LESSON 1: HUMANITIES, ASSUMPTIONS, AND NATURE OF ARTS

Mr. Rizalde M. Capio

Instructor

Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the lesson, the students shall be able to:
> Distinguish art history from art appreciation;
> Explain the different assumptions of art; and
> Discuss the significance and values of art in the society.

Source: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/comment/opinion/sarah-churchwell-
why-the-humanities-matter/2016909. article_SarahChurchwell

The word humanities comes from the Latin word "humanus" which means "human" who is
refined, cultured, and worthy of dignity of a man. It is also based on the philosophical view of the
sophist's dictum of the Greek Pythagoras, who said that: "Man is the measure of all things."
The study of Humanities includes the appreciation of the arts which can strengthen our values
about life and reality. The Webster dictionary defines "humanities"' as any. of the branches of
learning embraced by philosophy, literature, language, art, etc., excluding theology, natural and
social sciences.

As the artist conveys his thoughts, beliefs, values, and feelings through his artwork, whether it is
visual, literary or the performing arts, we begin to aesthetically open and educate our senses.

Aeschylus, a fifth century Greek dramatist aptly observed about human beings:
"Though they had eyes to see, they saw to avail: they had ears, but understood not; but
like the shape in dreams, throughout the lengths of days, without purpose they wrought
all things in confusion."

To become totally and truly human, we must therefore learn how to use and enjoy our senses,
or we may become part of what the psychologist Rudolp Arnheim observed about a "generation
that has lost touch of its sense"

Susan Sontag (1966) has this say about our sensual "recovery" throughout the arts:
"What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to
feel more... The aim of all commentary on art now should be able to make works of art - and, by
analogy, our own experience - more, rather than less, real than us... his function of criticism
should be to show how it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to how what it means."

“The humanities are the stories, the ideas, and the words that help us make sense of our lives
and our world. The humanities introduce us to people we have never met, places we have never
visited, and ideas that may have never crossed our minds. By showing how others have lived
and thought about life, the humanities help us decide what is important in our own lives and
what we can do to make them better.

By connecting us with other people, they point the way to answers about what is right or wrong,
or what is true to our heritage and our history. The humanities help us address the challenges
we face together in our families, our communities, and as a nation." (Maguigad et al.,2005).

According to Dr. Francisco Zulueta, (2003), during the Renaissance, Humanities is defined as
the set of disciplines taught in the universities which include grammar, rhetoric, history,
literature, music and philosophy—a body of knowledge aimed to make a man, a full human -
cultured, refined and well-rounded. This developed from the concept which recognized man's
essential worth as a member of society.

ARTS: THEIR NATURE AND MEANING

Fulgent Life - 6" x 6" - Acrylic on Wood Panel Source: http://www. thaneeya.com/colorful-abstract-art

The term art (from Latin word ars) is often used to describe the fine arts, which consist of
painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, dance, music, and film. Works of arts can be
classified as verbal or non-verbal. Missed arts are the combination of two or more basic arts like
dance, drama, and film (Webster International Encyclopedia)

Art is an expression of our thoughts, emotions, intuitions, and desires, but it is even more
personal than that: it's about sharing the way we experience the world, which for many is an
extension of personality.

It is the communication of intimate concepts that cannot be faithfully portrayed by words alone.
And because words alone are not enough, we must find some other vehicle to carry our intent.

But the content that we instill on or in our chosen media is not in itself the art. Art is to be found
in how the media is used, the way in which the content is expressed. (Wm. Joseph Nieters,
Lake Ozark, Missour)

Art is a way of grasping the world. Not merely the physical, which is what science attempts to
do; but the whole world, and specifically, the human world, society and spiritual experience.

Art emerged around 50,000 years ago, long before cities and civilization, yet in forms to which
we can still directly relate. The wall paintings in the Lascaux caves, which so startled Picasso,
have been carbon-dated at around 17,000 years old. Now, following the invention of
photography and the devastating attack made by Duchamp on the self-appointed Art
Establishment, art cannot be simply defined on the basis of concrete tests like 'fidelity of
representation' or vague abstract concepts like 'beauty'. So how can we define art in terms
applying to both cave-dwellers and modern city sophisticates? To do this we need to ask: What
does art do? And the answer is surely that it provokes an emotional, rather than a Simply
cognitive response. One way of approaching the problem of defining art, then, could be to say:

Art consists of shareable ideas that have a shareable emotional impact. Art art.need not
produce beautiful objects or events, since a great piece of art could valid arouse
emotions other than those aroused by beauty, such as terror, anxiety, or laughter. Yet to
derive an acceptable philosophical theory of art from this understanding means tackling
the concept of emotion' head on, and philosophers have been notoriously reluctant to do
this.

But not all of them: Robert Solomon's book, The Passions (1993) has made a excellent
start, and this seems to me to be the way to go.

The Roman poet Lucretius refers to art as skills, which Greek mythological Titan Prometheus
bestowed to man enabling him to improve the material conditions of his existence. However,
according to the classical Greek philosophers, art is an imitation of reality: art copies something
of the world. The idealist Greek Philosopher Plato defines it as an "imitation of imitation".. In his
Republic, he observed that:

"The painting of a bed is'a copy of concrete bed, which is a copy if the ideal form of a
bed. If art is imitating an imitation of an ideal, then art is doubly divorced from reality and
therefore doubly inferior."

On the other hand, Aristotle defines arts as an imitation, but imitation is not of the ideal of world
but of the real physical world. For him "Art is a reflection or a mirror of reality."

The classical idea of art as a mimesis (imitation) had long been accepted for centuries. Thus,
works of arts are best judge according to similitude; the better the imitation, the better the art.
Today, however, not all art is imitative or representative; there are new forms of art such as,
expressionist and conceptual art.

Until the end of the 18th century, the word art was broadly used to cover all from human skill
and all the things which human beings are able to produce by skilled workmanship. Hence, the
term artisan came from it. Centuries later, Rousseau spoke of metallurgy and agriculture as two
arts which brought civilization of humanity during the 19th so-called fine arts.

18th Century Art, National Museum Wales Cave Painting, 50,000 Years Ago
Source: https://museum.waleslarticles/1124/ Source: htps:llcdn.virily. comlwp-content/up-
Becoming-an-Artist-1171794_340.jpg loads/2017/09/bison-in-the-Eighteenth-Cen tury/
The Liberal Arts
Originally, the term liberal arts (from Latin Liberalis,) which means "suitable for a freeman")
refers to seven courses of university study that were offered during the medieval period
grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. The primary and mist basic aim
of liberal arts education is the fullest possible development of the individual is not only its
fundamental aim but also for democracy to work.

By exploring issues, ideas, and methods across the humanities and the arts, and the natural
and social sciences, you will learn to read critically, write cogently and think broadly. These skills
will elevate your conversations in the classroom and strengthen your social and cultural
analysis; they will cultivate the tools necessary to allow you to navigate the world's most
complex issues.
Sidney S. Letter (1968) states that liberal arts education:
"Teaches a man to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of
thought, to detect what is sophisticated and to discard what is irrelevant. It prepares him to fIll
any post credit, and to master any subject with facility."

Seven Liberal Arts (llustration) World History Encyclopedia

Source: https:/www.worldhistory.org/imagel 12359/the-seven-liberal-arts/

Nature of Art
Art is used in many varies ways, It covers those areas of artistic creativity that seek to
communicate beauty or ugly subjects primarily through the sense. An art embraces the visual
arts, paintings, sculpture, architecture, and graphic arts, and the auditory and performing arts,
music, dance, theater, opera and cinenma, and literature.

In a more specialized sense, arts apply to such activities that expresses aesthetic ideas using
skills and imagination in the creation of objects through experiences about the environment or
through other personal collective experiences, which can be shared worthy to others.

Throughout history, art is seen as a realm of pure emotion, the unfathomable territory of a "dark
mystery” (Rand 1975, 15)—a human product whose nature and function are impervious to
reason and objective definition. Yet, recent times have witnessed phenomena that heightened
urgency to the question of the nature of art.
For ours is a period driven by total abstraction in painting and sculpture. serialism in music, the
abarndonment of meter in poetry, and similar movements in the other arts – as well as Socialist
Realism and propagandistic art in general, strong undercurrents of nihilism and irrationalism, the
opposition between the "two cultures of science and art, the rise of technological competitors to
the traditional arts (portraiture, for example, largely having been supplanted by photography),
the centering of artistic activity in the universities, government subsidies for and influence over
the arts, and the increasingly theory-laden perception of aestheticians, art historians, and critics.
All this has left art that strives for "joy and reason and meaning" (Rand 1943, 543) without a
voice and, famously, without a theory (Wolfe 1975).

Anything accomplished with great art skills. Hence, there are, the specialized arts such as those
arts of teaching, and the art of acupuncture.

These are also the art of speaking, sartorial art (dressing), culinary art (cooking) and the other
practical arts such as the art of metallurgy. Art is present in almost all human activities. We have
also different forms of martial arts – judo, karate, taekwondo, arnis, etc,, -- even in modern
technology, the phrase 'state of the art' means quintessential or technically perfect
workmanship.

Beardsley points out that an artwork is something produced with the intention of giving it;
capacity to satisfy aesthetic interest. The word 'intention' means a combination of desire and
belief, with the goal of producing a work capable of satisfying the aesthetic interest. A work of
art may serve as an exercise in skill ad manual dexterity but skill itself does not define art,
though it is possible to examine the products of an artist as the result of skilled manipulation of
materials.

In Tolstoy, "What is art?" (1986) he made the following observations: "To evoke in oneself a
feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of
movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed through words, so to convey this so that
others may experience the same feeling – this is the activity of art. Hence, there is a difference
between an artisan and artist."

When we speak of art, we must not delude ourselves into believing that the term corresponds to
some natural, objective and fixed body works out there to which the category of art is made to
operate merely as descriptivé rubric. Remember, rather, we must understand it is a concept, not
as natural, pre-ordained 'creation but a theoretical construction of circumscribed sorts of texts
felt to be special value (Benneth, 1989).

Traditionally, there have been two opposing theories of art: the mimetic and expression theories.
While Rand saw value in each of these approaches, she did not accept these theories as the
only alternatives. In aesthetics, as in so many other areas of philosophy (Sciabarra, 1995),

Rand sought to overcome the traditional dichotomies. So let us investigate the texts to see how
Rand went about finding a third way in aesthetics.
"Art brings man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allows him
to grasp them directly, as if they were precepts." (Rarnd 1975, 20)

Importance of Art
A. Timeless of Art
The art constitutes of the oldest and most important means of expression developed by man.
Art is not only found in all ages; but it is present in all countries. No matter what epoch or
country, there is always art.
Works of arts have been preserved because they meet the needs of people and because they
are appreciated and enjoyed. The timelessness about art makes people feel it is not old; art
does not grow old.

B. Art Imitates Life and Reality

Art is born in experience; it is the footprint of fingerprints of the artists' experience life in a reality.
Artists live in green time, place and culture. Some artworks, therefore, are statements, which
probed and analyzed concepts of life and reality during their time.

C. Art has Intrinsic Worth

Humanities are generally regarded as the areas in which human values and a person's creativity
are celebrated. Every creative work of art as a "lifetime enhancing" value (Berenson, 1957).
Although art can be used as spiritual values, it cannot be used up nor be exhausted. A great
masterpiece of art is never out of date; they tend to magnify their value through the ages, and
the agers to come (Maguigad et. al., 2005)

Lourdes Sanchez (UE CAS Horizon, 1992) enumerates art as:

1. Aesthetic Value or art for the sake as championed by Oscar Wilde. John Keats expresses
this with poetic lines:
"Beauty is truth, truth is beauty; that is all you know on earth and all you need to know"
2. Didactic Value advocates that art can be an effective means to show what is moral, that art
can improve the moral fiber of society. This stands of Bernard Shaw who was Oscar Wilde's
contemporary and rival in the theater. Wilde, however, persisted in the contention that art has
nothing to do with morality. The didactic value prevailed during the medieval age when the
church was mandated fount of knowledge.
3. Religious Value of art is supposed to increase awareness of man's relationship with God and
to promote better and stronger bonds between God and man.
4. Historical Value is present if an art tells us something significant aspects about the past such
as the painting of the first holy mass at Limasawa.
5. Socio-Political Value such as that can be gleaned from Juan Luna's painting, "spolarium"
from Jose Rizal's novel "Noli Me Tangere" and "El Filibusterismo" which clarify some problems
of society and government.
6. Scientific Value is an art if it informs us about the earth, outer space, psychology, numbers,
etc.
7. Commercial Value exist if the artwork can sell for a fortune.
8. Pragmatic Value of art considers not only aesthetic but also its practical value of artwork. For
instance, a porcelain figure is used as paperweight or painting covers a crack in the wall or
carved copper cup used in to hold your dentures art night.
9. Therapeutic Value of art has been explored by medical sciences. It is well known, for
instance, that music, "scotches the savage breast."
10. Personal Value is Flexible. It can be Socratic in approach. Socrates "know thyself" theory
through art can lead to self-discovery, greater self-awareness, self-development, self-expression
which at the same time is form of communication and ideally self-fulfillment.

ASSUMPTIONS OF ARTS
1. Art is Universal
Art is a universal phenomenon and is as old as human being. Every society from its members.
Artists as members of society accordance with the existing relations in the society.
> Art is available to everyone.
> It is a means of communication.
> Is timeless
> Addresses human needs
2. Art is Cultural
>The sensitivity and imagination of an artist is what can make a culture.
> Art defines culture
> Art is an articulation and transmission of new information and values.
> Example, when you think of Paris, you usually think about Eiffel tower
Culture - Pattern of behaviors, idea and values.
Art - The tastes in art and manners that are favored by a social group.

3. Art is Experience
> Art then is not merely the process by artist; it involves both the artist and the active
observer who encounter each other, their mental environments, and their culture at
large.
> The creation of art must be something of personal and knooledgeable value.
> "A work of an art then cannot be abstracted from actual doing. In order to know what
an artwork, we have to sense it, see and hear it. "

Creativity
It is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed. The created item
may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientifc theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a
physical object (such as an invention, a printed literary work, or a painting).

Scholarly interest in creativity is found in a number of disciplines, primarily psychology, business

studies, and cognitive science, but also education, technology, engineering, philosophy,
sociology, linguistics, economics, and mathematics, covering the relations between creativity
and general intelligence, personality type, mental and neural processes, through education and
training; the fostering of creativity for national mental health, or artificial intelligence; the
potential for fostering creativity economic benefit, and the application of creative resources to
inmprove the effectiveness of teaching and learning.

The English word creativity comes from the Latin term creare, "to create, make": its
derivational suffixes also come from Latin. The word "create” appeared in English as early as
the 14 century, notably in Chaucer, to indicate divine creation.

However, its modern meaning as an act of human creation did not emerge until after the
Enlightenment.

Imagination
It is the ability to produce and simulate novel objects, peoples, and ideas in the mind without
any immediate input of the senses.

It is also described as the forming of experiences in one's mind, which can be re-creations of
past experiences such as vivid memories with imagined changes, or they can be completely
invented and possibly fantastic scenes.

Imagination helps make knowledge applicable in solving problems and is fundamental to

integrating experience and the learning process. A basic training for imagination is listening to
storytelling (narrative), in which the exactness of the chosen words is the fundamental factor to
"evoke worlds".

Imagination is a cognitive process used in mental functioning and sometimes used in

conjunction with psychological imagery. It is considered as such because it involves thinking
about possibilities.
Values of Art in Society
Art appreciation helps to open the mindset of the people by listening to different perspectives
and views a will as interpretations of art.

Art affects culture and society in various ways and promotes communication between cultures,
being a universal language that breaks cultural barriers and givė people respect for the beliefs
and tradition of others.

The significance of art in society is to serve and fulfill our sense of beauty and wonder about the
world and provides an outlet for creative expression and documentation of history.

It brings different people together as will or understanding each other. Lessons acquired from
these subjects can be applied in learning positive behaviours and life style that needs
consistency.

Scientific students have proven that art appreciation improves our quality of life and make us fell
good, creating an art elevated our mood and improve our ability to solve problems and lead to
open our minds to new ideas.

Art influences society by changing opinions, instilling values and expressing experiences across
the space and time. Research have shown that art affects the fundamental sense of self.
Painting, sculpture, music, literature and other arts are considered to be the repository of a
society's collective memory.