Lesson 1.

What is Art: Introduction and Assumptions

Introduction:

In this lesson, the concepts about art is given. The teacher may asks series of
questions to you about your daily works or the work you have done today, early this
morning, yesterday, last week or last year that you can still remember. Your every deed
is an art.

This lesson includes some clarifications about art like the following; the need to
study humanities and discussions of the different assumptions of art like; Art is
universal, Art is not nature and Art involves experience.

Activities and exercises given in every lesson will measure your knowledge and
comprehension of the subtopics given. You should not look for a substitute material/s to
use. Any material/s will do to make your artwork more interesting. In addition, exercises
set forth here are within your understanding. Assessment tasks at the end of every
lesson in this module is a separate activity that will measure your knowledge and;
course output/s will measure your skills. These components are true in all lessons all
throughout the course that would be the basis of computing your own achievement in
this course/subject.

Intended Learning Outcomes:

At the end of this lesson, the students should be able to:

1. differentiate art history from art appreciation,
2. differentiate art from nature,
3. characterize the assumptions of the art,
4. discuss the nature of art’s preliminary expression, and
5. categorize works of art by citing personal experience.

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Motivation:

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?

Inculcating Concepts
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 their favourite song, a student marvelling at the intricate
designs of the 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. 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 locally available, 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

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totally content with what is just before him. Human beings are drawn toward what is
good and ultimately, beautiful.
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.

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 all these craft.
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
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-to-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 was 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

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‘beautiful arts” (Collinwood, 1938). This is something more akin to what is now
considered art.
“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, reoccupations, and thoughts. The humanities,
then, ironically, have started even before the term has been coined. Humanities, have
long been exercising what it means to be human long before he was even aware of his
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.

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 Eliad 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.

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 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 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 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 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 get depleted.

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 contained that
local movies work around certain formula to the detriment of substance and faithfulness

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to reality of movies. These critical minds argue that a good movie must reflect reality as
closely as possible. Is that so?
Paul Cezanne, a French painter, painted a scene from reality entitled Well and
Grinding Wheel in the Forest of the Chateau Noir. The said scene is inspired by a real
scene in a forest around the Chateau Noir area near Aix in Cezanne’s landscape is
quite different from the original scene. Cezanne 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 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. 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 based on their perceptions. Art is like each
of these man’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.
Once the 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 Spolarium? 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.

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 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 “all art depends on experience, and if one is to know art, he must know it not as fact
or information but as experience.”
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. To fully appreciate our national
hero’s monument, one must go to Rizal Park and see the actual sculpture. In order to
know Beyonce’s music, one must listen to it 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. 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 judgement. It depends on who the perceiver

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is, his tastes, his biases, and what he has inside him. Desgustibus non dispuntandum
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.
Humanities and the art have 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, it’s not
being nature, its need for experience. Art is present in every part of the globe and in
every period of time. This is meant by its universality. Art not being nature, not even
attempting to simply mirror nature. Finally, without experience, there is no art. The artist
has to be foremost, a perceiver who is directly in touch with art.

Art Appreciation: Creativity, Imagination, and Expression

It takes an artist to make art. One may perceive beauty on a daily basis.
However, not every beautiful thing that be seen or experienced may truly be called a
work of art. Art is product of man’s creativity, imagination, and expression. No matter
how perfectly blended the colors of a sunset are and no matter how extraordinarily
formed mountains are, nature is not considered simply because is it not made by man.

ART APPRECIATION AS WAY OF LIFE

Jean-Paul Sartre, a famous French philosopher of 20th century, described the
role of art as a creative that depicts the world incompletely different and perspective,
and the source is due to human freedom (Greene, 1995).
Hence, refining one’s ability to appreciate art allows him to deeply understand the
purpose of an artwork and recognize the beauty it possesses (Collins & Riley, 1931)

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 In cultivating the appreciation of art, one should also exercise and develop his
taste for that are fine are beautiful. 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 (Collins
& Riley, 1931).
Frequenting museums, art galleries, performing arts theaters, concert halls, or
even malls that display art exhibitions that are free in admission during leisure time will
only an understanding.

THE ROLE OF CREATIVITY IN ART MAKING

Creativity requires thinking outside the box. It is often used to solve problems that
have never occurred before, conflate function and style, and simply make life a more
unique and enjoyable experience.
A creative artist does not simply copy or imitate another artists work. He does
not imitate the lines, flaws, colors and patterns in recreating nature. for instance, then
campaign ad “it’s more fun in the Philippines” used by the Department of Tourism
(DOT)boomed popularity in 2011, but later on it was found out that it was allegedly
plagiarized from Switzerland tourism slogan “It’s more fun in Sw3itzerland”, back in
1951. DOT’s defense, former DOT Sec. Ramon Jimenez Jr. claimed that it was “purely
coincidental”.
Thus, creativity should be backed with careful research on related art to avoid
such conflicts.

ART AS A PRODUCT OF IMAGINATION, IMAGINATION AS A PRODUCT OF ART.

German physicist Albert Einstein who had made significant and major
contributions and humanity demonstrated that knowledge is actually derived from
imagination. He emphasized this idea through his words.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge”. For “knowledge is limited to all
we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and there
ever will be to know and understand”.

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 Imagination is not constrained by the walls of the norms, but goes beyond that.
That is why people rely on curiosity and imagination for advancement. Through
imagination one is able to craft something bold, something new, and something better in
the hopes of creating something will stimulate change.

ART AS EXPRESSION
According to Collingwood, 1938 “if you try to release yourself from this
tormenting and disabling state by doing something, which is called expressing oneself.”
Robin George Collingwood, an English philosopher who is best known for his
work in aesthetics, explicated in his publication the principles of art (1938) that 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. Collingwood further illustrated that expressing emotion is something different
from describing emotions. Expression, on the other hand, individualizes.

Application/Integration:
Direction: Answer the following questions as precisely yet as thoroughly as possible.
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?

4.) Why does art involve experience?

Assessment/Evaluation:
Direction: Write the word True, if the statement is correct, and False, if the statement is
wrong.
1) Art is everywhere and anywhere.
2) Anything done by a person with beauty is considered art.
3) Spoliarium as a famous artwork of then Juan Luna, will never be obsolete.
4) Art is man’s expression of his reception of nature.
5) We can only use our experience when we do actual work.

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 6) We can fully get acquainted with art if we immerse ourselves into it.
7) We can enjoy anything we see, we hear, we smell, we touch without
understanding it.
8) When we say art is universal, we mean it is present in every part of the globe.
9) Age is not a factor in determining art.
10)Art is something that is artistic if it has been made long time ago.

Enrichment:
Direction: Choose one artwork of the given categories that you are familiar with.

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

Guide Questions:
1.) What is it about? What is it for?
2.) . Criticize it using the guide questions provided.
3.) What is its style?
4.) How good is it?

References:
Caslib, B. N., Garing, D. C., & R., C. J. (2018). Art appreciation. Rex Book Store, Inc.
Mendoza, R. C. Q. J. J. M., (2013). Art appreciation: introductory reading on humanities
focus on Phlippine art scene. Books Atbp. Publishing Corp.

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