The

Visual
Arts
Lesson 3
 The Visual Arts
o Art forms that create works that are primarily visual in nature.
o It also include applied arts such as industrial design, graphic design,
fashion design, interior design and decorative art.
o The current usage of the term “visual arts” incudes fine art as well as
the applied, decorative arts and crafts.
o Before the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain, the term ‘artist’ was
often restricted to a person working in the fine arts and not the
handicraft, craft, or applied art media.
o VERNACULAR ART FORMS vs. HIGH FORMS
o Art schools made distinction between “Fine arts” and “the crafts”
maintaining that a craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner
of art.
Visual Arts include the following:

1. Fine Arts

o Refers to an art form practiced mainly for its aesthetic value

and its beauty rather than its functional value.
o It is rooted in drawing and design-based works such as
painting, printmaking, and sculpture.
o Other non-design-based activities regarded as fine arts,
include photography and architecture, although the latter is
best understood as an applied art (Severney, 2013).
Acrylic Painting-https://webneel.com/
Silkscreen Print -https://www.biddlesawyersilks.com/ https://blog-guru.net/photomontage/
Found-art: https://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/book_report/phaidon-history-of- Decollage: https://davidcottington.weebly.com/surfaces-
found-object-sculpture-list-53384 and-backgrounds/category/decollage
2. Contemporary Arts

o Visual arts that include a number of modern art forms, such

as: assemblage, collage, mixed- media, conceptual art,
installation, happenings and performance art, along with
film-based disciplines such as photography, video art and
animation, or any combination thereof.
o This group of activities also includes high tech disciplines
like computer graphics and giclee prints.
Ice/Snow Sculpture –The Atlantic https://www.kooness.com/ - Graffiti
Museum Tour Assemblage Glenn Martinez 2020 Land Art
3. Decorative Arts and Crafts

o The general category of visual arts encompasses a number

of decorative art disciplines and crafts, including ceramics
and studio pottery, mosaic art, mobiles, tapestry, glass art
(including stained glass) and others.
Ceramics and Pottery Stained Glass Cat Art Digital Art Peggy Collins
A Dewar and Gicquel tapestry at the Pompidou Center in Paris. MOSAIC ART BY SUE KERSHAW
Credit...Georges Meguerditchian/Center Pompidou 2013
4. Others

o Wider definitions of visual art sometimes include applied

art areas such as graphics design, fashion design, and
interior design.
o In addition, new types of body art may also fall under the
general heading of visual arts. These include tattoo art, face
painting, and body painting.
 Philosophical Perspective of Arts

Philosophical perspective points to the nature of

art, including such concepts as interpretation,
representation and expression, and form. It is
closely related to aesthetics, the philosophical study
of beauty and taste.
 Some of these philosophical perspectives are:

1. Art as mimesis (Plato)

⮚ Mimesis is derived from the Greek
word ‘mimos’ meaning imitate.
⮚ According to Plato, all artistic creation
is a form of imitation: that which really
exists, in the “world of ideas” is a type
created by God; the concrete things
man perceives in his existence are
supernatural representations of this
ideal type.
2. Art as representation (Aristotle)
⮚ He also defined mimesis as the
perfection, and imitation of nature.
⮚ Art is not only imitation but also the
use of mathematical ideas and
symmetry in the search for the perfect,
the timeless, and contrasting being
with becoming.
⮚ Nature is full of changes, but art can
also search for what is everlasting.
3. Art for Art Sake (Kant)
⮚ The beautiful, for Emmanuel Kant, is “
that which without any concept is
recognized as the object of necessary
satisfaction”.
⮚ He introduces purposiveness without a
purpose, allowing the mind of the one
who contemplates art freely to an
unrestricted play of the mental
faculties(Willete,2010).
⮚ “For judging of beautiful object as
such, taste is requisite; but for
beautiful art, for the production of such
object genius is requisite”.
The Subject of Art

The subject of art refers to any

person, object, scene or event
described or represented in a
work of art.
There are two types of subject of art as follows:

1. Representational or Objective
• Representational art of figurative
art represents objects or events in
the real world, usually looking
easily recognizable.
• It uses “ form” and is concerned
with “what” is to be depicted in the
artwork.
Fernando Amorsolo. “Woman Cooking in the
• Eg. Painting, sculpture, graphic Kitchen” 1959. UP Vargas Museum Permanent Art
Collection
art, literature and theater arts
 1. Non-representational or
Non-objective
• These are those art without any
reference to anything outside
itself (without representation).
• It has no recognizable objects
and is abstract in the sense that
it doesn’t represent real object.
• It uses “content” and is
concerned with “how” the
artwork is depicted.
https://unsplash.com/
 Sources of Subjective Art

1. Primary Sources
o Provide first-hand testimony or direct evidence concerning a
topic under investigation.
o Characterized by their content, regardless of whether they are
available in original format, in microfilm/microfiche, in digital
format, or in published format.
o Can also include autobiographies, memoirs and oral histories
recorded later.
2. Secondary Sources
o Often written significantly after events by parties not
directly involve but who have special expertise, they may
provide historical context or critical perspectives.
o Includes pictures, quotes or graphics of primary sources.
o Depending on the subject, newspaper and journal
articles can fall into both categories.
Some of these sources of art subject are:
1. Nature – animals, people and landscapes.
2. History – Artists are sensitive to the events taking place in the
world around them.
3. Greek and Roman mythology –these are gods and goddesses.
Its center is on deities and heroes.
4. The Judaeo Christian tradition – religion and art, the Bible,
the Apocrypha, the rituals of the Church.
5. Oriental Sacred Texts – The countries of the orient, especially
China, Japan and India, have all produced sacred texts of one kind
or another, and these inspired various kinds of art.
6. Other works of Art – these are the subject that can be found in
those works that take their subject directly from other works of
art.
The Spoliarium By Juan Luna –(A glimpse of Roman history )
Kinds of Subject
 Artists usually draw their arts through the different kinds of
subject. These include:

1. Still life
❖ these are groups of inanimate
objects arranged in an indoor
setting.
❖ The arrangement is that like to
show particular human
interest and activities.
 2. Landscapes, seascapes
and cityscapes
❖ Artist have always been
fascinated with their physical
environment.

Antipolo by Fernando Amorsolo

a. Favorite subject of Chines and
Japanese painters
b. Fernando Amorsolo is well-known
for having romanticized Philippine
landscape.
c. Vicente Manansala, Arturo Luz, and
Mauro Malang Santos are some local
painters who have done cityscapes.

https://www.comuseum.com/
3. Animals
❖ The earliest known painting
are representation of animals
on the walls of caves.
❖ The carabao has been a
favorite subject of Filipino
artist.
❖ The Maranaos have an animal
form of sarimanok as their
proudest prestige symbol.
 Sometimes, animals have been used as symbols in
conventional religious art, example:

a. The dove stands for the Holy Spirit in

representation of the Holy Trinity.
b. The Fish and lamb are symbol of
resurrection.
c. The phoenix is the symbol of
resurrection.
d. The peacock is the symbol of immortality
through Christ.
 4. Portraits
❖ Humans face is capable of showing a
variety of moods and feelings.
❖ A great portrait is a product of selective
process, the artist highlighting certain
features and de-emphasizing others.
❖ Besides the face, the subject’s hands,
which can be very expressive, his attire
and accessories for it reveals much about
the subject’s time.

Suho Self-Portrait Teaser

5. Figures
❖ The sculptures’ chief subject has
traditionally been the human body,
nude or clothed.
❖ To Greeks physical beauty was the
symbol of moral and spiritual
perfection; thus they portrayed
their god and goddesses as
possessing perfect human shapes.
❖ A favorite subject among painters is
the female figure in the nude.
Aphrodite: Goddess of Love & Beauty
 6. Everyday Life
❖ Artist have always shown a
deep concern about life around
them.
❖ Genre paintings usually are
representations of rice
threshers, cockfighters, candle
vendors, street musicians, and
children at play.

Isidro Ancheta "Women Washing

Clothes"
7. History and Legends
❖ History consists of verifiable facts,
legends, of unverifiable ones.
❖ It is difficult to tell how much of what
we know now is history and how
much is legend.
❖ Malakas and Maganda and Mariang
Makiling are among the legendary
subjects which have been rendered in
painting and sculpture by not a few
Filipino artists.
1964 Carlos Valino Jr. – General Del Pilar at Tirad
Pass
6. Religion and Mythology
❖ Most of the worlds’ religions have
used the arts to aid in worship, to
instruct, to inspire feelings of
devotion and to impress and
convert non-believers.
❖ “Mythos” meaning story of
legend. It tries to explain the
relationship between gods and
humans.
 Pallas and the Centaur
Chartres Cathedral, early 13th Century Painting by Sandro Botticelli
8. Dreams and Fantasies
❖ Artists, especially the
surrealists have tried to depict
dreams as well as the
grotesque terrors and
apprehensions that lurk in the
depths of the subconscious.
❖ No limits can be imposed on
imagination.

Fantasy by Leonard Aitken

 Different Levels of Meaning

A subject matter has three

different levels of meaning.
These are:

1. Factual meaning – the

literal meaning of the narrative
content in the work which can
be directly apprehended because
the objects presented are easily
recognized.
2. Conventional Meaning –
refers to the special meaning that a
certain object has in particular
culture or group of people.

3. Subjective Meaning – any

personal meaning consciously or
unconsciously conveyed by the
artist using a private symbolism
which stem from his own
association of certain objects,
actions or colors with past
experience.