ART APPRECIATION: CREATIVTY,

IMAGINATION, AND EXPRESSION

Art is a product of man’s creativity, imagination, and expression. It is present
in every part of the globe and in every period of time. Because art is made by man,
one must know it not as fact or information but as experience.

Not everyone can be considered an artist, but all are spectators of art. We are
able to distinguish what is fine and beautiful from what is not and what is good
quality and from poor. This allows individuals to make intelligent choices and
decisions in acquiring necessities and luxuries, knowing what gives better value for
time or money while taking into consideration the aesthetic and practical value.
“Learning to appreciate art, no matter what vocation or profession you have, will lead
to a fuller and more meaningful life (Collins & Riley, 1931).

THE ROLE OF CREATIVITY IN ART MAKING

In art, one must be creative. Creativity requires thinking outside the box. We
say something is done creatively when we have not seen anything like it or when it is
out of the ordinary. It sets apart one work from another (or originality)

ART AS A PRODUCT OF IMAGINATION, IMAGINATION AS A PRODUCT

OF ART
. “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.” – Albert Einstein

Through imagination, one is able to craft something bold, something new, and
something better in the hopes of creating something that will stimulate change. An
artwork does not need to be a real thing, but can be something that is imaginary.
Artists use their imagination that gives birth to reality through creation. Imagination
produces art in same way as it inspires imagination.

ART AS EXPRESSION
. “What an artist does to an emotion is not to induce it, but express it. Through
expression, he is able to explore his own emotions and at the same time, create
something beautiful out of them.” – Robin George Collingwood
An emotion will remain unknown to a man until he expresses it. There is no specific
technique in expression which makes people’s art not a reflection of what is outsde oe
external to them, but a reflection of their inner selves.

POPULAR ART EXPRESSIONS

1. VISUAL ARTS - Creations that fall under this category are those that appeals 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. Some mediums of visual arts include paintings, drawings, letterings, printing,
sculpture, digital imaging.
2. FILM - refers to the art of putting together successions of still images in order to
create an illusion of movement. OFilmmaking focuses on its aesthetic, cultural, and
social value and is considered both an art and an industry. Filmmaking simulates
experiences or creates one that is beyond the scope of our imagination as it aims to
deliver ideas, feelings, or beauty to its viewers.

3. PERFORMANCE ART - is a live art and the artist’s medium is mainly the human
body which he or she uses to perform, but also employs other kind of art such as
visual art, props, or sound.
 Elements of performance arts: Time, Where the performance took place, The
performer’s body Relationship between the audience and the performer(s)

4. POETRY PERFORMANCE - is an art form where the artist expresses his

emotions through words. These words are carefully selected to exhibit clarity and
beauty and to stimulate strong emotions of joy, anger, love, sorrow among others. 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.

5. ARCHITECTURE - Art is the pursuit and creation of beautiful things while

architecture is the making of beautiful buildings. However, not all building are
beautiful because some only embody the functionality they need, but the structure,
lines, forms, and colors are not beautifully expressed.
 Important elements: Plan, Construction, Design

6. DANCE - is series of movements that follows the rhythm of the music

accompaniment. Dancing is a creative art form that allows people to freely express
themselves. IT HAS NO RULES. Choreography may seem not to allow this, but in art
expression, dancers are not confined to set steps and rules but are free to create and
invent their own movements as longs as they deem them graceful and beautiful.

7. LITERARY ART - 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. Artists who practice literary arts use words to express
themselves and communicate emotions to the readers. Simply becoming a writer does
not make one a literary artist. Literary art goes beyond the usual professional,
academic, journalistic and other technical forms of writing.

8. THEATER - uses live performers to present accounts or imaginary events before a

live audience. Theater art performance usually follow a script, though they should not
be confused with literary arts. Like performance art, theater also is a live performance.
 several elements: acting, gesture, lighting, sound effects, musical score, scenery
and props.
 Genres: drama, musical, tragedy, comedy and improvisation

9. APPLIED ARTS - is incorporating elements of style and design to everyday items

with the aim of increasing their aesthetic value. Artists in this field bring beauty,
charm, and comfort into many things that were useful in everyday life.
 Industrial design, interior design, fashion design, graphic design
FUNCTIONS OF ART
 PERSONAL FUNCTIONS OF ART - its functions depend on the person- the
artist who created the art.

1. An art may be created for self-expression in which the artist communicates

his/her idea to his audience through his artwork.
2. An art can be a mere entertainment for the artists audience.
3. An art may also be therapeutic. In some orphanages and home for the abandoned
elders, art is used to help residents process their emotions or while away their
time. (adult coloring books)

 SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF ART - it addresses a particular collective interest as

opposed to a personal interest ( ex. Political art)

1. Art may convey message of protest, contestation, or whatever message the

artist intends his work to carry.
2. Art can also depict social conditions (ex. Picture of poverty)
 PHYSICAL FUNCTIONS OF ART - easiest to spot and understand.
1. It can be found in artworks that are crafted in order to serve some physical
purpose.
2. Architecture, jewelry-making, and interior design are all forms of arts that have
physical function.

 OTHER FUNCTIONS OF ART

1. MUSIC - used for dance and religion. People compose hymns of love to express
feelings and emotions. It is also used as a wonderful accompaniment to stage
plays and motion pictures.

2. SCULPTURE - particularly made for religion wherein people erect status for the
divine (early civilization). It is also to commemorate important figures in history

3. ARCHITECTURE - it might be the most prominent functional art form.

Buildings are huge, expensive, and are not easily constructed and replaced. It is
also architecture where one can find the intimate connection of function and form
because one has to seriously consider the natural conditions like topography and
climate of the the place of erection and the social conditions such as the purpose
of the building itself.

PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ART

Perspective
Perspective is a point-of-view. In a way it is regarding something through a specific
filter. Each perspective or filter has unique characteristics that direct how something
is considered. For example, if you were analyzing an artwork in regards to gender, an
aspect of identity, you might consider how being male, female, or transgender might
contribute to the experience of an artwork. Context or contextual knowledge relates to
perspective, in that all
perspectives are shaped by the circumstances around them that constitute a kind of
background they form within.

3 Basic Types of Perspective

Cultural Perspective
Culture is a complex concept that encompasses the ways that social life effects and
informs our experiences. To quote Stuart Hall:
“Culture, it is not so much a set of things- novels and paintings, or TV programs or
comics- as a process, a set of practices. Primarily culture is concerned with the
production and exchange of meanings- the ‘giving and taking of meaning’ between
members in a society or group… Thus culture depends on its participants interpreting
meaning- fully what is around them, and ‘making sense’ of the world, in broadly
similar ways (Rose 2).”

It could be said that growing up in America contributes to an ‘American worldview’.

We each may have variations to this, but unless you were raised outside of the United
States, you are strongly (consciously or unconsciously) influenced by an American
perspective. This is an example of cultural perspective. Where in the United States
you were raised might also contribute contextually to this, as many regions of the
country are unique and form a
specific kind of background.
Representations, in whatever form they take, contribute to ‘made meanings’ of
culture, specifically as visual culture. As Gillian Rose points out- these
representations, whether they are high art or advertisements, are not transparent
windows on the world, rather- they interpret the world (Rose 2). When we select and
take in specific kinds of representations there is an exchange of meaning that goes two
ways. We participate in constructing culture by selecting and elevating certain forms
of representations, and that specific visual culture we experience
has the power to influence our personal view on life.

Historical Perspective
As time passes, scholarship and research occur and many people become aware of a
particular artwork, art form, art style, etc. Recognition may increase (and sometimes
decreases). Vincent Van Gogh is an example here—totally unappreciated while he
was alive, he’s recognized worldwide as a notable painter. Other examples might be
the negative attitudes towards jazz music or hip-hop in the mid-twentieth century.
These currents of recognition often spring from institutions like museums, academic
writing and journals, college art classes, and art history as a field of study.

Personal Perspective
Personal perspectives are formed by the layered aspects that form our individual
identities. This could be any number of defining aspects such as, gender, class, race,
where you were born and raised, education, aspects of family, group affiliations, etc.,
and the list goes on. These aspects form our unique biographical experiences that
constitute our identities and color our personal point of view or the way we interpret
our life experiences.
You may find that your personal response to art and artworks will change as you learn
more about design, art making, and the history of art in general. Knowledge and/or
education about art usually helps us appreciate and understand it.
Sweeping judgments based purely on a personal emotional response can be colored
with bias and often come from having little knowledge of a subject or artwork or the
larger cultural context. These are habits of thinking that inhibit a critical
understanding of things that are new to us like artwork. In general, it’s a good idea to
take a generous stance to art forms or artworks we don’t like or don’t understand or
just don’t connect to.

PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ART

1. ART AS AN IMITATION - In Plato’s metaphysics or view of reality, the things in
this world are only copies of the original, the eternal, and the true entities that can
only be found in the World of Forms. For him, art is dangerous because it provides a
petty replacement for the real entities that can only be attained through reason. Plato
was deeply suspicious of arts and artists for two reasons:
 They appeal to the emotion rather than to the rational faculty of men
 They imitate rather than lead one to reality. (poetry and painting)
- Socrates is also worried that art objects represent only the things in this world,
copied themselves of reality. He also claimed that art is just an imitation of imitation.
A painting is just an imitation of nature, which is also just an imitation of reality in the
World of Forms.

2. ART AS A REPRESENTATION - Aristotle (Plato’s important student in

philosophy) agreed with Plato that art is a form of imitation but considered art as an
aid to philosophy in revealing truth. For him, art provides a vision of what might be or
the myriad possibilities in reality, as a representation of possible versions of reality.
He also claimed that art serves two particular purposes:
 Art allows the experience of pleasure (Example: a horrible experience can be
made an object of humor in a comedy)
 Art has an ability to be instructive and teach it’s audience things about life; thus,
it is cognetive as well.

3. ART AS A DISINTERESTED JUDGMENT - Immanuel Kant considered the

judgment of beauty, the cornerstone of art, as something that can be universal despite
its subjectivity. He recognized that judgment of beauty is subjective. He also
mentioned that judgment of beauty, and therefore, art, is innately autonomous from
specific interests. It is the form of art that is adjudged by one who perceives art to be
beautiful or more so, sublime. Therefor, even aesthetic judgment for Kant is a
cognitive activity.

4. ART AS A COMMUNICATION OF EMOTION - according to Leo Tolstoy

(author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina), art plays a huge role in
communication to it’s audience’s emotions that the artist previously experienced. Art
serves as a language, a communication device that articulates feelings and emotions
that are otherwise unavailable to the audience. Art makes accessible feelings and
emotions of people from the past and present, from one continent to another. Art can
also serve as a mechanism of social unity and a mechanism of cohesion for everyone.

PURPOSE OF ART
Non-motivated Functions of Art
The non-motivated purposes of art are those that are integral to being
human, transcend the individual, or do not fulfill a specific external
purpose. In this sense, art, as creativity, is something humans must do
by their very nature (i.e., no other species creates art), and is therefore
beyond utility.
1. Basic human instinct for harmony, balance, rhythm. Art at this
level is not an action or an object, but an internal appreciation
of balance and harmony (beauty), and therefore an aspect of
being human beyond utility.
Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is
the instinct for ‘harmony’ and rhythm, meters being
manifestly sections of rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting
with this natural gift developed by degrees their special
aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave birth to
Poetry. —Aristotle
2. Experience of the mysterious. Art provides a way to experience
one’s self in relation to the universe. This experience may often come unmotivated, as
one appreciates
art, music or poetry.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all
true art
and science. —Albert Einstein

3. Expression of the imagination. Art provides a means to express the imagination in

nongrammatic ways
that are not tied to the formality of spoken or written language. Unlike words, which
come in sequences and each of which have a definite meaning, art provides a range of
forms, symbols and ideas with meanings that are malleable.
Jupiter’s eagle [as an example of art] is not, like logical (aesthetic) attributes of an
object, the concept of the sublimity and majesty of creation, but rather something else
– something that gives the imagination an incentive to spread its flight over a whole
host of kindred representations that provoke more thought than admits of expression
in a concept determined by words. They furnish an aesthetic idea, which serves the
above rational idea as a substitute for logical presentation, but with the proper
function, however, of animating the mind by opening out for it a prospect into a field
of kindred representations stretching beyond its ken.
—Immanuel Kant

4. Ritualistic and symbolic functions. In many cultures, art is used in rituals,

performances and dances as a decoration or symbol. While these often have no
specific utilitarian (motivated) purpose, anthropologists know that they often serve a
purpose at the level of meaning within a particular culture. This meaning is
not furnished by any one individual, but is often the result of many generations of
change, and of a cosmological relationship within the culture.
Most scholars who deal with rock paintings or objects recovered from prehistoric
contexts that cannot be explained in utilitarian terms and are thus categorized as
decorative, ritual or symbolic, are aware of the trap posed by the term “art.”
—Silva Tomaskova

Motivated Functions of Art

Motivated purposes of art refer to intentional, conscious actions on the part of the
artists or creator. These may be to bring about political change, to comment on an
aspect of society, to convey a specific emotion or mood, to address personal
psychology, to illustrate another discipline, to (with commercial arts) to sell a product,
or simply as a form of communication.
1. Communication. Art, at its simplest, is a form of communication. As most forms of
communication have an intent or goal directed toward another individual, this is a
motivated purpose. Illustrative arts, such as scientific illustration, are a form of art as
communication. Maps are another example. However, the content need not be
scientific. Emotions, moods and feelings are also communicated through art.
[Art is a set of] artifacts or images with symbolic meanings as a means of
communication. —Steve Mithen

2. Art as entertainment. Art may seek to bring about a particular emotion or mood,
for the purpose of
relaxing or entertaining the viewer. This is often the function of the art industries of
Motion Pictures and Video Games.

4. The Avante-Garde. Art for political change. One of the defining functions of
early twentieth-century art has been to use visual images to bring about political
change. Art movements that had this goal—Dadaism, Surrealism, Russian
constructivism, and Abstract Expressionism, among others—are collectively
referred to as the avante-garde arts. By contrast, the realistic attitude, inspired by
positivism, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Anatole France, clearly seems to me to
be hostile to any intellectual or moral advancement. I loathe it, for it is made up
of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit. It is this attitude which today gives birth to
these ridiculous books, these insulting plays. It constantly feeds on and derives
strength from the newspapers and stultifies both science and art by assiduously
flattering the lowest of tastes; clarity bordering on stupidity, a dog’s life. —André
Breton (Surrealism)

5. Art as a “free zone,” removed from the action of the social censure. Unlike the
avant-garde movements, which wanted to erase cultural differences in order to
produce new universal values, contemporary art has enhanced its tolerance
towards cultural differences as well as its critical and liberating functions (social
inquiry, activism, subversion, deconstruction…), becoming a more open place for
research and experimentation.

5. Art for social inquiry, subversion, and/or anarchy. While similar to art for
political change, subversive or deconstructivist art may seek to question aspects of
society without any specific political goal. In this case, the function of art may be
simply to criticize some aspect of society. Spray-paint graffiti on a wall in Rome
Graffiti art and other types of street art are graphics and images that are spray-painted
or stenciled on publicly viewable walls, buildings, buses, trains, and bridges, usually
without permission. Certain art forms, such as graffiti, may also be illegal when they
break laws (in this case vandalism).

6. Art for social causes. Art can be used to raise awareness for a large variety of
causes. A number of art activities were aimed at raising awareness of autism,
cancer, human trafficking, and a variety of other topics, such as ocean
conservation, human rights in Darfur, murdered and missing Aboriginal women,
elder abuse, and pollution. Trashion, using trash to make fashion, practiced by
artists such as Marina DeBris is one example of using art to raise awareness about
pollution.

7. Art for psychological and healing purposes. Art is also used by art therapists,
psychotherapists and clinical psychologists as art therapy. The Diagnostic Drawing
Series, for example, is used to determine the personality and emotional functioning of
a patient. The end product is not the principal goal in this case, but rather a process of
healing, through creative acts, is sought. The resultant piece of artwork
may also offer insight into the troubles experienced by the subject and may suggest
suitable approaches to be used in more conventional forms of psychiatric therapy.

8. Art for propaganda or commercialism. Art is often utilized as a form of

propaganda, and thus can be used to subtly influence popular conceptions or mood. In
a similar way, art that tries to sell a product also influences mood and emotion. In
both cases, the purpose of art here is to subtly manipulate the viewer
into a particular emotional or psychological response toward a particular idea or
object.

9. Art as a fitness indicator. It has been argued that the ability of the human brain by
far exceeds what was needed for survival in the ancestral environment. One
evolutionary psychology explanation for this is that the human brain and associated
traits (such as artistic ability and creativity) are the human equivalent of
the peacock’s tail. The purpose of the male peacock’s extravagant tail has been argued
to be to attract females. According to this theory superior execution of art was
evolutionarily important because it attracted mates.

ACTIVITY #2

Let me think..

Get a copy of your favorite artwork and so with what you consider as “worst” artwork
ever, and answer the following.
1. What makes your favorite artwork the best?
2. What do you think is the purpose or reason of the artist in presenting his/her artwork
(favorite and worst) in that way?
3. What are the reasons or factors did you consider in judging an artwork as “worst”?
4. If you are going to edit the “worst” artwork that you’ve seen, how are you going to change
it? Why?
5. Can culture affect our judgement to a piece of art?
If YES, how?
If NO, why?