SUBJECT TYPES:

REPRESENTATION AND
NONREPRESENTATIONA
L
Representational Art Subject
◦ Representational Art – sometimes referred to as “figurative art”
-derived from real sources or representing strong influence from the real world
-subcategories are realism, impressionism, idealism and stylization
- Is believed to have stayed thousands of years ago from the late Paleolithic images, carvings,
figurines discovered.

Venus of Willendorf
(1908)
Representational Art Subject
◦ Most ancient examples of representational art are often in the form of sculpture from nature, bas reliefs,
decorative friezes, busts representing real people and idealized gods.
◦ During Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo created the famous realistic sculptures and
paintings
◦ On the 20th Century, invention of photography had a huge impact on the art world in terms of replication
and artistic portrayal of reality
Cubism, Fauvism and Impressionism art
◦ Cubism was a revolutionary new approach to representing reality invented in around 1907–08 by artists
Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. They brought different views of subjects (usually objects or figures)
together in the same picture, resulting in paintings that appear fragmented and abstracted.
◦ Fauvism is the name applied to the work produced by a group of artists (which included Henri Matisse
and André Derain) from around 1905 to 1910, which is characterised by strong colours and fierce
brushwork
◦ Impressionism developed in France in the nineteenth century and is based on the practice of painting out
of doors and spontaneously ‘on the spot’ rather than in a studio from sketches. Main impressionist
subjects were landscapes and scenes of everyday life
Nonrepresentational Art Subject
◦ Nonrepresentational Art Subject is also known as abstract art
- Is an “extreme” portrayal of abstract art as somehow not connected with the visible world
- Wassily Kandinsky -Russian artist who is most famous for being a pioneer of abstract art and
for painting some of the earliest works in the genre including what is known as the First
Abstract Watercolor
Nonrepresentational Art Subject
◦ Nonrepresentational art or abstract is used to refer to the same painting style, when an artist works, it is
abstraction, distortion of the view of a know thing, place or person.
◦ It does not readily mean a “thing” or a subject from which a distinguishing abstract view is formed,
instead, it is nothing but what the artist’s intention for the viewers’ own interpretation.

Jackson Pollock’s
Four Darks in Red by Mark Autumn Rhythm
Rothko
Nonrepresentational Art Subject
◦ Meaning is subjective – the beauty of Nonrepresentational work depends on one’s own interpretation .

Kadinsky’s Composition
Frank Stella’s “Harran II
VII
Sources of Art Subject
◦ Subject – means the theme which similarly in grammar, means the “noun” wherein the thought of the
sentence revolves around.
◦ It is the content of the work of art, what decides to paint, draw, sculpt, or build.
◦ According to Rand(2018) subject is not only characteristic of art, but is the fundamental one, it is the end
to which all the others are the means.
◦ In most aesthetic theories, meanwhile, the end and the subject is omitted from consideration, and only
the means is viewed as aesthetically relevant.
There is no dichotomy or no important conflict between ends
and means because the end does not justify the means, neither
in ethics nor in aesthetics.

Rembrandt’s “Side of the

Rembrant’s “The Storm on the Beef”
Sea of Galilea
◦ The choice of subject declares what dimension of an existence the artist considers important as
worthy of being recreated and envisioned.
◦ Rand emphasizes two distinct but interrelated element of a work of art that are considered crucial
means of projecting its sense of life: the stye and subject.
◦ The subject of an artwork expresses a view of man’s existence while style expresses a view of
man’s consciousness.
◦ Metaphysics and Psycho-epistemology
The common sources of art subjects:
◦ Nature
◦ History
◦ Greek and Roman Mythology
◦ Religion and traditions, the Bible and the Apocrypha and the rituals of the church
◦ Oriental sacred texts
Content in Art
◦ The concept of a work of art refers not only to lines and forms but also to its underlying meanings and
themes.
◦ The obvious levels of contents includes subject matter, elements of composition, and underlying or
symbolic insinuations of things
◦ The content has any of the following: (1) emotional or intellectual message of an artwork (2) the
expression, essential meaning, significance, or aesthetic value (3) the relatedness to the sensory,
subjective, psychological or emotional properties we feel in a work of art
Primary and Secondary content
◦ The primary content is the simplest way of ◦ The secondary content includes things that tell
taking inventory of what you see or notice, as “what you see” into “what you understand”
in literal images;
◦ Frank images, describable facts, acts and poses
Tertiary content
◦ Represent the merging and mutual modification of form, content and context (Belton, 2012)

Bathala, the supreme God of

Tagalog people