THE HUMANITIES

When we say Humanities, we generally mean art, literature, music and

theatre – areas in which human subjectivity is emphasized and individual’s
expressiveness is celebrated.

Humanities come from the Latin word “humanus” which means,

humane, cultured and refined. To be humane is to have or show qualities
like rationality, kindness and tenderness. This term was used for a system of
thought or action that centered upon definitely human interest or ideals,
values and sentiments. Broadly speaking, Humanities are the records of
man’s quest for answers to the fundamental questions he asks about himself
and about life. Simply stated, Humanities are the expression of man’s
feelings, thoughts and emotions.

The term Humanities has many meaning depending upon the

generation in which it was use:
1. Ancient times – Humanities was used for moral teachings.
2. Medieval or Middle Ages – Humanities was used for the
cultivation of the spiritual life.
3. Renaissance Period - disciplines taught in the Universities like
Theology, Grammar, Literature and Philosophy falls under
Humanities.
- at this period, humanities is referred to a
body of knowledge aimed to make man humane,
cultured and refined.
  At present, Humanities serve to provide the students with
certain skills and values through the arts.

The Humanities aimed to shape the students subjective energies,

his feelings, attitudes and aspirations which may change from time
to time. They are part of an inner space program – to put men in their own
hearts and minds.

HUMANITIES AND THE SCIENCES

Sciences focus their study on the external world of man – facets of

man that can be measured, experimented and observed. The sciences
enable man to control nature to make his life more comfortable and
convenient.

Two divisions of science are:

Social Sciences - sciences concerned with the origin and

development of human society, and the institutions, relationships, and
ideas involved in social life. Included in the social sciences are
anthropology, sociology, political science, economics, law, psychology,
criminology, and social psychology

Natural or Physical Sciences – sciences that deal with

phenomena observable in nature, includes Physics, Biology &
Chemistry.

The main interest of social sciences is the types and groups of human
being and on the institution and processes of society. Both sciences are
somehow vitiated by human failings of greed, prejudice and power interest
and though our sciences give solutions to many contemporary problems,
weaknesses prevent us from taking full advantage.

In our time, science and technology have overwhelmed many facets of

our lives, and indeed, even our possibilities of survival are affected. Modern
man perhaps will gain more from Humanities than from his most recent
weapons or assumedly, from technological distractions of the environment
and from the economic failures that leave him, feeling at times, so helpless.
With the certain amount of relief and hope, we turn to the Humanities,
where the world of man’s spirit is documented in humane, rather than
technical values.

Humanities on the other hand deal with man’s internal world – with
his personality and experiences, matters that cannot exactly be measured,
classified or controlled. The Humanities approach is subjective: it makes
much use of perception, insights, feelings and intuition. It deals with man as
an individual. It offers a more humane view of man’s existence and
function. The heightened appreciation on human dignity and weaknesses felt
so powerfully in man’s forces in a world increasingly aware of its failures.

Apart from the possibilities of reform, the humanities can offer virtues
and benefits of immediate significance for the average human being. In
simplest terms, the arts provide enjoyment and stimulation, particularly
when we try to understand them.

It is necessary that all of us study Humanities because we need an

image of ourselves to understand our nature and the arts provide man a
way to
measure his passions and desires, his potentials and his relationship with
other people.

THE ARTS

Art originally comes from the Aryan root ar, meaning “join,” or put
together. The Latin term ars, artis, means everything that is artificially
made or composed by man. It constitutes one of the oldest and most
important means of expression developed by man. Art in our modern day
means everything that is artificially made or composed by man, it is the
skillful arrangement or composition of some common but significant qualities
of nature such as sounds, colors, lines, movements, words, stones, woods,
etc…., to express human feelings, emotions or thought in a perfect,
meaningful and enjoyable way.

This brings us to the modern consideration of art. Art has been defined
as a formal expression of a considered human experience. This definition
focuses attention on two important elements: form and substance. Art
uses experience as its subject matter, but it uses it after it passed the
artist’s sensibilities and has been carefully analyzed, felt and thought.

The artist then gives this experience which is nothing else but skillful
composition of the media selected. The arrangement he imposes in his
media must be fitted to the nature of the materials as to give the impression
of a spontaneous and perfect harmony between the content and the subject
and the form.
THE ARTIST

An artist is a person who exhibits exceptional skills in design, drawing,

painting, etc. or one who works in one of the performing arts. Unlike other
people, artists are more sensitive and more creative. He has the knack of
interpreting ideas in artistic form through the use of words, pigments, stone,
notes or any material used by artists.

There are two kinds of artists – the creators and the performers.

NATURE OF ART

I. ART IS EVERYWHERE

Art is found everywhere because it is a part of our life. We

encounter it in our daily lives, thus, we cannot ignore its presence. Art
is a part of man’s effort to lessen the tedium of everyday living and to
transform his environment into a more interesting place to live in.

Art is not confined to towns and cities alone. It also exists among
ethnic groups. The T’boli women have been stringing colorful bead
necklaces and wearing them for generations. The brightly colored
Lepanto cloth that our designers raved so much about comes from the
handlooms of the women of Mountain Province. The Maranaws are
noted for their well – known metalworks e.g. kris, handles, vase,
bowls,
 malong. The music and dances of the Bagobos, the Manobos and other
ethnic groups are evidences of the existence of art everywhere.
We find art at all times. It dated back to antiquity. Evidences of
these can be found in the paintings of animals on the walls of cave in
Southwestern France and Northern Spain as well as in Africa and
Australia. Art is indeed as old as human race itself.

II. ART AS EXPRESSION AND COMMUNICATION

Art has grown out of man’s needs to express himself. Expression

in the arts however, is not limited to the revelation of his emotions
alone, the personal values, and social values of the artist and
his penetrating psychological insights in human reality are also
conveyed through the arts.

The artist is usually gifted with a special sensitivity towards the

world around him. His perception is not only of surface appearance but
of forces that lies underneath or the hidden realities of life. The
starting point of an artist is usually an inspiration from someone or
something or an experience. From these things he’s going to express
something significant.

There are different sources of discovery that may serve as

the starting point of an artist namely:

1. close scrutiny of his environment

2. contact with ideas advanced by other persons and recorded in
books
3. observation of a society’s way of life
III. ART AS A CREATION

Man has also been led by innate craving for order to create
objects that are delightful to perceive. The word “creation” in this
sense refers to the act of combining or re – ordering already
existing materials to produce another form.

In order for the artist to create something, he needs to undergo

three phases: first, the artist must have an idea; second, he
must have a material to work with; and third, he must give
form to his idea.

Art involves skills or expertness in handling materials and

organizing them into new, structurally pleasing and significant units.
These skills do not just happen. It is acquired through long training
and constant practice.

Each finished product is an expression of order – the artist’s idea

of order. The artist has made the form the vehicle of his idea. Its part
has been so integrated as to produce a unique entity that
communicates to all man as long as it lasts. It is taken as self –
contained object – reacted to and evaluated by people who come in
contact with.
Art and experience

There are three kinds of experience involved in the artistic activity:

1. It usually starts as an experience, which the artist wants to

communicate.
2. The act of expressing this experience - that of creating the art
object or form.
3. The artist’s gratifying experience of having accomplished something
significant.

But there is still another kind of experience associated with art. This
refers to what an onlooker or listener undergoes when he perceives the work
of art. The perception may kindle an experience, which is similar or related
to that which the artist tried to express. It goes without saying that art
must be directly seen or heard in order to enjoy or appreciate it. No amount
of reading about a painting or sculpture can take place of actually seeing it.
Listening to a lecture on music is of little value unless one also hears the
music itself.

A varying combination of sensory, emotional, and intellectual

responses is involved in experiencing art. Some people looking at a
painting, for instance a kind of delight similar to that which one feels when
he sees a beautiful girl or lovely scenery. This is largely a sensory response.
Then there is the emotional response triggered by the recognition of a
familiar situation presented as the subject of the work. We may even
assume the role of one of
the characters and go through the same range of emotions that he goes
through. This identification with the character is known as empathy.

Some works on the other hand, delight the mind primarily. These are
works whose unique arrangements of elements, apart from the subject
matter, stimulate the intellect more than they do emotions. It implies
intellectual involvement with what is to be appreciated, be it a painting, a
novel, or a musical composition. To learn to appreciate any one of arts, we
must understand what goes into its making; its elements or components and
how these are put together in pattern of relationships, coalescing and
becoming the unity, which is the work of art, itself.

Our reaction to art is personal and individual. We tend to respond to

works of art according to the level of our expectation. Thus, we like some
form of arts and we don’t like the others, simply because they don’t reveal
to us what we feel they should. We cannot escape from our personal
preferences. And when we look at art, we do so with prejudiced eye. Our
reaction would be colored too by the ideas of our time about particular
aspect of art. Each generation prefer one style of art to another.

Art and Nature

Art is not nature. A distinction must be made between the two. A work of
art is man made; it can never duplicate nature. The closest that we can get
to do this is with camera. Man used art to improve nature.

Nature has been the constant source of models for art and great artist
have drawn their subjects from nature, but they have never tried to make an
exact copy of natural things. Their objective is merely to describe the actual
appearance of the objects but to tell us how they felt or thought about the
object.

In presenting human experience, although artist draw from their actual

experience life situations, they do some altering details so that the work
becomes a modified representation of the real life, not an exact copy.
Human experience is always complex and cluttered with incidents that are
unimportant and unrelated. The artist in their desire to help us see life more
directly and clearly re-orders detail, removing irrelevant ones & re -
arranging the rest, so that the spice of life presented is intensified and made
more significant.

Art and Beauty

The desire for beauty and order around us is another basic human
need. Somehow these provide the much - needed comfort and balance to
our lives, a thing of beauty is one, which gives us pleasure when we perceive
it. Our desire for beauty stems from our primordial sense of order and
consistency. The delight that we experience is called aesthetic pleasure,
“aesthetic” - coming from a Greek word which means to perceive with the
senses.

What we call beauty is relative; however, what may be beautiful to us

may not be so to others. And no two persons would derive exactly the same
degree of satisfaction. It simply means that beauty is relative and there are
some factors in the relativity of beauty. Among which are social
involvement, education and training, past experiences and psychological and
emotional involvement. This explains why; when men and women sit to
judge a beauty contest, it is never easy for them to quickly arrive at a result
on the winner.
Factors which affect our concept of beauty:

Concepts of beauty change as time passes. The prevailing idea by

one generation is usually different from that of the previous one. One period
may emphasize the voluptuous female figure; still one period may consider
slenderness very attractive.

The artist’s own concept may change, as he grows older. This

accounts to the differences in the artist own style and artistic expression.

Concept of Beauty varies over cultures too. That’s why, with our
eras so attuned to western music, we find little pleasure in listening to the
own music of our ethnic group. The Filipino Youth may prefer Western group
like Limpbizkit over Breed, Boyzone and others than Side A, Southborder,
Eraserheads and some local bands that we have.

We expect every work of art to be beautiful. But it may not always be

so. It is not always an artist’s intention to present beautiful subject or to
evoke a pleasant sensation to the viewer. Sometimes he may deliberately
communicate feeling of revulsion about things he has observed in the human
condition. Sometimes he may aim to jolt us from complacency by showing
the horrors of deprivation, violence and war. Pablo Picasso`s Guernica
especially show these and a Filipino group named “Agaw Agimat” used arts
to show the status of The Filipino. No matter how “ugly” the subject, if
there is a harmonious arrangement of formal elements, we can also
experience aesthetic pleasure from looking at it. Beauty in art may be the
result of the
successful organization of lines, colors, shapes, and spaces in order to convey
an idea or emotion.

The Subject of Art

To a majority of people, the appeal of most work of art lies in the

representation of familiar objects. Their enjoyment of painting, sculpture and
literature comes from their perception of the meaning or composition but
from the satisfaction they get out of recognizing the subject or
understanding the narrative content.

The subject of art refers to any person, object scene or event

described or represented in a work of art. Some arts have subject, others
does not. The arts that have subject are called representational or
objective arts (painting, literature, sculpture, theater). Those that do not
have subject are known as non-representational or non-objective
arts (architecture or music). The non-objective arts do not present
descriptions, stories or references to identifiable objects or symbols. Rather,
they appeal directly to the senses primarily because of satisfying
organization of their sensuous expressive elements. The musical pieces are
not imitations of natural sounds, but we enjoy listening to them because the
sounds have been so arranged and because they evoke certain emotional
responses in us.

Through such elements of design as line and color, a painter may

convey a message non-objectively. Bright color usually conveys a happy
mood; dark, drab ones create a somber mood. Similarly, light and delicate
lines suggest gaiety, while dark, heavy one communicates some serious or
heavy feeling.
 Many contemporary painters have turned away from representational
to non-objective painting. They have shifted their attention to the work of
art as an object in itself, an exciting combination of shapes and colors that
fulfills the aesthetic need without having to represent image or tell a story.
Many modern paintings have purely visual appeal; they are therefore
difficult for the literal oriented spectator to relate to.

WAYS OF REPRESENTING THE SUBJECT

1. REALISM - this is the attempt to portray the subject as it is. Realists

try to be as objective as possible although it may not be the exact copy of
the original. We can say that an art or the work is realistic when the
presentation and organization of details in the work seem so natural. It is
the most common way of presenting the art subject.

Realistic Novel – a narration of imaginary events; something that

could have really happened or may happen.

2. ABSTRACTION – Abstract means “to move away or separate”.

Abstract art moves away from showing things as they really are. It is the
process of simplifying or reorganizing objects and elements according to
the demands of artistic expression. The artist selects and renders the
object with their shape, colors, and positions altered. This is used when
the artist becomes so interested in one phase of a scene or a situation
that he does not show the subject as an objective reality, but only his
idea or his feeling about it.
 Abstract subjects can also be presented in many ways like:

a. Distortion – this is the process when the figures have been so

arranged that proportions differ noticeably from natural
measurement. This is clearly manifested when the subject is in
misshapen condition, or the regular shape is twisted out. This is
done to dramatize the shape of a figure or to create a dramatic
effect/ emotional effect.

b. Elongation – refers to that which is being lengthened, a

protraction or an extension.

c. Mangling – this may not be a commonly used way of presenting

an abstract subject, but there are a few artists who show subject
or objects which are cut, lacerated, mutilated or hacked with
repeated blows.

d. Cubism - it stresses abstract form through the use of a cone,

cylinder or sphere at the expense of other pictorial elements.
The Cubists want to show forms in their basic geometrical
shapes.

3. SYMBOLISM - a symbol in general is a visible sign of something

invisible such as an idea or quality. These well – known symbols arise
from conventional usage, association and general relationship. The
conventional type of symbol is not absent from works of arts.

4. FAUVISM – This was the first important movement of the 1900’s. The
fauves did not attempt to express ethical, philosophical or
psychological
 themes. Most of these artists tried to paint pictures of comfort, joy
and pleasure. They used extremely bright colors.

5. DADAISM – The dadaists tried to shock and provoke the public with
outrageous pieces of writing, poetry recitals and art exhibits.

6. FUTURISM - Futurists painters wanted their works to capture the

speed and force of modern industrial society. Their paintings glorified
the mechanical energy of modern life

7. SURREALISM – is an invented word meaning super realism. This

emphasizes the activities of the subconscious mind. Subject of this kind
attempt to show what is inside man’s mind and the appearance of his
outside world.

Much of the beauty sought by surrealism is violent and cruel. In this

way the surrealists try to shock the viewer or reader and show what they
consider the deeper and truer part of human nature. However, there are
also surrealist artistic works that are a far cry from cruelty and violence.

THE ARTIST AND HIS CHOICE OF SUBJECT

1. Everything under the sun

2. The artist choice of subject is usually affected by his medium.
3. The piece of art depends largely upon the time in which he lived
Middle Ages - God
Kinds of subject
1. landscape, seascapes, cityscapes
2. still life – inanimate objects arranged in indoor setting.
3. Animals
4. Portraits – realistic likeness of a person.
 Attire, accessories are very much expressive because they
reveal so much of the person and his time.

5. Figures – nude/ clothed

 Greeks – physical beauty was the symbol of moral and
spiritual perfection.
6. Everyday Life – life around the artist, or the actual setting.
 E.g. children playing, life at the park
7. History and Legends
History – consist of verifiable facts
Legends – unverifiable but they have been accepted as true
8. Religion and Mythology – use to preach and teach
Art – handmaid of religion
9. Dreams and Fantasy – mostly used by surrealist painters because they
are vague and illogical. Sometimes, dreams are more on the realistic
side – if they are strange, irrational and absurd.
 Ugly and Tragic in Art

These are some forms of arts that are concerned with pain and evil –
 Plays – tragic – Romeo and Juliet
 Songs – Saddest thoughts ( Vincent , Sound of Silence, Dust in the
Wind)
 Our sweetest songs tell us the saddest thoughts.
 Songs that promotes sadism and masochism

Subject and Content of Arts

Subject – are objects presented in an art form

Content – is the meaning or theme the artist is trying to express and
communicate.

Functions of Art

Compared to other activities of man, art is generally regarded as

impractical, not meant to meet the requirements of day to day living. To the
layman term, art has very little function, the term function means
practical usefulness. Architecture, weaving, furniture making and a few
other crafts has obvious purposes and are therefore classified as functional.
But painting, sculpture, literature, music and theatre arts seem to serve
no other end
than to amuse or provide a pleasant escape from life’s daily problems
- these are called non – functional arts.

General Functions of Art

1. our individual needs for personal expression
2. our social needs for display, celebration and communication
3. our physical needs for utilitarian objects

Personal Functions of Art

1. It serves as the artist vehicle foe expression of their feelings and ideas.
2. Art helps to educate our senses and sharpen our perception of colors,
textures, designs and sound in our environment.
3. Through arts we become aware of the beauty in life.
4. It makes us aware of other ways of thinking, feeling and imagining that
have never occurred to us before.
5. They offer fresh insights into nature and human nature so that we gain a
better understanding of our selves and the world around us.
6. They help us improve our lives.

Social Function

1. It seeks or tends to influence social behavior of a people.

2. It is created to be seen or used primarily in public situations
3. It has social descriptions. It describes the kind of society during a
specific period.

Physical Functions of Arts

 The physical function of the arts is to make our lives comfortable.
It is divided into two:
Tools – spoon, car
Containers – buildings, chair, vase
 Function of an object determines the form that it takes
Chair – to seat comfortably
Spoon – shapes and sizes determines its use
Architecture – the design of the building is determined by the operational
function
 What is the building floor?
 Who are going to use it
 How many?
 Design depends upon the climate