C2L1 - The Artist & The Artisan
C2L1 - The Artist & The Artisan
Name of Student:
Course & Section:
CHAPTER 2- ART, ELEMENTS AND THE PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 2
OVERVIEW
In the daily life of the ordinary man, a life crowded with diverse interests and
increasingly complex demands, some few moments of a busy week or month or ear
are accorded to an interest in art. Whatever may be his vocation, the man feels
instinctive that in his total scheme of life books, pictures, and music have somewhere
a place. In his own business or profession, he is an expert, a man of special training;
and intelligently he does not aspire to a complete understanding of a subject that lies
beyond his province. In the same spirit in which he is a master of his own craft, he is
content to leave expert knowledge of art to the expert, to the artist and to the
connoisseur. For his part as a layman, he remains frank and happy on the outside. But
he feels nonetheless that arts have an interest and a meaning even for him. Though
he does not practice any art himself, he knows that he enjoys fine things, a beautiful
room, noble buildings, books and plays, statues, pictures, and music; and believes that
in his own fashion, he is able to appreciate art.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Introduction
Before the industrial revolution virtually everything was made by artisans, from
smiths (goldsmiths, blacksmiths, locksmiths, gunsmiths) to weavers, dyers, carpenters,
potters, etc.
In other places, this distinction is often very blurred since many farmers paint,
and many sculptors farm or have other jobs. Most walls are carved, and most houses
have decorative motifs. Art is everywhere. To them, the act of creation of beautiful
things is second nature. All the ladies of a village will make the amazing decorations
for temples, and the elaborate offerings, thinking nothing of spending three days
making things that will be only used for a few hours.
In much of the world today, an artist is considered to be a person with the talent
and skills to conceptualize and make creative works. Such persons are singled out
and prized for their artistic and original ideas. Their artworks can take many forms and
fit into numerous categories, such as architecture, ceramics, digital art, drawings,
mixed media, paintings, photographs, prints, sculptures, and textiles. Of greater
importance, artists are the individuals who have the desire and ability to envision,
design, and fabricate the images, objects, and structures we all encounter, use,
occupy and enjoy every day of our lives.
An artist is dedicated only to the creative side, making visually pleasing work
only for the enjoyment and appreciation of the viewer, but with no functional value.
An artisan is essentially a manual worker who makes items with his or her hands,
and who through skill, experience, and talent can create things of great beauty as
well as being functional.
Throughout history and across cultures there are different titles for those who
make and build. An artisan or craftsperson, for example, may produce decorative or
utilitarian art, such as quilts or baskets. Often, an artisan or craftsperson is a skilled
worker, but not the inventor of the original idea of form. An artisan or craftsperson can
also be someone who creates his own designs but does not work in art forms or with
materials traditionally associated with the so-called fine arts, such as painting and
sculpture. A craftsperson might instead fashion jewelry, forged iron, or blow glass into
patterns and objects of his own devising.
Artists make art and once that art is made, they make more. When they have
enough art, many of them call or email or post or otherwise present it to art world
professionals like dealers, gallery owners, curators, consultants, representatives, so-
called agents, and others who sell art for a living. Some of these professionals like the
art so much that they tell the artists they want to represent, show or sell it. The artists
give them the art to sell… and it sells.
Nobody escapes this truth. Your goal as an artist is to survive in a style that allows
you to continue making art, preferably on a full-time basis, and that means finding
people to buy it. If you can’t survive as an artist solely by selling your art, you have to
get another type of job in order to make a livable income, and then either make art
in your spare time or stop making it altogether.
The artist thinks, feels, and gives shape to his vision in terms of his medium. When
an artist chooses a particular medium, he believes that his choice can best express
the idea he wants to convey. At times, an artist employs more than one medium to
give meaning to his creative production.
The medium of art is classified into the visual arts and the auditory arts, or both.
Visual Arts are those whose mediums that can be seen and which occupy
space. Visual Arts are grouped into two classes:
Auditory Arts are those whose mediums can be heard and which are
expressed in time. An example of auditory art is music, the art of arranging sounds
in time so as to produce a continuous, unified and evocative composition, as
through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre. It may be vocal or instrumental,
possessing a degree of melody, harmony, or rhythm.
3. Both visual and auditory are those whose mediums can be both seen and
heard and which exist in both space and time.
Technique is the manner in which the artist controls the medium to achieve the
desired effect and the ability which he fulfills the technical requirements of his
particular work of art. Artists differ from one another in technique even if they use
the same medium. A musician’s technique is his ability to make music sound the
way he wants it. For instance, a pianist may sound different from another pianist
even as they handle the same instrument and play the same musical composition.
1. Encaustic – The medium for the powdered color is hot wax which is painted
onto a wood surface with a brush. It is then smoothed with a metal instrument
resembling a spoon, and then blended and set over a flame to soften and set
the colors into the wood. This method produces durable colors and permits
sculptural modeling of the paint surface. Because of the wax medium, the
colors are semi-translucent and look fresh and lively. This technique is rarely
used today.
2. Fresco Secco – In the dry plaster or “fresco secco” technique, pigments are
usually mixed with water, although other substances might also be used. The
paint is then applied to a dry plaster wall that has been wetted down with
water. Since the plaster is relatively dry, it is non-absorbent, and the pigment
adheres to the surface of the plaster. The colors tend to flake off the surface of
the plaster. The colors have a harder and more brilliant appearance and tend
to be lighter in value than those in true fresco. Advantages of the technique
are that the painting can be done more slowly and carefully, and changes
can be made simply by over-painting since colors are opaque. Example is the
Egyptian mural.
3. Fresco – This is also known as “Buon Fresco” or True Fresco, which entails
painting on freshly spread, moist plaster. First, layers of plaster are applied to
the surface. While the final layer is still wet, the artist applies the colors, which
are earth pigments mixed with water. The colors penetrate the wet plaster and
combine chemically with it, producing a painted surface that does not peel
when exposed to moisture. As the paint must be painted on wet plaster, the
amount of plaster which may be put down at one time is limited to what can
be painted in one sitting. Often lines can be seen in frescos around an area
that was one day’s work. The painting must be done rapidly and without
mistakes. It produces a mat surface with fairly desaturated colors. This
technique was perfected in Renaissance Italy. Examples include Roman wall
paintings at Pompeii, 1st century A.D.; Giotto’s Arena Chapel at Padua, 14 th
Century; Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling, 16 th century.
4. Egg Tempera – In this method, the pigment is mixed with egg yolk or both the
yolk and white of an egg. It is thinned with water and applied to a gesso ground
(plaster mixed with a binding) on a panel. It was also used on parchment or
paper to illustrate or embellish books in the era before the 15th-century
development of the printing press. This type of paint dries very quickly and
procedures an opaque, matte surface. The colors tend to dry to a lighter value
than they appear when wet. The colors produced are bright and saturated.
Modeling is achieved by hatching. Egg tempera was used for panel painting
until the 15th century. Examples of artists who worked in egg tempera include
Cimabue (14th Century); Duccio (14th Century); Andrew Wyeth (20 th Century).
Islamic and Medieval miniature paintings in books and manuscripts are another
important class of egg tempera paintings; the Celtic Book of Kells is a well-
known early example, as is the Book of Hours commissioned by the Duc du
Berry in the 14th century.
6. Oil Paint – Prior to the 15th-century oil paints were thick and hard to control, so
they were initially used only for utilitarian purposes. In the 15th century,
turpentine was discovered to be an effective thinning agent. The Van Eyck
brothers were credited with perfecting the technique of oil painting, which
they initially attempted to keep secret.
Powdered colors are mixed with fine oil, usually linseed oil. A solvent,
traditionally turpentine, is also used to thin the colors as desired so that the paint
can be applied thickly and opaquely, or thinly and transparently. The oil paint
is applied to a prepared ground, usually a stretched canvas with a coating of
neutral pigment. The earliest technique of oil painting involved building up
layers of colors, moving from darker to lighter values. Fine brushes were used,
and a glossy, smooth finish was achieved. When applied in this way, the colors
are somewhat translucent, so the darker layers of color below added depth
and luminosity to the surface and permitted a remarkable degree of realism.
Jan van Eyck (15th c.), Hans Holbein the younger (16th c. & above), Bouguereau
(19th c.), and Salvador Dali (20th c.) are among the artists who worked in this
manner, other artists came to discover that because of its slow drying, oil paints
could actually be re-worked on the surface to blend colors, and when applied
thickly with a larger brush or palette knife, could also add real surface texture
to the image. This technique of applying oils lent itself to more expressive,
dramatic effects in which fine detail was less important than total effect. Artists
who worked in this way include Rembrandt (17th Century); Monet (19th Century);
Cezanne (19th Century & above); William de Kooning (20th Century).
many artists prefer to be able to re-work the colors, many prefer oils to acrylics.
However, many modern artists do choose acrylics.
Other artists using this technique include Braque, Max Ernst, and Kurt
Schwitters
10. Drawing – The materials and methods of drawing are the most basic tools of
the artist and the designer. Work that is intended to be executed in almost any
material - paint, stone, steel, or fabric – may first be envisioned in a drawing.
However, this basic character of drawing skills may tend to trivialize what can
be a highly developed art in its own right.
11. Printmaking – A print is anything printed on a surface that is a direct result from
the duplication process. Ordinarily, painting or graphic image done in black
ink on white appear and becomes the artist’s plate. Advantage of printmaking
is the process of making copies of the original drawing.
11.1. Relief – Relief prints are made by removing material from the matrix, the
surface, the image has been carved into, which is often wooed, linoleum,
or metal. The remaining surface is covered with ink or pigment, and then
paper is pressed onto the surface, picking up the ink. Letterpress is a relief
printing process that transfers ink to paper but also indents an impression
into the surface of the paper, creating a texture to the print that is often
considered a sign of high quality.
11.2. Intaglio Prints – 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.
11.3. Stencil Prints – They are made by passing inks through a porous fine mesh
matrix.
11.4. Woodcut – This kind of technique of printing designs from planks of wood
incised parallel to the vertical axis of the wood’s grain. It is one of the oldest
methods of making prints from a relief surface, having been used in China
to decorate textiles since the 5 th century. In Europe, printing from wood
blocks on textiles was known from the early 14th century, but it had little
development until paper began to be manufactured in France and
Germany at the end of the 14 th century. Cuts with heavy outline and little
shading, as the Christ Before Herod, may date from 1400, while the earliest
dated print of German origin is the St. Christopher print of 1423 from the
Buxheim Monastery. In Bavaria, Austria, and Bohemia, religious images and
playing cards were first made from wood blocks in the early 15th century,
and the development of printing from movable type led to widespread use
of woodcut illustrations in the Netherlands and in Italy. With the 16th century,
black-line woodcut reached its greatest perfection. In the early 19th
century, it was replaced by wood engraving, which reproduced paintings
and sculpture more easily and accurately than did woodcuts.
11.5. Engraving – In engraving, the design is cut into metal with a graver or
burin. The burin is a steel rod with a square or lozenge-shaped section and
a slightly bent shank. The cutting is accomplished by pushing the burin into
the metal plate. The deeper it penetrates into the metal, the wider the line;
variations in depth create the swelling tapering character of the engraved
line. After the engraving is finished, the slight burr raised by the graver is
cleaned off with a scraper.
As a group, these folk and traditional artists reflect the diverse heritage and
cultural traditions that transcend their beginnings to become part of our national
character. As Filipinos, they bring age-old customs, crafts and ways of living to the
attention and appreciation of Filipino life. They provide us with a vision of ourselves
and of our nation, a vision we might be able to realize someday, once we are given
the opportunity to be true to ourselves as these artists have remained truthful to their
art. They are our National Living Treasures.
Hereunder are some of the GAMABA awardees and their work of art:
2. Eduardo Mutuc – an artist from Apalit, Pampanga who has dedicated his
life to creating religious and secular art in silver, bronze, and wood.
3. Haja Amina Appi – recognized as master mat weaver among the Sama
indigenous community for her unique designs, straightness of her edging
(tabig), and fineness of her sasa and kima-kima.
4. Alonzo Saclag – a Kalinga master if dance and the performing arts who
mastered not only the Kalinga musical instruments but also her dance
patterns and movements associated with her peoples’ rituals.
5. Federico Caballero – a Sulod Bukidnon epic chanter from Kalinog, Iloilo who
ceaselessly works for the documentation of the oral literature, particularly
the epics of his people.
10. Masino Intaray – a prolific and pre-eminent epic chanter and story-teller
recognized for his outstanding mastery of various traditional musical
instruments of the Palawan people such as basal, kulilal, and bagil.
Performance Art
The performing arts refer to the forms of art where an artist use his own face,
body and presence. The major types of performing arts include music, opera, dance,
drama, and spoken words.
1. Music is a form of art whose medium is silence and sound. The word “music” was
derived form the Greek word “mousike” which means the art of the muses. The
common elements of music include rhythm, pitch, dynamics, timbre and texture.
The performance, creation, significance, and definition of this art depend on the
social context and culture. Music can range from organized composition up to
improvisational music to aleatoric forms.
Music can be assorted into different genres or subgenres, although the divisions
of these genres are usually vague and subtle. It is also said that there is a very
strong connection between mathematics and music. To a lot of people who
belong to various cultures, music plays an important part in their lives. Music is
usually associated with the way of life of different kinds pf people across the land.
3. Dance is a form of performing arts that refers to the art of moving the body
rhythmically and usually in accordance to music. It is used as a form of social
interaction and expression, or it is commonly presented in a performance or
spiritual setting. It is also seen as a form of nonverbal communication, a type of
communication where words are not used. Definitions of what dance is really all
about usually varies in each culture, society or person.
Some people considered even the movement of the leaves as a form of dance
while some even considered martial arts, like karate, as one form of it. Dance can
also be social, participatory, and performed for an audience. It can as well be
erotic, ceremonial or competitive in purpose. Nowadays, dancing has evolved
into many styles. These styles include ballet, break dancing, and krumping.
Nevertheless, each type of dance, whether what style, has something that is
common. It does not only involve the usage of the human body kinetics and
flexibility but also physics.
Transcreation
Name Date
Year/Sec Rating
ACTIVITY 1
Based on what you have learned, cite at least 5 examples of the following
techniques used by artist and write it down on their respective columns:
ACTIVITY 2
Explain the significance of art in our lives from your own point of view. Please
elaborate your answers.
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________.
REFERENCE:
Leaño, R., Jr., Papel, R. O., & Ong, M. (2022). Art Appreciation. Mindshapers Co., Inc.