TAGBILARAN CITY COLLEGE

College of Business and Industry

Tagbilaran City, Bohol

Course Code GE11 Instructor Charwen Namocatcat

Course Title Arts and Humanities Email [email protected]
Contact
Course Credits 3 09279706415
Number
Course Consultation
General Education
Classification Hours
Consultation
Pre-Requisite(s) None Faculty Office / MS Teams
Venue

Learning Module 1:
Introduction to Humanities and Arts: Functions and Principles
Duration of Delivery: August 29-September 1, 2023
Due Date of Deliverables: September 1, 2023

Intended Learning Outcomes:

• Define humanities according to their understanding.
• Classify the scope of humanities and principles of art.
• Distinguish the principles of art used from the given photos.

The Meaning of Humanities

The word humanities come from the Latin humanus, which means human, cultured, and
refined. To be human is to have or show qualities like rationality, kindness, and
tenderness. It has different connotations in different historical eras. Today, however, we
know of humanities as a loosely defined group of cultural subject areas. Unlike other
subjects, it is not a group of scientific or technical subjects. Thus, the term humanities
refer to the arts- the visual arts such as architecture, painting, and sculpture; music, dance,
the theater or drama, and literature. They are the branches of learning concerned with
human thought, feelings and relations. This importance of the human being and his
feelings and how he expresses those feelings have always been the concern of the
humanities.

The Scope of the Humanities

The humanities is a many-faceted subject. It consists of the visual arts, literature, drama
and theater, music and dance.
Visual Arts These are those perceived with our eyes. They may be classified into two groups;
graphic and plastic arts.
I. The Graphic Art it covers any form of visual artistic representation or in which
portrayals of forms and symbols are recorded on a two-dimensional surface.
It includes paintings, drawings, graphic processes, commercial art, and
mechanical processes.
II. The Plastic Art this group includes all fields of the visual arts in which materials
are organized into three-dimensional forms. It includes, architecture,
landscape architecture, city planning, interior design, and sculpture, crafts,
dress and costume and theatre design.

Literature It is the art of combining spoken or written words and their meaning into forms which
have artistic and emotional appeal. It includes, essay, prose fiction, poetry and
history, biography and the like.
Music It is the art of arranging sounds in rhythmic succession and generally in
combination. Melody results from this sequence and harmony from the
combinations. Music is both a creative and a performing art. The common forms
are song, march, fugue, sonata, suite, fantasy, concerto and symphony. This fall
into three groups.
I. Vocal Music composed primarily to be sung. The voices are generally
accompanied by one or more instruments.
II. Instrumental Music it is written for instruments of four general types- keyboard
(piano, organ, etc.,), stringed (violin, cello, guitar, etc.,), wind (flute, clarinet,
etc.,); brass winds (trumpet, saxo-phone, etc.,); percussion (drums,
xylophone).
III. Music combined with other arts it includes opera, operetta and musical
comedy, oratorio and cantata
IV. Other forms are the ballet music and background music for motion pictures.
Drama or Play It is a story re-created by actors on a stage in from of an audience. The following
are the most common types:
I. Tragedy it is a drama of serious nature in which the central character comes
to sad or disastrous end.
II. Melodrama the emphasis is on action rather than on character. It is
sensational or romantic and usually has a happy ending.
III. Comedy generally includes all plays with happy endings such as romantic
comedy, farce and comedy of manners.
Dance This involves the movement of the body and the feet in rhythm.
I. Ethnology includes folk dancing associated with national and cultural groups.
II. Social or Ballroom Dances it generally performed by pairs. They include
waltz, foxtrot, rhumba and tango.
III. Ballet a formalize type of dance which originated in the royal courts of the
Middle Ages. It may be solo or concerted dances with mimetic actions.
IV. Modern sometimes called contemporary or interpretative dances. It represent
rebellion against classical formalism of ballet; they emphasize personal
communication of moods and themes.
Why study humanities?
a. Through Humanities, we can be connected to places we have not visited, understand the past
or history which has significance to the present. It makes us encounter great minds and hearts
of human history.
b. Through Humanities, we will be studying what humans have found valuable or good
throughout the time.
c. Through Humanities, we experience connection between culture and community through
different art exposures – museum visits, concerts, theater performance, and support of local
artists.
d. Through Humanities, we increase our respect for cultural and individual differences through
knowledge of achievements and of world civilization.
e. Through Humanities, we gain a global perspective through the knowledge of world cultures.
f. Through Humanities, we will be able to build up your career, focus our life, minimize frustration,
and most importantly, be able to work as part of an effective team.

Arts: Concept or Fact?

Art is either a concept or a fact. As a concept, it is subject to be understood and be grasped by any
perceiver. Furthermore, it cannot be defined because it springs from the ideas and emotions of man
concretized by means of any sensuous material. But, art as a fact is observable; is that which is known
through the senses. It refers then to any creative work of an artist that can easily be described upon
noticing the different mediums being used and the context in which it is produced.

Functions of Art
Ideally, one can look at a piece of art and guess with some accuracy where it came from and when. This
best-case scenario also includes identifying the artist because they are in no small way part of the
contextual equation. You might wonder, "What was the artist thinking when they created this?" when you
see a piece of art. You, the viewer, are the other half of this equation; you might ask yourself how that
same piece of art makes you feel as you look at it.
These—in addition to the time period, location of creation, cultural influences, etc.—are all factors that
should be considered before trying to assign functions to art. Taking anything out of context can lead to
misunderstanding art and misinterpreting an artist's intentions, which is never something you want to do.
The functions of art normally fall into three categories: physical, social, and personal. These categories
can and often do overlap in any given piece of art.
The physical functions of art are often the easiest to understand. Works of art that are created
to perform some service have physical functions.
Art has a social function when it addresses aspects of (collective) life as opposed to one
person's point of view or experience. Viewers can often relate in some way to social art and are
sometimes even influenced by it. Art that depicts social conditions performs social functions and
often this art comes in the form of photography.
The personal functions of art are often the most difficult to explain. There are many types of
personal functions and these are highly subjective. Personal functions of art are not likely to be
the same from person to person. An artist may create a piece out of a need for self-expression
or gratification. They might also or instead want to communicate a thought or point to the viewer.
 Sometimes an artist is only trying to provide an aesthetic experience, both for self and viewers.
A piece might be meant to entertain, provoke thought, or even have no particular effect at all.
Personal function is vague for a reason. From artist to artist and viewer to viewer, one's
experience with art is different. Knowing the background and behaviors of an artist helps when
interpreting the personal function of their pieces.

The functions of art apply not only to the artist that created a piece but to you as the viewer. Your whole
experience and understanding of a piece should contribute to the function you assign it, as well as
everything you know about its context. Next time you are trying to understand a piece of art, try to
remember these four points: (1) context and (2) personal, (3) social, and (4) physical functions.
Remember that some art serves only one function and some all three (perhaps even more).

Principles of Art
i. Balance: The balance in a piece of art refers to the distribution of weight or the apparent weight of
the piece. Arches are built for structural design and to hold the roof in place, allowing for passage
of people below the arch and creating balance visually and structurally. It may be the illusion of art
that can create balance.
ii. Contrast: Contrast is defined as the difference in colors to create a piece of visual art. For instance,
black and white is a known stark contrast and brings vitality to a piece of art, or it can ruin the art
with too much contrast. Contrast can also be subtle when using monochromatic colors, giving variety
and unity the final piece of art.
iii. Emphasis: Emphasis can be color, unity, balance, or any other principle or element of art used to
create a focal point. Artists will use emphasis like placing a string of gold in a field of dark purple.
The color contrast between the gold and dark purple causes the gold lettering to pop out, becoming
the focal point.
iv. Rhythm/Movement: Rhythm in a piece of art denotes a type of repetition used to either demonstrate
movement or expanse. For instance, in a painting of waves crashing, a viewer will automatically see
the movement as the wave finishes. The use of bold and directional brushwork will also provide
movement in a painting.
v. Proportion/Scale: Proportion is the relationship between items in a painting, for example, between
the sky and mountains. If the sky is more than two-thirds of the painting, it looks out of proportion.
The scale in art is similar to proportion, and if something is not to scale, it can look odd. If there is a
person in the picture and their hands are too large for their body, then it will look out of scale. Artists
can also use scale and proportion to exaggerate people or landscapes to their advantage.
vi. Unity and variety: In art, unity conveys a sense of completeness, pleasure when viewing the art,
and cohesiveness to the art, and how the patterns work together brings unity to the picture or object.
As the opposite of unity, variety should provoke changes and awareness in the art piece. Colors
can provide unity when they are in the same color groups, and a splash of red can provide variety.
vii. Pattern: Pattern is the way something is organized and repeated in its shape or form and can flow
without much structure in some random repetition. Patterns might branch out similar to flowers on
a plant or form spirals and circles as a group of soap bubbles or seem irregular in the cracked, dry
mud. All works of art have some sort of pattern even though it may be hard to discern; the pattern
will form by the colors, the illustrations, the shape, or numerous other art methods.
References:

Introduction to Humanities: The Revised Edition (2012), Chapter 1, Custodiosa A. Sanchez et al

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-are-the-functions-of-art-182414
What Are the Elements of Art and the Principles of Art? (2021, March 9). Retrieved July 5, 2021, from
https://human.libretexts.org/@go/page/46130