LESSON 1

THE STUDY OF HUMANITIES

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
•Give the meaning of humanities, art, art appreciation, and art history
•Differentiate art history from art appreciation
•Discuss the importance of art in contemporary society

THE ORIGIN AND MEANING OF HUMANITIES

The term “humanities” originated from the Renaissance Latin expression studia humanintatis or study of humanitas which refers to “culture,
refinement, education”.

MEANING AND IMPORTANCE OF ART

Hereunder are some of the definitions of art given by various authors and writers.
1. Art derived from the Latin word “ars”, meaning ability or skill-J.V. Estolas

2. Art is taken from the Italian word “artis”, which means craftsmanship, skill, mastery of form, inventiveness, and the associations that exists
between form and ideas, between material and technique. –A. Tan

3. Art is a product of man’s need to express himself – F. Zulueta

4. Art is concerned itself with the communication of certain ideas and feelings by means of sensuous medium, color, sound, bronze, marble,
words and film – C. Sanchez

5. Art is that which brings life in harmony with the world. – Plato

6. Art is an attitude of spirit, state of mind– one which demands for its own satisfaction and fulfilling, a shaping matter to new and more
significant more. – John Dewey

7. Art is the skilfull arrangement or composition of some common but significant qualities of nature such as colors, sounds, lines
movements, words, stones, wood, etc., to express human feelings, emotions, or thoughts in a perfect, meaningful, and enjoyable way. –
Panizo and Rustia

8. Art is not what you see but what make others see. – Edgar Degas

9. Art is a lie that helps us to realize the truth. – Pablo Picasso

10. Art is the desire of man to express himself, to record the action of his personality in the world he lives in. –Amy Lowell

11. Art is never finished, only abandoned. – Leonardo da Vinci

12. Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling, the artist has experienced.- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

13. Art is the realization in external form of a true idea and is traced back to that natural love of imitation which characterizes human. –
Aristotle

14. Art is the conscious creation of something beautiful or meaningful using skill and imagination- Lisa Morder

15. Art is the discovery and development of elementary principles of nature into beautiful forms suitable for human use. –Frank Lloyd Wright

Four Common Essentials Of Art

1. Art is man-made, not God-made
2. Art is creative, not imitative
3. Art benefits and satisfies man – when he uses art in practical life through artistic principles, taste, and skill.
4. Art is expressed through a certain medium or material/ by which the artist communicates himself to his fellows.

Reasons Why Art Is Important

• Art highlights and heightens the importance of certain evens in order to keep them memorable and pleasurable.
•Art enables us to get a glimpse of the thoughts , feelings, and beliefs of the people in their time and the faces in their environment that influenced
them.
•Art enables us to value and appreciate beautiful things as a consequence of our encounter with arts.
•Art may influence us to change our ways and behaviour as a result of the aesthetics experience we derived from the arts.
•Arts are valuable sources of inspirations and aesthetics delightful experience through the artist works of art.

Swara Swami (May 31, 2016) list the reasons why art is important.
1. Art improves your creativity and skill.
2. Art gives you joy and satisfaction.
3. Art relieves stress.
4. Arts give you the opportunity to showcase your talent.
5. Art give you confidence in our performance.
 6. Arts help you do well academically.
7. Arts help you learn visually.
8. Arts help you express your emotions.
9. Arts is a different language because it can express things without words.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ARTS TO STUDENTS

1.Through participation in arts – music, dance, drama, media arts, and the visual arts-
•Students can develop their creativity
•Students about their identity
•Students develop self-awareness
•Students develop self-confidence
•Students develop sense of well-being

2. Through intense involvement in artistic activities—

•Students experience sense of wonder and joy when learning through the arts
•Students can be motivated to participate more fully in cultural life
•Students are able to gain educational opportunities which they can use later in their career life.

MEANING AND IMPORTANCE OF ART APPRECIATION

1. Art appreciation is the ability to interpret and understand man-made arts and enjoy them through actual work experience with art tools
and materials.
2. Art appreciation is the possession of the works of art for one’s admiration and satisfaction.
3. Art appreciation refers to the knowledge and understanding of the general and everlasting qualities that classify all great arts.
4. Art appreciation is the introduction and exploration of visual and performing art forms.
5. Art appreciation is the analysis of the form of an art work to general audience to enhance their employment and satisfaction of the works
of art.

Art appreciation is also important to others for the following reasons:

Art Appreciation can—
1. Can help the person make sense of his world by broadening his experience and understanding of the things around him.
2. Can help the person imagine even the unimaginable.
3. Is able to connect a person’s life and experience the past, the present, and the future or sometimes simultaneously.
4. Can help transport the individual to different places and culture through literature, films, visual arts, and other form of arts.
5. Allows the individual to see himself, his family dynamics as well as his community through different lens of great art.
6. Enable the individual to better empathize with those who suffered and endured for their lives through great art forms.
7. Gives meaning to the data science provides. If science gives us empirical facts, tie these facts together with theories, it’s the humanists
who turn these facts with moral, emotional, and spiritual meanings.

ART HISTORY
Art history refers to the historical development and stylistic context of the objects of arts that includes the major and minor arts.
The major arts include painting, sculpture, and architecture. The minor arts include ceramics, furniture, and other decorative arts.

METHODS USED IN ART HISTORY

1. Art historians analyze the works of arts in the context of its time or within which it was created. The works of art subject to scrutiny are the
creator’s motivations, desires and prejudices of its patron and sponsors. Comparative analysis of themes and approaches of the creator’s
colleagues and teachers and the symbolism of the art of works.
2. Art historians analyze the works of arts through the analysis of their forms. The analysis is focused on the artist’s use of line, shape, color,
texture, composition and other art elements.

The two-dimensional and three-dimensional picture planes are two approaches in creating art. The way the elements of
arts employed results to either representational or non- representational art. If the artist copy or imitate an object or image found in
nature this approach is called representational art. But if the artist creates an art in a realistic manner (not imitation) rely on
symbolism or striving to capture’s essence, the art is non-representational which is called abstract art.

Impressionism as an example of representation style is produced when the artwork was not directly imitative but an impression of nature.
In expressionism, the work of art is not representational but the expression of the artist’s feelings, longings, aspirations, and ideals of beauty and
form.

3. Art historians also use critical theory in analyzing objects of arts when dealing with more recent objects. Art historians often borrowed
from literary scholars when it involves the application of a non-artistic analytical framework to the study of art objects.
4. Another method in art history is the application of media and digital technology. This is the recent method in analyzing art history.

PURPOSE OF ART HISTORY

•To place art in a social and historical context
• It has more advantage over art appreciation when evaluating works of art. The more information an evaluation has on the works of art, the better
an evaluation he can make over the works of art.
•When a person has more context when looking at something such as piece of art work, he could better understand more the story behind that
particular piece of art work.
•To see how things like war, religion, politics, technological war have effect not only in the artist but on the artwork that was produced.

LESSON 2
ASSUMPTIONS OF ARTS
Introduction to Art Appreciation

ART IS UNIVERSAL
Art has been crafted by all people regardless of origin, time, place and that it stayed on because it is liked and enjoyed by people continuously.
The two Greek epics, the Illiad and the Odyssey and the Sanksrit pieces Mahabharata and Ramavana purportedly written before the beginning of
recorded history.

ART IS NOT NATURE

Art is man’s expression of his reception of nature.
Art is man’s way of interpreting nature.
Art is not nature.
Art is made by man, whereas nature is a given. Around us.
“Art is man-made, not God-made.”

ART INVOLVES EXPERIENCE

Art does not require a full definition, art is just experience.
Most of the time we can really interpret and appreciate art through our life experiences.

HOW SHOULD WE PERCEIVE AND APPRECIATE ART?

ART APPRECIATION AS A WAY OF LIFE

Jean-Paul Sartre
A famous French philosopher of the 20th century Described the world of art as a creative work that depicts the world in a completely different light
and perspective, and the source is due to human freedom.
ART AS A PRODUCT OF IMAGINATION, IMAGINATION AS A PRODUCT OF ART

Albert Einstein demonstrated that knowledge is actually derived from imagination.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire
world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

ART AS AN EXPRESSION

Robin George Collingwood an English philosopher who is best known for his work in aesthetics explicated in his publication The Principles of Art
(1938)
Through expression, he is able to explore his own emotions and at the same time, create something beautiful out of them. He further illustrated that
expressing emotions is something different from describing emotions.

“ART IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF HOPE”

LESSON 3:
Art Appreciation: Creativity, Imagination, and Expression

THE ROLE OF CREATIVITY IN ART MAKING

•Creativity requires “thinking outside the box

• In art, creativity is what sets apart one artwork from another.
•A creative artist does not simply copy or imitate another artist’s work.

THERE ARE COUNTLESS WAYS OF EXPRESSING ONESELF THROUGH ART.

VISUAL ARTS
► Creations that fall under this category are those that appeal to the sense of sight and are mainly visual in nature.
►Artists produce visual arts driven by their desire to reproduce things that they have seen in the way that they perceived them.
►It is the kind of art form that the population is most likely more exposed to.
►Some mediums of visual arts include paintings, drawings, letterings, printing, sculptures, digital imaging, and more.

“CAMELLIA IN OLD CHINESE VASE ON BLACK LACQUER TABLE” BY JOHN LA FARGE

FILM
•Refers to the art of putting together successions of still images in order to create an illusion or movement.
•Filmmaking focuses on its aesthetic, cultural, and social value and is considered as both an art and an industry.
•Films can be created by using one or a combination of some or all of these techniques:
-motion-picture camera (also known as movie camera)
-Animation techniques
-Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI), and more
•Filmmaking stimulates experiences or creates one that is beyond the scope of our imagination as it aims to deliver ideas, feelings, or beauty to its
viewers.
•The art of filmmaking is so complex it has to take into account many important elements such as lighting, musical score, visual effects, direction,
and more.
•That is why in famous film festivals and awards such as the Metro Manila Film Festival-local and Oscars-global, a long list of categories is
considered to recognize excellence in the art of filmmaking.

PERFORMANCE ARTS
•Is a live art and the artist’s medium is mainly the human body which he / she uses to perform, but also employs other kind of art such as virtual art,
props, or sound.
• It usually consists of four important elements:
-time,
-Where the performance took place,
-the performers’ or performer’s body,
-and a relationship between the audience and the performer(s).
•The fact that performance art is live makes it intangible, which means it cannot be bought or traded as a commodity, unlike the previously
discussed art expressions.

POETRY PERFORMANCE
• Poetry is an art form where the artists expresses his emotions not by using paint, charcoal, or camera, but expresses them through words.
•There words are carefully selected to exhibit clarity and beauty and to stimulate strong emotions of joy, anger, love, sorrow, and the list goes on.
•It uses a word’s emotional, musical, and spatial values that go beyond its literal meaning to narrate, emphasize, argue, or convince.
•These words, combined with movements, tone, volume, and intensity of the delivery, add to the artistic value of the poem.
•Some poets even make poems out of their emotions picked up from other works of art, which in tum produce another work of art through poetry.

ARCHITECTURE
•Art is the pursuit and creation of beautiful things while architecture is the making of beautiful buildings. However, not all buildings are beautiful.
•Some buildings only embody the functionality they need, but the structure, lines, forms, and colors are not beautifully expressed.
DANCE
•Is a series of movements that follows the rhythm of the music accompaniment. It has been an age-old debate whether dance can really be
considered an art form.
•A creative form that allows people to freely express themselves. It has no rules.
•Dancers are not confined to set steps and rules but are free to create and invent their own movements as long as they deem them graceful and
beautiful.

LITERARY ART
•Artists who practices literary arts use words – not paint, musical instruments, or chisels to express themselves and communicate emotions to the
readers. However, simply becoming a writer does not make one a literary artist.
•Simply constructing a succession of sentences in a meaningful manner is not literary art. Literary art goes beyond the usual professional,
academic, journalistic, and other technical forms of writing.
•It focuses on writing using a unique style, not following a specific format or norm. It may include both fiction and non-fiction such as novels,
biographies, and poems.
•Examples of famous literary artists and their works include The Little Prince by Antione de Saint-Exupery and Romeo and Juliet by William
Shakespeare.

THEATER
•Uses live performers to present accounts or imaginary events before a live audience. Theater art performances usually follow a script, though they
should not be confused with literary arts.
•Much like in filmmaking, theater also considers several elements such as acting, gesture, lighting, sound effects, musical score scenery, and props.
•The combination of these elements is what gives the strongest impression on the audience and the script thus becomes a minor element.
•The combination of these elements is what gives the strongest impression on the audience and the script thus becomes a minor element. Like
performance art, since theater is also a live performance, the participation of the viewer is an important element in theater arts.
•Some genres of theater include drama, musical, tragedy, comedy and improvisation.

APPLIED ARTS
•Applied arts is incorporating elements of style and design to everyday items with the aim of increasing their aesthetical value. Artists in this field
bring beauty, charm, and comfort into many things that are useful in everyday life.
•Industrial design, interior design, fashion design, and graphic design are considered applied arts. Applied is often compared to fine arts, where the
latter is chiefly concerned on aesthetic value. Through exploration and expression of ideas, consideration of the needs, and careful choice of
materials and techniques, artists can combine functionality and style.
Example: Hypebeast

LESSON 5
7 Methods of PRESENTING THE SUBJECT OF ART

REALISM
It is characterized by everyday subjects painted from everyday life in a naturalistic way. Realism can refer to both the specific art movement that
introduced this style of painting and the contemporary style of hyper- realistic paintings that mimic photographs.

ABSTRACTION
Abstraction indicates a departure from reality in depiction of imagery in art. This departure from accurate representation can be slight, partial, or
complete. Abstraction exists along a continuum.

SYMBOLISM
Arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and
realism.

FAUVISM
Fauvism was an early- twentieth-century art style of like-minded artists who were initially ridiculed and called Les Fauves, meaning “the savages” or
“the wild beasts” in French.

DADAISM
Dadaism sprang to life as a form of protest against the absurdity and ridiculousness of modernity. The definition of Dadaism is revolving around the
incidents that occurred during its origin. It is a movement because it is an art form spearheaded and adopted by a group of artists with a similar
philosophy and style at a particular period.

SURREALISM
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and
developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself.

FUTURISM
Futurism was an Italian art movement of the early twentieth century that aimed to capture in art the dynamism and energy of the modern world.