College

BSCRIM 1
ART
APPRECIATION

Module 1
ITRODUCTION TO ART
APPRECIATION

INSTRUCTOR: LOVELY P. PANCHACALA, MBM 1

 Reading Resources and Instructional Activities
MODULE 1
What Is Art: Introduction and Assumptions
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LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

1. understand the role of humanities and arts in man's attempt at fully realizing his end;
2. clarify misconceptions the art:
3. characterize the assumptions of arts; and
4. engage better with personal experiences of and in art.
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INTRODUCTION

Art is something that is perennially around us. Some people may deny having to do with the
arts but it is indisputable that life presents us with many forms of and opportunities for communion
with the arts. A bank manager choosing what tie to wear together with his shirt and shoes, a
politician shuffling her music track while comfortably seated on her car looking for her favorite song,
a student marveling at the intricate designs of a medieval cathedral during his field trip, and a market
vendor cheering for her bet in a dance competition on a noontime TV program all manifest concern
for values that are undeniably, despite tangentially, artistic.

Figure 1. A Medieval Cathedral

Despite the seemingly overflowing instances of
arts around people, one still finds the need to see
more and experience more, whether consciously
or unconsciously. One whose exposure to music
is only limited to one genre finds it lacking not to
have been exposed to more. One, whose idea of a
cathedral is limited to the locally available ones,
finds enormous joy in seeing other prototypes in
Europe. Plato had the sharpest foresight when he
discussed in the Symposium that beauty, the
object of any love, truly progresses. As one moves
through life, one locates better, more beautiful
objects of desire (Scott, 2000). One can never be
totally content with what is just before him.
Human beings are drawn toward what is good
and ultimately, beautiful.

INSTRUCTOR: LOVELY P. PANCHACALA, MBM 2

This lesson is about this yearning for the beautiful, the appreciation of the all-consuming beauty
around us, and some preliminary clarifications on assumptions that people normally hold about art.
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Let's Get Started
In the first column of the table below, list down your most striking encounters with arts. On the second
column, explain why you think each encounter is an experience with art.

My Encounters with Arts Why?

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Let's Get Down to Business

Why Study the Humanities?

For as long as man existed in this planet, he has cultivated the land, altered the conditions of the
fauna and the flora, in order to survive. Alongside these necessities, man also marked his place in
the world through his works. Through his bare hands, man constructed infrastructures that tended
to his needs, like his house. He sharpened swords and spears. He employed fire in order to melt
gold. The initial meaning of the word "art" has something to do with all these craft.

INSTRUCTOR: LOVELY P. PANCHACALA, MBM 3

The word "art" comes from the ancient Latin, ars which means a "craft or specialized form of skill, like
carpentry or smithying or surgery" (Collingwood, 1938). Art then suggested the capacity to produce
an intended result from carefully planned steps or method. When a man wants to build a house, he
plans meticulously to get to what the prototype promises and he executes the steps to produce the
said structure, then he is engaged in art. The Ancient World did not have any conceived notion of art
in the same way that we do now. To them, art only meant using the bare hands to produce something
that will be useful to one's day- o – day life.

Ars in Medieval Latin came to mean something different. It meant "any special form of book-learning,
such as grammar or logic, magic or astrology" (Collingwood, 1938). It was only during the
Renaissance Period that the word reacquired a meaning that was inherent in its ancient form of craft.
Early Renaissance artists saw their activities merely as craftsmanship, devoid of a whole lot of
intonations that are attached to the word now. It was during the seventeenth century when the
problem and idea of aesthetics, the study of beauty, began to unfold distinctly from the notion of
technical workmanship, which was the original conception of the word "art." It was finally in the
eighteenth century when the word has evolved to distinguish between the fine arts and the useful
arts. The fine arts would come to mean "not delicate or highly skilled arts, but "beautiful' arts"
(Collingwood, 1938). This is something more akin to what is now considered art.

Figure 2. Cave Paintings

"The humanities constitute one of the oldest and
most important means of expression developed by
man" (Dudley et al., 1960). Human history has
witnessed how man evolved not just physically
but also culturally, from cave painters to men of
exquisite paintbrush users of the present. Even if
one goes back to the time before written records
of man's civilization has appeared, he can find
cases of man's attempts of not just crafting tools
to live and survive but also expressing his
feelings and thoughts. The Galloping Wild Boar
found in the cave of Altamira, Spain is one such
example. In 1879, a Spaniard and his daughter
were exploring a cave when they saw pictures of
a wild boar, hind, and bison. According to experts, these paintings were purported to belong to Upper
Paleolithic Age, several thousands of years before the current era. Pre-historic men, with their crude
instruments, already showcased and manifested earliest attempts at recording man's innermost
interests, preoccupations, and thoughts. The humanities, then, ironically, have started even before
the term has been coined. Human persons have long been exercising what it means to be a human
long before he was even aware of his being one. The humanities stand tall in bearing witness to this
magnificent phenomenon. Any human person, then, is tasked to participate, if not, totally partake in
this long tradition of humanizing himself.

INSTRUCTOR: LOVELY P. PANCHACALA, MBM 4

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ASSUMPTIONS OF ART
Art is universal.
Literature has provided key works of art. Among the most popular ones being taught in school are
the two Greek epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Sanskrit pieces Mahabharata and Ramayana are
also staples in this field. These works, purportedly written before the beginning of recorded history,
are believed to be man's attempt at recording stories and tales that have been passed on, known, and
sung throughout the years. Art has always been timeless and universal, spanning generations and
continents through and through.

Figure 3. Ibong Adarna

In every country and in every generation, there is always art.
Oftentimes, people feel that what is considered artistic are only
those which have been made long time ago. This is a
misconception. Age is not a factor in determining art. An “...art
is not good because it is old, but old because it is good" (Dudley et
al., 1960). In the Philippines, the works of Jose Rizal and
Francisco Balagtas are not being read because they are old.
Otherwise, works of other Filipinos who have long died would
have been required in junior high school too. The pieces
mentioned are read in school and have remained to be with us
because they are good. They are liked and adored because they
meet our needs and desires. Florante at Laura never fails to
teach high school students the beauty of love, one that is
universal and pure. Ibong Adarna, another Filipino
masterpiece, has always captured the imagination of the young
with its timeless lessons. When we recite the Psalms, we feel in
communion with King David as we feel one with him in his
conversation with God. When we listen to a kundiman or
perform folk dances, we still enjoy the way our Filipino
ancestors whiled away their time in the past. We do not
necessarily like a kundiman for its original meaning. We just like
it. We enjoy it. Or just as one of the characters in the movie Bar Boys thought, kundiman makes one
concentrate better.

The first assumption then about the humanities is that 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. A
great piece of work will never be obsolete. Some people say that art is art for its intrinsic worth. In
John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism (1879), enjoyment in the arts belongs to a higher good, one that lies
at the opposite end of base pleasures. Art will always be present because human beings will always
express themselves and delight in these expressions. Men will continue to use art while art persists
and never gets depleted.

INSTRUCTOR: LOVELY P. PANCHACALA, MBM 5

Art is not nature.

In the Philippines, it is not entirely novel to hear some consumers of local movies remark that these
movies produced locally are unrealistic. They contend that local movies work around certain formula
to the detriment of substance and faithfulness to reality of the movies. These critical minds argue
that a good movie must reflect reality as closely as possible. Is that so?

Paul Cézanne, a French painter, painted a scene from reality entitled Well and Grinding Wheel in the
Forest of the Château Noir. The said scene is inspired by a real scene in a forest around the Châ teau
Noir area near Aix in Cézanne's native Provence. Comparing the two, one can see that Cézanne's
landscape is quite different from the original scene. Cézanne has changed some patterns and details
from the way they were actually in the photograph. What he did is not nature. It is art.

One important characteristic of art is that it 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. It is in this juncture that they can be considered opposites. What we find in
nature should not be expected to be present in art too. Movies are not meant to be direct
representation of reality. They may, according to the moviemaker's perception of reality, be a
reinterpretation or even distortion of nature.

Figure 4. The Elephant and the Blind Men

This distinction assumes that all of us see
nature, perceive its elements in myriad,
different, yet ultimately valid ways. One can
only imagine the story of the five blind men
who one day argue against each other on
what an elephant looks like. Each of the five
blind men was holding a different part of the
elephant. The first was touching the body
and thus, thought the elephant was like a
wall. Another was touching the beast's ear
and was convinced that the elephant was
like a fan. The rest were touching other
different parts of the elephant and
concluded differently based on their
perceptions. Art is like each of these men's
view of the elephant. It is based on an
individual's subjective experience of nature.
It is not meant, after all, to accurately define
what the elephant is really like in nature. Artists are not expected to duplicate nature just as even
scientists with their elaborate laboratories cannot make nature.

INSTRUCTOR: LOVELY P. PANCHACALA, MBM 6

Once this point has been made, a student of humanities can then ask further questions such as: What
reasons might the artist have in creating something? Why did Andres Bonifacio write "Pag-ibig sa
Tinubuang Lupa"? What motivation did Juan Luna have in creating his masterpiece, the Spoliarium?
In whatever work of art, one should always ask why the artist made it. What is it that he wants to
show?

Art involves experience.

Getting this far without a satisfactory definition of art can be quite weird for some. For most people,
art does not require a full definition. Art is just experience. By experience, we mean the "actual doing
of something" (Dudley et al., 1960). When one says that he has an experience of something, he often
means that he knows what that something is about. When one claims that he has experienced falling
in love, getting hurt, and bouncing back, he in effect claims that he knows the (sometimes) endless
cycle of loving. When one asserts having experienced preparing a particular recipe, he in fact asserts
knowing how the recipe is made. Knowing a thing is different from hearing from others what the said
thing is. A radio DJ dispensing advice on love when he himself has not experienced it does not really
know what he is talking about. A choreographer who cannot execute a dance step himself is a bogus.
Art is always an experience. Unlike fields of knowledge that involve data, art is known by
experiencing. A painter cannot claim to know how to paint if he has not tried holding a brush. A
sculptor cannot produce a work of art if a chisel is foreign to him. Dudley et al. (1960) affirmed that
"[a]ll art depends on experience, and if one is to know art, he must know it not as fact or information
but as experience."

Figure 5. Pablo Picasso

A work of art then cannot be abstracted from actual doing.

In order to know what an artwork is, we have to sense it, see
or hear it, and see AND hear it. To fully appreciate our national
hero's monument, one must go to Rizal Park and see the actual
sculpture. In order to know Beyoncé's music, one must listen
to it to actually experience them. A famous story. about
someone who adores Picasso. goes something like this: "Years
ago, Gertrude Stein was asked why she bought the pictures of
the then unknown artist Picasso. 'I like to look at them,' said
Miss Stein" (Dudley et al., 1960). At the end of the day, one
fully gets acquainted with art if one immerses himself into it.
In the case of Picasso, one only learns about Picasso's work by
looking at it. That is precisely what Miss Stein did.

INSTRUCTOR: LOVELY P. PANCHACALA, MBM 7

In matters of art, the subject's perception is of primacy. One can read hundreds of reviews about a
particular movie, but at the end of the day, until he sees the movie himself, he will be in no position to
actually talk about the movie. He does not know the movie until he experiences it. An important
aspect of experiencing art is its being highly personal, individual, and subjective. In philosophical
terms, perception of art is always a value judgment. It depends on who the perceiver is, his tastes, his
biases, and what he has inside him. Degustibus non disputandum est (Matters of taste are not matters
of dispute). One cannot argue with another person's evaluation of art because one's experience can
never be known by another.

Finally, one should also underscore that every experience with art is accompanied by some emotion.
One either likes or dislikes, agrees or disagrees that a work of art is beautiful. A stage play or motion
picture is particularly one of those art forms that evoke strong emotions from its audience. With
experience comes emotions and feelings, after all. Feelings and emotions are concrete proofs that the
artwork has been experiences.
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Let's Wrap It Up

Humanities and the art have always been part of man's growth and civilization. Since the dawn of
time, man has always tried to express his innermost thoughts and feelings about reality through
creating art. Three assumptions on art are its universality, its not being nature, and its need for
experience. Art is present in every part of the globe and in every period time. This is what is meant
by its universality. Art not being nature, not even attempting to simply mirror nature, is the second
assumption about art.
Art is always a creation of the artist, not nature. Finally, without experience, there is no art. The artist
has to be foremost, a perceiver who is directly in touch with art.

Let's Work On This

Answer the following questions as precisely yet as thoroughly as possible.

INSTRUCTOR: LOVELY P. PANCHACALA, MBM 8

1. If you were an artist, what kind of artist would you be?

2. Why is art not nature?

3. Why is art ageless and timeless?

INSTRUCTOR: LOVELY P. PANCHACALA, MBM 9

 4. Why does art involve experience?

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Let's Make It Happen

Choose one artwork under each given category that you are familiar with. This can be the last
artwork that you have come across with or the one that made the most impact to you. Criticize each
using the guide questions provided.

Categories:
1. Movie
2. Novel
3. Poem
4. Music
5. An architectural structure
6. A piece of clothing

Category: __________________________
Artwork: ___________________________

1. What is it about? What is it for?

INSTRUCTOR: LOVELY P. PANCHACALA, MBM 10

 2. What is it made of?

3. What is its style?

4. How good is it?

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References

Collingwood, R.G. (1938). The Principles of Art. Worcestershire: Read Books Ltd.

Dudley, L., Faricy, A., and McGraw-Hill Book Company. (1960). The Humanities. New York:
McGraw-Hill.

Mill, J.S. (1879). Utilitarianism. 7th Ed. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.

Scott, D. (2000). "Socrates and Alcibiades in the 'Symposium." Hermathena 168, 25-37.

INSTRUCTOR: LOVELY P. PANCHACALA, MBM 11

 Book

“ART APPRECIATION” By Bernardo Nicolas Caslib, Jr., Dorothea C. Garing, and

Jezreel Anne R. Casaul – in a Computerized Office, Published and distributed
by REX Book Store, Inc.

INSTRUCTOR: LOVELY P. PANCHACALA, MBM 12