeping the members playing together
harmoniously.

2. The Human Voice – humans are equipped with this most wonderful
musical instrument. It is rather like a wind instrument.

Classification of Human Voices According to Range:

a. Soprano – high-pitched female voice

b. Alto – low-pitched female voice
c. Tenor – high-pitched male voice
d. Bass – low-pitched male voice
e. Mezzo-soprano – a voice combining at the attributes of both the soprano
and the alto
f. Baritone – voice lying between the tenor and the bass

The Mediums of the Literature and the Combined Arts

1. Literature – the medium for this kind of art is language; that is the
writer uses words with which to “build” the composition of the same
manner that the builder uses bricks, stones or wood to construct an
edifice. These words are not used singly, however, but in combination
with other words and arrange according to certain patterns or
structures to suggest images and feelings.

2. Combined arts – the mediums in this category may vary depending

on the needs of the particular art form. Dances for example may
require body movements while theatrical productions, such as the
drama and opera, combine several mediums such as gestures, music
and spoken language, props, etc.