MODULE 3

FUNCTIONS AND PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE ON ART

Objectives:

By the end of this lesson, the students should be able to:

1. Distinguish between directly functional and indirectly functional art.

2. Explain and discuss the basic philosophical perspectives on the art.
3. Realize the function of some art forms in daily life.
4. Apply concepts and theories on beauty and aesthetics in real life scenarios.

Activity:

Based on your experience after seeing / visiting a school or city museum, use the table
below in listing down the artworks that you seen or witnessed. On the second column, identify
what is it for or its function.

Artwork What is it for?

INTRODUCTION

The Greek philosopher Aristotle claimed that every particular substance in the world has
an end, or telos in Greek, which translate into “purpose”. Every substance, defined as a formed
matter, moves according to a fixed path toward its aim. A seed is bound to become a full-grown
plant, a baby will eventually turn into a grown man or woman.
This telos according to Aristotle, is intricately linked with function. For a thing to reach its
purpose, it also has to fulfill its function. Man, in Aristotle’s view of reality, is bound to achieve a
life of fulfillment and happiness, or in Greek, eudaimonia. All men move toward this final end.
However, happiness, the supposed end of man, is linked with his function, which is being rational.
One can only be happy when he is rational. This means that plants can never be happy because
they are not rational.
Moreover, the telos and function of a thing are both related to thing’s identity. What
makes a table a table is the fact that it does perform its function are thereby reaching the telos.
If a table does not have a surface on which we can put on our books or plates and glasses, then
it ceases to be a table. Same goes for human being. What makes a human being a human being,
is his capacity for thinking, his supposed function. Without this function, the human being ceases
to be a human being. The telos, the function and the “whatness” of a ting are all interconnected.

Functions of Art

When one speaks of function, one is practically talking about the use of the object whose
function is in question. An inquiry on the function of art is an inquiry on what art is for. Suppose
one asks, what is the Rizal monument for? Why was it erected in Rizal’s Park? Is it for pure
sentimental value? The inquirer is hoping to get the function of the piece of art in Rizal’s Park. Is
highly functional
Some art forms are more functional than others. Architecture, for example, as an art is
highly functional just like most applied arts. Buildings are made for specific purpose. On the other
hand, jewelry making as an art is known by its product. The name of the art in these applied arts
is basically denoted by its specified function. Other examples are paintings, poems, and statues.
When one examines and thinks of a painting or a work of literature such as a poem or a
novel, one looks at the value of the art in itself and not because of what it can do and benefit us.
Unlike practical arts where the value of the art (pottery, jewelry-making, architecture) in question
lies in the practical benefits one can gain from it. With painting and literature, one can only look
at the value of the product of art and for itself.
Definitely, it is not to say that paintings and literary works can never have any function. Noli
Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo served as a catechist for Filipino revolutionaries to gather
strength in rejecting the oppressive forces of the Spaniards in the Philippines in the nineteenth
century. They are functional “in so far as they are designed to accomplish some definite end”.

The Three Functions of Art

Personal Function of Art (Public display or Expression)

The personal functions of art are varied and highly subjective. Its function depends on the
person – the artist who created the art out of the need for self-expression, mere entertainment
for his intended audience or may also be therapeutic. Often, the artist may not even intend to
mean anything with his work.
Art may also be therapeutic. In some orphanage and home for abandoned elderly, art is
used top help residents to process their emotions or while away their time. Adult coloring books
are use for de-stressing.

Social Functions of Art

Art is considered to have a social function if and when it addresses a particular collective
interest as opposed to a personal interest. Political art is a very common example an art with a
social function. Art may convey a message os protest, co0ntestation, or whatever message the
artist intends his work to carry. Picture of poverty may carry emotional overtones that may solicit
action or awareness from their audience.

Physical Functions of Art

The physical functions of art can be found in artworks that are crafted in order to serve
some physical purpose. A Japanese raku bowl that serves a physical function in a tea ceremony
is an example. Architecture, jewelry- making, and interior designs are all forms of art that have
physical function.

Other Functions of Art

Music as an art is also interesting to talk about in relation to function. Music was used for
dance and religion. Today, one can listen to music for the sake of music’s sake unlike before when
it was used to facilitate worship. Music also is essential to dance since it assures synchronicity
and guarantees that marches , in the case of warriors, are simultaneous. There is now a lot of
music that has no connection whatsoever to dance and religion. Serenade is one example. As art,
music has gone a long way.

Sculpture, on the other hand, is another functional artform that has long existed for various
purposes. People erect statues for the divine and for religious purposes remained vital, relevant
, and symbolic. They are also made to commemorate important figures in history such as Jose
Rizal’s monument and Andres Bonifacio’s Monumento in Caloocan. Coins are also manifestations
of sculpting’s function.

Architecture might be the most prominent functional art form. Unlike other forms of art
unlike pots, furniture, poetry, or even painting, building take so much time to erect and destroy.
It is also in architecture where one can find the intimate connection of function and form. In the
Philippines, climate is a huge factor in building a house. Spanish colonial houses were designed
to allow for air to circulate inside the house. Large windows were staples the. Capiz shells were
also utilized to allow for light to enter the house even if the windows were closed.

A functional object cannot be claimed to be beautiful unless it can perform its function
sufficiently. Consider a house that cannot protect its residents from the nasty weather outside
or a spoon that spills the food on it. Adequate performance of function partly determines the
beauty of a design in these functional art forms.

Philosophical Perspective on Art

Art as an Imitation

Plato in his masterpiece, The Republic, particularly paints a picture of artist aqs imitators and
art as mere imitat5ion. Plato advise against the inclusion of art as a subject in the curriculum and
the banning of artists in the Republic. In Plato’s metaphysics or view of reality, the things in this
world are only copies of the original, the eternal, and the true entities that can only be found in
the World of Forms.
For example, the chair that one sits on uis not real chair. It is an imperfect copy of the perfect
“chair” in the World of Forms. Much is true for “beauty” in this world. When one ascribes beauty
to another person, he refers to an imperfect beauty that participates only in the form of beauty
in the World of Forms.
According to Plato, Petry as art, rouses emotions and feelings and thus, clouds the rationality
of people. Poetry has a capacity to sway minds without taking into consideration the use of
proper reason. For Plato, art is dangerous because it provides a petty replacement for the real
entities that can only be attained through reason.

Art as a Representation

Aristotle, Plato’s most important student in philosophy agreed with his teacher that art is a
form of imitation. However, in contrast to the disgust that his master holds for art, Aristotle
considered art as an aid to philosophy in revealing truth. The kind of imitation that art does is not
antithetical to the reaching of fundamental truths in the world. All kinds of art. Including poetry,
music, dance, painting, and sculpture do not aim to represent reality as it is. What art endeavors
to do is to provide vision of what might be or the myriad possibilities in reality. Unlike Plato who
thought that art is an imitation of another imitation, Aristotle conceived of art as representing
possible versions of reality.
Aristotle viewed art to serve two particular purposes. 1. Art allows for the experience of
pleasure. Example: a horrible experience can be made an object of humor in a comedy. 2. Art
also has an ability to be instructive and teach its audience things about life, thus , it is cognitive
as well.

Art as a Disinterested Judgment

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. Therefore, even aesthetic judgment
for Kant is a cognitive activity.
For Kant, when one judges a particular painting as beautiful, one in effect is saying that the
said painting has induced a particular feeling of satisfaction from him and that he expects the
painting to rouse the same feeling from anyone. For Kant, every human being, after perception
and the free play of his faculties should recognize the beauty that is inherent in a work of art. So
when the same person says that something is beautiful, he does not just believe that the thing is
beautiful for him, but in a sense, expects that the same thing should put everyone in awe.

Art as Communication of Emotion

Tolstoy, in his book, What is Art (2016), defended the production of the sometimes truly
extravagant art, like operas, despite extreme poverty in the world. For him. Art plays a huge role
in communication n to its audience’s emotions that the artist previously experienced. Art then
serves as language, a communication device that articulates feelings and emotions that are
otherwise unavailable to the audience. Language communicates information to other people, art
communicate 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.
Thus, even at present, one can commune with early Cambodians and their struggles by
visiting the Angkor Wat or can definitely feel for the early royalties of different Korean dynasties
by watching Korean dramas. Art is what allows for these possibilities.

Note: Topics presented are excerpts from the book “Art Appreciation” by Bernardo Nicolas Caslib
Jr., Dorothea C. Garing, and Jezreel Anne R. Casaul.

WORKSHEET NO. 3
Answer the following questions as precisely yet as thoroughly as possible.

1. What artform/artwork has changed something in your life? Why? Account for the
experience.

2. Does art always have a function? Support your response and provide your own example.\

3. If an artwork ceased to have a function, will it remain an art? Why?

 MODULE 4

SUBJECT AND CONTENT

Objectives:

By the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

1. Differentiate representational art and non-representational art.

2. Discuss the difference between an artwork’s subject and its content.
3. Identify the subject matter and content of specific examples art.
4. Enumerate the sources of the subjects of some of the most recognizable works of art in
Philippine art history.

Activity:
Look for the painting entitled “Spolarium” by Juan Luna. List down everything that you
see within the four corners of the work. List as many as you can. Based on your findings, write
an assumption about what the painting means.

INTRODUCTION

One of the major hurdles that spoils an individual’s engagement with an artwork is the
notion that in order to appreciate it, one must be able to extract a specific image, isolate the
artist or maker’s intention and unearth a particular meaning. Failure to do so automatically
implies a failure of comprehension and therefore, failure of the experience.
The primary stage of engaging with art is its perception. For most art forms, the beginning
of engagement is through looking at the artwork. However, like any tool, it is but one component.
What makes the difference is the awareness in the process of looking subjectivity is essential in
navigating through the artwork. Subjectivity is illustrated in the way that selective perception
renders one or two details more prominent than others, prompting the viewer to focus on some
details as essential or standout. His education, background, and his exposure to varying contexts
contribute to what information is taken in and how they are interpreted.
There are clues that mediate between the artwork and the viewer. These clues are the
basic components of a work of art. Subject refers to visual focus or the image that may be
extracted from examining the artwork. Content is the meaning that is communicated by the artist
or the artwork. Form is how the elements and the medium or material are put together. In
simpler terms, the subject seen as the “what”; the content is the “why”; and the form is the
“how”.

Types of Subject

Portraits such as the “Mona Lisa” are good examples of what is called representational art.
These types of art have subjects that refer to objects or events occurring in the real world. Often,
it is also termed figurative art, because as the name suggests, the figures depicted are easy to
make out or decipher. It is clear that the painting is of a woman that is realistically-proportioned;
only the upper torso is shown; a beguiling and mysterious smile is flashed; and that the
background is a landscape – probably a view from a window. Leonardo da Vinci alternates
between applying dabs of paint on the canvas and looking at the sitter in order to capture her
features for the portrait.

The works of Jackson Pollock, who is known for his “action paintings,” are often subjected
to these remarks of a painting that has nothing in it but continuous drips of paint or splotches of
colors. Using large scale canvasses that were usually laid out on the floor or resting on a wall,
Pollock tilted his paint can and allowed paint to drip. Assisting it with movement, he used other
implements such as hardened brushes, knives, sticks and trowels to add detail, texture, and
dimension to his paintings. There were no clear figures that jot out from the canvas; there were
only drips and splashes. This kind of work can be subsumed under the category of non-
representational art. It is also often termed non-figurative art. No n-representational art does
not make a reference to the real world, whether it is a person, place, thing, or even a particular
event. It is stripped down to visual elements such as shapes, lines, and colors that are employed
to translate a particular feeling, emotion, and even concept.

It is in this light that representational works are often favored because they are easier to
recognize. However, it is not simply an issue of assumed preference; rather, it cuts across matters
relating to prevailing themes, norms, and practices of specific historical moments.

Non-representational Art and Abstract Art

 One source of confusion is the notion that non-representational art is the same as abstract
art. This is essential to discuss because it introduces the fact that representational art and non-
representational art is not a clear-cut divide; rather, they exist in a spectrum. An abstract work
of Pablo Picasso is a great example to illustrate this. Even with the abstraction of the image, his
work is arguably representational.
As a guide, an artwork, depending on the degree of distortion or abstraction m may be judged as
leaning more toward one over the other. Abstract art is in itself a departure from reality, but the
extent of that departure determines whether it has reached the end of the spectrum, which is
non-representationality - a complete severance from the world.

A proponent of non-representational art was Russian artist Vasily Kandinsky. Although his
chosen art form was paintings, he likened non-representational art to music, art form that he
was also very keen to. He alludes to the sounds and spiritual experiences that music makes
possible in his paintings. It is therefore not surprising that a lot of his paintings are inspired by
music and are titled as impression, improvisation, and composition.

Sources and Kinds of Subject

In discussing the sources and kinds of subjects in artworks, a good starting point is of course, the
nature

There is nothing more rudimentary than human interaction with the physical world around
the earth. Artist throughout history have explored diverse ways of representing nature: from
plants to animals; the qualities of bodies of water and the terrain of landmasses; and even the
perceivable cycles and changing of seasons. Often, these depictions are seen as expressions of
the sacred or the profane, sired by reality or supplemented by the artist’s imagination. One artist
who was attuned with nature was Vincent van Gogh. He saw art and nature as inseparable, often
finding solace and happiness in painting in it (working in the middle of unspoiled fields) and
painting from it (landscapes). In a letter to his brother Theo, he wrote”…if I felt no love for nature
and my work, then I would be unhappy.”

Other artists to be considered are Monet, Camille Pissarro, Paul Cezanne, and JMW Turner.
In the Philippines, National Artist for Painting Fernando Amorsolo and Fabian de la Rosa gained
prominence from their painted rural scenes such as women in the fields gathering harvest.

Another point to consider as a source is Literature. Greek and Roman mythology were also
ripe with references: from episodes that transport the viewers to heroic encounters of Achilles
and Aeneas; warnings about man’s folly like the vanity of Icarus; the wit and cunning of Odysseus
; the beauty of Aphrodite and the athleticism of Myron. From narrations in literature, artists on
the other hand, gave faces to the Greek and Roman deities or the gods and goddesses whose
fates are seemingly as tragic as those of men. Some of the art forms they took on were wall
paintings or frescos and sculptural works such as busts, statuaries, and ceramics and pottery,
among others.

Religion and belief as source of subject is an integral aspect of human life in the distinct
relationship with a higher controlling power. If the belief system of the Greeks and Romans was
polytheism with a multitude of gods and goddesses, the Judeo-Christian tradition stems from a
belief in a lone creator of the universe or what is called monotheism. This tradition had an
immense influence in western civilization especially in art. Guided by host of styles and
techniques, various media and art forms were also experimented with: paintings, frescos, church
architecture (plan of the space, stained glass windows, tabernacles, and altars) icons , and other
carvings, vestments, tapestry, illuminated manuscripts, and other sacred scriptures among
others. Commissioned by Pope Julius II, the intricate fresco that lines the Sistine Chapel was
created by Michelangelo from 1508 to 1512.
Gothic churches were characterized by three things: soaring heights(ceilings),
volume(flying buttresses and ribbed vaults), and light (stained glass windows, airy and pleasant
interiors) perceiving the majesty and power of God. And all of which happened during the time
when religion was at the heart of everyday life and echoes the belief that “art was central to
religious experience.”

Another point to consider as a source is History and significant events. Historically significant
events particularly in the affairs of humanity are abundant references for art production from
the discovery of fire and the overthrow of geocentric theory in favor of a sun-centered universe,
succeeding advancement brought about by discovery, innovations], and man’s incessant search
for glory plotted a dynamic course of history.
History, as a source for artist in search of subjects, brings into consideration events that are
familiar and sometimes even common or shared in world context: the establishment of nations
and states (discovery, conquest , and colonization), resulting ideologies that they breed
(democracy, liberty, freedom ,and rights), documentary and commemorative artwork( important
leaders and figures).
During the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines, art was predominantly
representational. During the first century of their dominance, art came as an aid for
communication – a means of propagating religion to locals who spoke a different language. Visual
arts from paintings to early sculptures such as santos and other votive figures and icons, were
created to assist Catholic ministry. Of interest was the increase in demand for commissioned
portraits (of an individual or an entire family) from these wealthy ilustrados families to document
themselves in the light of their elevated status. Here, it is evident how during the Spanoish
colonial period, the subjects of artworks, even the manner in which they are translated were
mostly dictated by the patrons who commissioned them for religious and secular arts.
Content in Art

The subject may simply be referred to as the “what” – what is readily seen and relate to the
artwork, its inspiration, and the many kinds of translation. But apart from what is made explicit,
to recognize and grasp, the viewer may sometimes need to go beyond what is visible. Why was
the artwork created in the first place? When this question is asked, we are after the meaning or
message that is expressed or communicated by the artwork.

In understanding the content of art , there are various levels of meaning. The most
common is what we call factual meaning. This pertains to the most rudimentary level of meaning
for it may be extracted from the identifiable or recognizable forms in the art work and
understanding how these elements relate to one another. Conventional meaning on the other
hand, pertains to the acknowledged interpretation of the artwork using motifs, signs, symbols,
and other cyphers as bases of its meaning.

When looking at a particular painting for example, perception and meaning are always
informed (and even colored) by a manifold of contexts: what we know; what we learned; what
we experienced; and the values we stand for it. It is therefore expected that the meaning may
not be singular; rather, a painting may communicate multiple meanings to its many viewers. This
is what we call subjective meaning of art. Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” can be read using
various levels of meaning previously discussed. (Present the “Creation of Adam” for discussion)

Note: Topics presented are excerpts from the book “Art Appreciation” by Bernardo Nicolas
Caslib, Jr., Dorothea C. Garing, and Jezreel Anne R. Casaul
 WORKSHEET NO. 4

Answer the following questions as precisely yet as thoroughly as possible.

1. What are the hurdles of accessing art in terms of its subject and content?

2. Where do artists source their subject? Elaborate and give an example.

3. Name an example of an artwork and speculate on the content of the artwork based on its
factual, conventional, and subjective meanings.