GE 6: ART APPRECIATION A.

L Pericon

Module 1: Classification and the nature of the Arts

KEY CONCEPTS

Applied Arts – is the application of design and aesthetics to objects of function and everyday use.

Architecture – is both the process and product of planning, designing, and constructing buildings or other
structures (Encyclopedia Britannica, retrieved June 24, 2020)

Creativity – is the phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed (such as an
idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or physical object (such as intervention, literary
work, and or paintings)

Dance – is performing art consisting of purposely selected sequences of human movement. This movement
has aesthetic and symbolic value and is acknowledged as dance by performers and observers in a
particular culture. (Farleigh, 1987)

Film – is a form of entertainment that enacts a story by sound and a sequence of images giving the illusion
of continuous movement.

Literature – is anybody or a collection of written work. It also refers to writing. Considered to be an art form
or any single writing deemed to have artistic or intellectual value and sometimes deploys language in ways
that differ from ordinary usage. ( Letich, et al, 2018)

Music – is the art of combining vocal or instrumental sounds or both to produce beauty of form, harmony,
and expression of emotion (Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1992)

Painting – is an image artwork created using pigments (color) on a surface (ground) such as paper or
canvas. The pigment may be in a wet form such as oil, or acrylic (Baoddy-Evans, 2017)

Performance arts – refers to an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or
other participants. It may be live, through documentation, spontaneously or written, presented to a public in
a Fine arts context, or traditionally interdisciplinary.

Sculpture – is a branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts.
Durable sculptural processes originally used carving ( the removal of material) and modeling (the addition of
material, as clay), in stone, metal, ceramics, wood, and other materials

Theater – is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, typically actors or actresses
present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage.
The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture,
speech, song, music and dance (Webster’s dictionary, 1991).

Visual Arts – are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography,
video, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. (Esaak, 2019)

Functions in Art:
● To a layman art has a little function painting, sculpture music, and literature just to amuse or provide a
pleasant escape from one’s daily life. These are non-functional arts.
● All arts have a function for man, the make who creates makes things that have a function for him.
Key Concepts:
● Personal function is for public display or expression. Music for example and literature has a way of
expressing emotions for us. The power of music makes us feel a certain emotion.
● Social function refers to the celebration or affect of collective behavior. It performs a social function
when:
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(a) Tends to influence the collective behavior of the people.

● Physical function refers to the utilitarian use of art. Makes our lives physically comfortable.

Philosophical Perspectives:

(1) Art as an imitation.

Subject and Content of Art

Representational Art has subjects that refer to objects or events occurring in the real world. (Casilib, Garing,
and Caasaul, 2018)

Non-Representational Art does not make a reference to the real world, whether it is a person, place, thing,
or even a particular event. It is stripped down to visual elements such as shapes, lines, and colors that are
employed to translate a particular feeling, emotion, and even concept.

Elements of art visual, auditory, and transcreation

Line - Is a path that a point takes through space. A line can be thick, thin, dotted, or solid. It can make a
straight movement, zigzag, wave, or curl. It may be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal.

Shape - Is created when a line becomes connected and encloses a space. It is the outline or outward
appearance of something. It can be two-dimensional (2D). The shape’s height and width can be measured.

Form - Is a shape that has become 3 – dimensional. It has height, width, and depth.

Space - Can be divided into foreground, middle-ground, and background. It may be shallow, deep, or
negative.

Color - can add interest and reality to an artwork. The use of a 12-step color wheel can help you
understand color more effectively.

Texture - The way the surface of an object actually feels.

Picture Plane - Is the actual surface of the painting or drawing, where no illusion of a third dimension
exists.

Perspective - Takes place when an artist uses a vanishing point on a horizon and creates a sense of deep
space by showing objects getting progressively smaller as they get closer to the vanishing point.

Elements of Art: Auditory

Rhythm – is the element of time in music. When you tap your foot to the music, you “are keeping the beat”
or following the structural rhythmic pulse of the music.

Dynamics – is the relative loudness or quietness of music.

Melody – is the linear/ horizontal presentation of pitch (the highness and lowness of musical sound).
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Harmony – is the verticalization of the pitch. Often harmony is thought of as the art of combining pitches
into chords.

Timbre – refers to tone color.

Texture – refers to the number of individual musical lines and the relationship of these lines to one another.

Levels of reading Images

(1) Axiological or Evaluative Plane – has to do with analyzing the values of a work. After
understanding the work is the difficult task of evaluating it. This involves the two aspects of form and
content. (Guillermo, 2001).
(2) Iconic Plane or the image itself. This includes the choice of the subject which may bear social and
political implications. This includes signifier–signified relationship (particular features, aspects, and
qualities of the image). This also includes the positioning of the figure or figures whether frontal, in
profile, three–fourths, etc., and the significations that arise from the different presentations.
(Guillermo, 2001).
(3) Contextual plane – situates the work in the personal and social circumstances of its production. The
work may contain allusions to personal or public events, conditions, and stages as well as
influences, such as persons and literary texts, that have been particularly meaningful to the artist.
(Guillermo, 2001).
(4) Semiotic Plane – Semiotics is the study of signs – the work of art is the iconic or pictorial sign. A
sign consists of a “signifier” or its material physical aspect and its “signified” or non-material aspect
as concept and value. Related to this is the “referent” or object as it exists in the real world. A visual
work, whether it be a two – dimensional pictorial space or a three-dimensional body, is an
embodiment of the signs in which all physical or material marks and traces, elements, figures, and
notations are signifiers that bear a semantic or meaning – conveying potential and which relate to
each other convey concepts and values which are their signifieds.