MIDTERMS

Saturday, 7 October 2023 9:52 am

LESSON 1

What is ART?

- mediums or means of artistic expression

- expressed imagination
- conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects
(Merriam-Webster Dictionary).
- derived from the Latin word artis, which translates to skill, craftmanship, mastery of form and
ideas or between materials and techniques.
- rooted in the Aryan word ar, means to join or to put together

Four Common Threads Essential to It

- must be a human creation
- must be a product of creativity, not an imitation
- beneficial to man
- manifested using a certain medium or material

To determine whether or not something is a work of art requires that:

1. The object or event is made by an artist.
2. The object or event is intended to be a work of art by its maker or creator.
3. It is recognized as important or a work art by experts in the field.

ART VS NATURE

man-made God-made
craft/skill
beauty
expressed
imagination

LESSON 2

Art: Concept or Fact?

- it is either concept or fact

- as a concept of idea, art needs to be understood by the perceiver
- we cannot confine an art's definition to ours as it comes from a man's ideas and emotions.
- Fact, art is observable
- we process an artwork through our senses

Art and Experience

- experience is essential to art as it makes art appreciation possible

experience is something that affects one's life.

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 - experience is something that affects one's life.

Persons affected by art experiences are;

1. the person of the artist
2. the person of the recipient

Characteristics of Experience

1. Experience must be personal and distinct

2. It goes along with emotion or emotional response

Artist vs. Craftsman

Artist
- are considered prodigies going beyond norms and conventions
- must be creative and original

Craftsman
- does not necessarily produce original works
- carrying out set of rules

Characteristics of Artworks

1. Created or Man-made
- creations widen the imaginative talent of people
- Mankind transposes art

2. Universal (everywhere)
- whenever and wherever we are, art will always be present
- art exists at all times in all shapes and sizes

3. United (unity)
- relationship with art is linked with our emotions and feelings.
- gives the artwork a sense of cohesion or coherence

4. Diversified
- art shows a significant amount of variety, not only in its existence but also in materials and
forms.

5. Expressive
- all art forms must effectively show the artist's beliefs, emotions, and experiences.
- used to convey emotions

6. Creative
- artist's creativity and originally are reflected in his/her work of art.
- use of imagination
- produce something that is both new and valuable

7. Timeless
individuals have always made of art

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 - individuals have always made of art
- art began with the beginning of a man
- it will never get old
- the older the art is, the better the story that it tells

LESSON 3

Aesthetics
- philosophy of art that deals with nature of beauty and judgement of taste
Esthetic (or aesthetic)
- refers to a person's sense of what is beautiful

Philosophical Perspectives on Art

1. Art as an Imitation
- Plato
- portrays artists as imitators and art as an imitation
- things in this world are only copies of the original
- World of Forms, where the eternal and the true entities can only be found

2. Art as a Representation
- Aristotle
- art as an attempt to look for the universal truths in individual's destiny
- art are possible versions of reality
- art allows to experience pleasure
- art has an ability to teach things about life

3. Art as a Disinterested Judgement

- Immanuel Kant
- considers the judgement of beauty as something that can be universal despites is
subjectivity
- subjective judgements are based on some universal criterion

4. Art as a Communication of Emotion

- Leo Tolstoy
- art as an expression of a feeling or experience in a manner that the audience to whom the
art is addressed can relate to that feeling or experience
- art plays a huge role in communicating to its audience the emotions that the artist
previously experienced
- art communicates emotions
- art conveys a man's innermost feelings and thoughts to be understood
- art serves as a mechanism for social unity
- art is a means of communication

Art Theories

- Formalism
• art is best when it effectively uses the elements of art and principles of design
focuses solely on how an artwork looks

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 • focuses solely on how an artwork looks
• matters only is the composition

- Imitationalism/Mimetic
• artwork is good when it imitates life
• to mistake an artwork for a real thing rather than a replica from a distance.
• the more realistic, the better

- Instrumentalism
• concerned only with the context and not with composition
• best artworks are those that convey a message or shape how we see the world
• art is good when it serves as a tool to influence or change society

- Emotionalism
• emphasizes the expressive qualities of an artwork
• art is able to elicit a feeling from the audience
• artist was able to arouse a mood or idea to the viewer

What is a Subject of Art

- pertains to any person, object, scene, or event described or represented in a work of art

1. Representational or objective
- arts that have objects
- depict or represent common or familiar objects
- uses "form"
- concerned with "what"
2. Non-representational or non-objective
- arts that do not have recognizable subjects
- do not have reference
- use "content"
- concerned with "how"

Content in Art

1. Factual Meaning
- easily seen from the recognizable forms in the artwork
2. Conventional Meaning
- based on what is generally believed
- can be interpreted using signs, icons, symbols, motifs, etc.
3. Subjective
- art takes on various meanings
- perception and understanding of an artwork can be influenced by our personal circumstances

Two Objective Aspects of Art

1. Form
- focuses on the physical and visible aspects presents in the work of art and descriptions of
compositional elements
2. Content
- pertains to the artwork's subject matter, meaning or theme.

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Different Kinds or Sources of Subjects of Art
1. Landscapes - shows the physical environment
2. Still Life - groups of inanimate objects arranged in indoor setting
3. Nature - focuses on animals, plants or their parts, stones and minerals
4. Portrait - realistic rendition of a person in sculpture, painting, drawing, print or photograph
5. Figures - chief focus is showing the human body, nude or clothed
6. Genre or Everyday Life - depicts the common or everyday ordinary life of people
7. History and Legend - shows significant scenes in history, myths, legends, and folklores
8. Religion and Mythology Arts - used to educate, teach, inspire feelings of devotion and convert
non-believers to a certain belief or religions, get inspirations from the beauty and magic of
mythological characters
9. Dreams and Fantasies - portray figures, scenes or objects that are strange, absurd or out-of-
this-world
10. Abstract types - not recognizable, usual subjects are depicted by splash of colors, shapes,
brushstrokes, size and scale

Medium and Technique

- art exists because there is a medium through which they employ to express themselves
- art medium pertains to the material that artists use in producing a work of art

Art can be clustered into three groups:

1. Visual or Spatial Arts - are those that are visible and able to occupy space
2. Tonal or Time Arts - can be heard and expressed in time
3. Combined Arts - exist in both space and time and can be seen and heard

Mediums of Art

- Painting
• different forms of media are used in painting
1. mosaic 7. charcoal
2. pastel 8. tempera
3. watercolor 9. acrylic
4. fresco 10. ink
5. oil 11. encaustic
6.crayons
• oil painting, uses kind of oil that when mixed with colors or pigments forms different other
colors
• encaustic, combines dry pigments with wax softened by heating
• fresco, applying pigments with water on a plaster wall while the plaster is damp

- Sculpture
• Examples of materials in
sculpture are:
1. marble 5. glass
2. clay 6. ice
3. wood 7. plaster
4. metal 8. precious metals

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 4. metal 8. precious metals
(e.g. silver, gold
and lead)

- Literature
• language is the medium of literature

- Architecture
• many types and forms of building materials are used by architects in creating buildings
and other physical structures.
1. concrete 6. bamboo
2. wood (timber) 7. plastic
3. steel 8. glass
4. stone 9. textile
5. brick 10.earthenmaterial

- Music
• has two mediums, the voice or the vocal medium and the instrumental medium
• three major classification of musical instruments, the string, wind, and percussion

- Dance
• human body, all of it or its parts, are the mediums of dance

- Technique
• refers to specialized methods or procedures employed by artists in their particular field of
endeavor

LESSON 4

Functions of Art

1. Personal Functions of Art

- focuses solely on the art and the individual
- the most difficult to explain in any great detail

a. Order - gives order to a chaotic and disorderly personal situation

b. Chaotic - disrupts, disturbs, or creates restlessness when the artis feels life is too boring,
staid and ordinary
c. Therapeutic - pertains to both the artist and the viewer
d. Religious and Spiritual
e. Biological - refers to ways of adorning and decorating ourselves to be attractive

2. Social Functions
- addresses aspects of collective life, as opposed to an individual's view.

a. Influences Social Behavior - art influence our thinking and subsequently

b. Display and Celebration - used to commemorate, honoring, influenced growth, having
symbolic meanings
c. Festivals - involve some forms of rituals and these in turn, employ arts

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 c. Festivals - involve some forms of rituals and these in turn, employ arts
d. Cultural Functions - give glimpses of how people think, feel, and live during a particular
historical period.

3. Physical (utilitarian) Functions of Art

- are easy to understand
- have physical functions
- intended function of an object determines the form that it takes

a. Architecture, the design of a building is based primarily on its intended operational function

LESSON 5

Elements of Art
- visual component
- allows us to describe what the artist has done
- aids us in analyzing artwork and communicating our thoughts and findings
- by learning the elements of art, we gain the ability to impart and explain what we know to others,
contributing to the continuous development and evolution of art.

1. Line - is a point moving at an identifiable path

a. horizontal - rest and calm
b. vertical - elevation or height, aspiration for action
c. both - stability and firmness
d. diagonal - movement and instability
e. crooked or jagged lines - violence, conflict or struggle
f. curved - softness, flexibility, and sensuality

2. Shape - two-dimensional area with a recognizable boundary

a. Organic - easily occurring in nature, often irregular and asymmetrical
b. Geometric - man-made, originally from mathematical propositions

3. Form - three-dimensional shape

4. Space - sense of depth, whether real or stipulated

a. white space - negative space
b. shadow is heavily used - positive space

5. Color - property of light as reflected off the object

a. Hue - dimension of colors, classify as; Primary, Secondary, Tertiary Colors
b. Value - lightness and darkness of color
c. Intensity - saturation or chroma, refers to the degree of purity of a color

6. Value - lightness and darkness of color

• Light Colors - taken as the source of lights
• Dark Colors - the lack or absence of light
• Tint -a lighter color than the normal value
Shade - darker color than normal value

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 • Shade - darker color than normal value

7. Texture - the way things feel, or look as if they might feel of touched

Principles of Art
- rules, tools and/or guidelines that artists use to organize the elements of art to create an affects
and to help convey the artist's intent in an artwork

1. Rhythm
• principle of design that indicates movement
• created by the careful placement of repeated elements in a work of art to cause a visual
tempo or beat
2. Balance
• way of combining elements to add a feeling of equilibrium or stability to a work of art
• major types are symmetrical and asymmetrical

3. Contrast
• arrangement of opposite elements in art piece used to create visual interest, excitement
and drama

4. Harmony
• way of combing similar elements in an artwork to accent their similarities which is achieved
through the use of repetitions and subtle gradual changes

5. Variety
• concerned with diversity or contrast
• achieved by using different shapes, sizes, and/or colors in a work of art

6. Movement
• direction of the viewing eye as it goes through the artwork

7. Emphasis
• methos used to attract attention in artwork to create a focal point
• focal point draws your attention to the most important elements on the page

Methods of Art Presentation

1. Realism
- is the attempt to portray the subject as is
- function is to describe as accurately as possible the subject as observed through the
senses

2. Abstraction
- when an artist does not
a. Distortion - happens when the subject is in a misshapen condition or the regular shape is
twisted out
b. Elongation - element is being lengthened or extended
c. Mangling - subjects or objects are depicted as cut lacerated, mutilated

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 c. Mangling - subjects or objects are depicted as cut lacerated, mutilated
d. Cubism - stresses abstraction by showing forms in their basic geometrical shapes like a
cone, cylinder or sphere
e. Abstract Expressionism - use of large canvases and lack of refinement in applying paint, as
well as strong color, heavy impasto, uneven brush strokes and rough texture; originated in
New York City after WW2

3. Symbolism
- visible sign of something invisible such as an idea or quality.
- uses symbols to concentrate or intensify meaning
- making the work of art more subjective rather than objective and conventional

4. Fauvism
- derived from the French les fauves which means the "wild beast"
- artistic movement of the last part of 19th century
- emphasized spontaneity and use of extremely bright colors

5. Dadaism
- process movement began in 1916 by a group of artists and poets in Zurich, Switzerland
- term dada is a French word means a "hobbyhorse", a child's toy consisting of wooden horse
mounted on a stick
- considered nonsensical

6. Futurism
- came into being with the appearance of a manifesto published by the post Filippo
Tommaso Marinetti on the front page of the February 20, 1909 issue of Le Figaro.
- was the very first manifesto of this kind where Marinetti summed up the major principles of
the Futurists.
- espoused a love of speed, technology and violence.
- presented as a modernist movement celebrating the technological, future era.

7. Surrealism
- offshoot of Dadaism
- "super realism", revolves on the method of making ordinary things look extraordinary
- focuses on real things found in the imagination or fantasy or it has realistic subjects that are
found in the unconscious mind
- depicting dreamlike images of the inner mind

8. Impressionism
- focuses of directly describing the visual sensation derived from nature

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