Lesson 3: The Visual Arts

Introduction
Visual arts refer to still, unmoving pictures, paintings, sculptures, photographs,
digital images, installation or architecture that are created by artists. They are the
representation or embodiment of an idea, an experience, a concept, a surge of vitality,
emotion, feeling or a result of interaction with the environment, and a product of human
thinking.
Basically, visual arts are any art forms that appeals primarily to the visual sense.

Learning Outcomes
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
1. learn the different classification of visual arts;
2. distinguish between two-dimensional and three-dimensional art;
3. differentiate the various form of visual arts; and
4. appreciate artworks in the forms of different medium of visual arts.

Warm-up Activity: Let Me Guess!

Instructions: Images will be flashed and students are tasked to guess what is the image is all
about either a name of a painting, sculpture, and architecture. Afterwards,
students will be asked corresponding questions for each image.
Ex.
1. What is the name of this painting?
- “The Scream”
2. What function does it have? Why?
- Personal function. Because the artist made it
for self-expression.
3. Is it functional or non-functional? Why?
- Non-functional. Because it does not give us
human a practical benefit, unlike architectures.
Central Activity
Learning Input No. 1
The Visual Arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works that are primarily visual in nature,
such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, photography,
video, film making and architecture. These definitions should not be taken too strictly as
many artistic disciplines (performing arts, conceptual arts, textile arts) involve aspects of the
visual arts as well as arts of other types. Also included within the visual arts are the applied
arts such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design and decorative
design.
The current usage of the term “visual arts” includes fine art as well as the applied,
decorative arts and crafts, but this was not always the case. Before the Arts and Crafts
Movement in Britain and elsewhere at the turn of the 20th century, the term ‘artist’ was
often restricted to a person working in the fine arts (such as painting, sculpture, or
printmaking) and not the handicraft, craft, or applied art media. The distinction was
emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement who valued vernacular art forms as
much as high forms. Art schools made a distinction between the fine arts and the crafts
maintaining that a craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner of art (Grau, 2007).
3 main classification of the visual arts includes: Fine Arts. The term “fine art” refers
to an art form practiced mainly for its aesthetic value and its beauty rather than its
functional value. Contemporary Arts. These are the variety of modern art forms. Decorative
Arts and Crafts. These are the category of visual arts that encompasses decorative art
disciplines.

Learning Input No. 2

Two-dimensional and Three-dimensional Art

Visual arts are those mediums can be seen and which can occupy space. And these
are grouped into two classes: (1) the two-dimensional arts or graphic arts, this form of art
typically comprises works presented on a uniformly flat surface and (2) the three-
dimensional arts or plastic arts, these are the ones that occupies space volumetrically and
broadly refers to sculpture and immersive art.

Learning Input No. 3

Forms and Mediums of Visual Arts

Visual arts are those arts forms that can be perceived with our eyes. The most common
visual arts are painting, sculpture, and architecture. Their mediums are discussed as follows.
Painting

Painting is the art creating meaningful effects on a flat surface by the use of pigments.
Different mediums are used in painting. Each medium exerts a pronounced effect on the finished
product, is capable of varied treatment and determines its own stroke. These mediums are applied
to wet plaster, canvas, wood, or paper.

Painting may vary into different kind:

(1) Encaustic - is one of the early mediums used by the Egyptians for painting portraits on
mummy cases. This is done by applying wax colors fixed with heat. Painting with wax
produces luster and radiance, making subjects appear at their best in portraits;

(2) Tempera - tempera paints are mineral pigments mixed with egg yolk or egg white and
ore. This egg-based emulsion binds the pigments to the surface. Tempera is characterized by
its film-forming properties and rapid drying rate. It requires more deliberate technique than
oil because it does not possess the flexibility of oil.

(3) Fresco - is a painting method done on a moist plaster surface with colors ground in water
or a lime-water mixture. Fresco must be done quickly because it is an exacting medium – the
moment the paint is applied to the surface, the color dry into the plaster and the painting
becomes an integral part of the wall. The image becomes permanently fixed and almost
impossible to remove.

(4) Watercolor - this kind of painting is difficult to handle because producing warm and rich
tones using this medium proves to be a challenge. On the contrary, watercolor pigments
invite brilliance and variety of hues. Simple and clear spontaneity is its principal essence.
While changes may be made once the paint has been applied, such changes normally tend
to make the color less luminous. These effects are rendered by watercolor artists through
some method.

(5) Oil - it is considered to be the most expensive art activity of today because of the
prohibitive cost of materials. It is the heaviest painting mediums. In oil painting, pigments
are mixed with linseed oil and applied to the canvas. One good quality of oil paint as a
medium is its flexibility. One distinctive characteristic of oil paint, compared with other
mediums, is that it dries slowly and the painting may be changed and worked over for a long
period of time. Because of this, it is possible to apply a great deal of corrections without
much difficulty. Painting done in oil appears glossy and lasts long.

(6) Acrylic - is a medium used popularly by contemporary painters because of the

transparency and quick-drying characteristics of watercolor and flexibility of oil combined.
The synthetic paint is mixed with acrylic emulsion as binder for coating the surface of the
artwork. Acrylic paints do not tend to break easily unlike oil paints which turn yellowish or
darker over a period of time.

Mosaic

Mosaic is the art of putting together small pieces of colored stones or glasses called
“tesserae” to create an image. The tesserae are most often cut into square and glued on a surface
with plaster or cement. Mosaic is usually classified as painting, although, the medium used is not
strictly pigment.
Stained Glass

Stained glass painting is developed as a major art when it appeared as an important part of
Gothic cathedral. Stained glass windows admitted the much-needed light that was missing from the
Romanesque churches.

Tapestry

Is a fabric produced by hand-weaving-colored threads upon a warp. The woven designs

often end up as pictorials, wall hangings, and furniture covering. During the Middle Ages, they were
hung on the walls of palaces and in cathedrals on festive occasions to provide warmth.

Drawing

Drawing is usually done on paper using pencil, pen, and ink, or charcoal. It is the most
fundamental of all skills necessary in arts. Drawing has always been considered as a very good
training for artists because it makes one concentrate on the use of line. Shading can also be used to
make drawings more life-like and realistic.

Types of drawing:

(1) Pencil - the lead (graphite) of which comes in differing hardness, from soft and smudgy
to very hard and needle-like, making possible a wide range of values.

(2) Ink - allows for a great variety of qualities, depending on the tools and techniques used in
applying the ink and the surfaces on which it is applied.

(3) Pastel and chalk - dry pigment held together with a gum binder and compressed into
sticks.

(4) Charcoal - especially useful in representing broad masses of light and shadow.

(5) Crayons - pigment bound by wax and compressed onto sticks.

(6) Silverpoint - popular during Renaissance, is drawn over a sheet of paper prepared
beforehand with zinc white. It then produces a thin, even, grayish line that cannot be erased.

Printmaking

Printmaking is also known as the graphic processes. A print is anything printed on a surface
that is a direct result from the duplication process. All processes involve the preparation of a master
image of the drawing or design on some durable material such as wood, metal, or stone, from which
printing is done. One of the advantages of printmaking is the ease with one can make multiple
copies of the original drawing.

Major Types of Prints are:

(1) Relief (Raised) - relief prints are made by removing material from the matrix, the surface
that the image has been carved into, which is often wood, linoleum, or metal. The remaining
 surface is covered with ink or pigment, and then paper is pressed onto the surface, picking
up the ink.

Woodcut is one of the oldest methods of making prints from a relief surface with
the use of a small piece of wood to decorate textile and other materials.

(2) Intaglio (Depressed) - they are made when a design is scratched into a matrix, usually a
metal plate. Ink is wiped across the surface, and collects in the scratches. Excess ink is wiped
off and paper is pressed onto the plate, picking up the ink from the scratches. Intaglio prints
may also include texture.

(a) Drypoint - here the artist draws directly on a metal plate with a sharp needle and
scratches lines, or grooves, into the metal. For each print, ink is rubbed into the
grooves and the unscratched surface is wiped clean. In printing, the ink in the
grooves is transferred to paper.

(b) Etching - this is the art process of producing drawings or designs on metal plates
covered with wax. The needle penetrates wax to the surface of the plate. The plate
is then dipped in acid, which eats the lines into the metal. For printing, etched
(bitten) lines are filled with ink which is transferred to the paper.

(c) Engraving - this is done on a metal plate with a cutting tool called a burin, which
leaves a V-shaped trough. Drawings or designs on the plate are entirely composed of
lines and/or dots. And is similar to drypoint.

(3) Stencil/Surface Printing - includes all processes in which printing is done from a flat
(plane) surface, wherein inks pass through a porous fine mesh matrix.

(a) Silkscreen - Silk is stretched over a rectangular frame and unwanted portions in
the design are blocked out. Pigment is forced through the clear areas. For
multicolored prints, a separate screen is used for each color.

Photography

Photography is a chemical-mechanical process by which images are produced on a sensitized

surfaces by action of light. Reproductions may be in black-and-white or in full colors of the original.

Sculpture

A work of sculpture is a three-dimensional form that is constructed to represent a natural or

imaginary shape. It can be free-standing, or carved in relief. Common materials are stone, wood,
ivory, metals, plaster, clay, glass, plastics, etc. Sculptures of figures are called statue.

There are two major processes of making sculpture: carving and modelling. Carving is the
most common way of making a sculpture. It is a subtractive process. It is the act of using tools to
shape something from a material by scraping away portions of that material. The technique can be
applied to any material that is solid enough, like wood or stone, to hold a form even when pieces
have been removed from it, and yet soft enough for portions to be scraped away with available tools.
While modelling is an additive process where the construction of a figure is by putting together small
bits of clay, or by welding together parts of metal. The final result is produced by putting together
smaller segments of the material.

Meanwhile, sculpture in general is also divided into two types: relief and free-standing.
Relief refers to figures which are attached to a ground where it is being carved. While free-standing
figures can be seen from all sides and unattached to any background.

Architecture

Architecture is an art, its strictest meaning, it is the art of designing a building and
supervising its construction. It may also be regarded as the procedure assisted with the conception
of an idea and its realization in terms of building materials. In its broader meaning, architecture is
producing shelter to serve as protection of men in carrying out his activities–work, recreation, and
sleep. One of the primary purposes of architecture is to fulfill man’s need.

(a) Interior Design - the term is used to designate design and arrangement of architectural
interiors for convenience and beauty. It includes backgrounds (walls, floors, ceilings),
furnishings, and accessories. Design of wallpapers, furniture, textiles for curtains and
upholstery are important fields of interior design.

(b) Landscape Architecture - is planning outdoor areas for human use and enjoyment,
especially gardens, parks, playgrounds, golf courses. Chief materials are plants, trees, shrubs,
flowers, vines, and ground covers.

Crafts

The term refers to the designing and making of objects by hand for use or for pleasure. It
includes such fields as ceramics, jewelry, leatherwork, and weaving. If these fields are mass
produced, they are classed as industrial designs.

Industrial Design

This refers to design of objects for machine production. Examples are designs for
automobiles and household appliances.