Unit II.

Subject and
Content of Art Prepared by:
JORDAN D.C. MANUEL, LPT, MAEd
Presentation Outline
• Subject of Art
• Kinds of Arts as to Subject
• The Artists and His Choice of Subject
• Sources of Subject of Art
• Ways of Presenting the Subject
• The Content of Art
• Levels of Meaning
The Subject of Art

refers to the main

basically the
idea that is
essence of the
represented in the
piece
artwork
…

To determine subject matter in a

particular piece of art, ask yourself:
•What is actually depicted  It is the matter to be
in this artwork?
•What is the artist trying to described or to be
express to the world... what is portrayed by the artist.
his or her message?  This may refer to any
•How are they conveying
that message?
person, object, scene
or event.
Two Kinds of Arts as to Subject

Representational/ Objective Art

Depicts Attempts to Uses “form”

objects that copy what is and is
are real or concerned
commonly portray the with “what” is
recognized by subject as it to be Representaional Art (Amrican
Gothic;
most people is. depicted Pinterest, www.google.com)
Non-Representational/Non-Objective
Art

Uses
Without any Abstract; “content” and
reference or does not is concerned
recognizable represent real with “how”
objects objects the artwork is Non-Representational
depicted Art (John Osgood,
www.google.com
The Artist and His Choice of Subject

Everything under the sun is raw material

for the artist to draw his subject.

The artist’s choice of subject is usually

affected by his medium.

The piece of art depends largely upon the

time in which he lived.
 Sources of Subject of Art

Greek and
anything that Religion Roman Myths or Definite parts
of inheritance
represents Mythology
spiritual beliefs
and doctrines.

Historical
Sources History people,
events,
periods.

Sacred
Sacred texts of Oriental Nature Most common
Hinduism, Buddhism, inspiration and subject.
Taoism, Confucianism, Text E.g. animals, people,
Zoroastrianism, activities, landscape…
Jainism, and Islam.
Subject of Art may be:

Landscape, seascapes, cityscapes

Still life – inanimate objects arranged in
indoor setting. Animals

Portraits – the realistic likeness of a person.

Attire, accessories are very much expressive because they reveal so much of the person and his time.
Figures – nude/ clothed Everyday Life
Greeks – physical beauty was the symbol of moral and
spiritual perfection. E.g. children playing, life at the park

History and Legends

History – consist of verifiable facts Legends – unverifiable but they have been accepted as true
Religion and Mythology – use to preach and teach Dreams and Fantasy – mostly used by surrealist
Art – handmaid of religion painters
Ways of Presenting the Subject
Art Style from the Various Art Movements

Realism Cubism
Abstraction Symbolism
Fauvism Social Realism
Dadaism Abstract Realism
Futurism Pop Art
Surrealism Op Art
Impressionism Performance Art
Pointillism Happening
Expressionism Flash Mob
Realism

Realism's popularity
increased with the This describes what
This often refers to advent of the the eyes can see,
the artistic photography – a new
what the ear can
movement that visual medium that
generated people's hear and what
began in France in
desire to develop faculty of sense can
the 1850s.
"objectively real" receive.
things.

The painting of Zeuxis, painter of the 5th century, was an

example. Grapes were his subject. They appeared so perfect,
luscious and appealing when he displayed his painting of
grapes that the birds flew down from the sky to peck at them
 Abstraction

Its etymology derives from the Latin "abstractus"

put forward, "or from the Latin past participle"
abstrahere: "from ab(s)-" down "+ trahere" take,
"meaning" removed or isolated from material
objects or practical matters.

Through abstract art, the artist presents the An example is the painting of a
subject in no way as an objective fact, but "Bird in Space" by Constantin
just his idea or his feeling (exaggerated Brancusi. "He 'd been so
emotionalism) about it. impressed with the goodness of a
Bird in flight, its body sweeping
as it soared over the sea. His
It’s all about what the artists are thinking sculptural work doesn't seem like
and what mood they may want to reflect. All a bird is intended to convey an
types of visual art, no real-life pictures, image of a grace and pace to the
scenery or objects. cat.
 Symbolism
Symbolism uses For instance, a flag is
A symbol is a symbols to a country symbol and
clear indication systematically focus it represents the
that anything or amplify meaning, essence of
rendering the nationalism; a lion
like an idea or a artwork more representing bravery,
standard is subjective (rather and a lamb
invisible. than objective) and representing
traditional. meekness.

This painting illustrates the myth that tells of the love

between Jupiter, the divine king of the gods, and Semele (the
embodiment of that which is earthly), who upon the
suggestion of Jupiter's wife Juno, asks Jupiter to make love
to her in his divine radiance. Jupiter cannot resist the
temptation of her beauty, with the acknowledgment that she
will be consumed by his light and the fire of his divinity (he
is crowned with thunderbolts). Thus the painting is symbolic
of humanity's union with the divine that ends in death.
Fauvism

It is derived from the

French "les fauves,"
which means "the wild
beasts."
For example, to a fauvist a
tree trunk doesn't need to be
gray. It may be bright red,
purple or any other color.
It is the last part of the This large rhythmically painted urban landscape
19th century artistic represents a small town on the Seine, west of Paris – a
movement that stressed site associated with Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste
spontaneity and the use Renoir in the early years of the Impressionist movement.
of excessively bright Maurice de Vlaminck initially earned a living as a
colors. violinist, music teacher and a professional cyclist but a
chance meeting with Derain in 1900 changed his life and
placed him in history books. Restaurant de la Machine at
Bougival was painted in 1905, the break-through year for
the Fauves which became the first actual movement and
the first true innovation of the twentieth-century art.
Dadaism

A hobby-horse is the We may claim it

The word "dada" is children's pet toy with this etymology
a French word made of a wooden dadaism is a
which means horse mounted on a "nonsensical" art
“hobby- horse”. stick. movement.

Some would say it is not art since it appears to have absolutely no sense.

Fountain is one of Duchamp's most famous works and is widely seen as an icon of
twentieth-century art. The original, which is now lost, consisted of a standard
urinal, laid flat on its back rather than upright in its usual position, and signed 'R.
Mutt 1917'. The Tate's work is a 1964 replica and is made from glazed earthenware
painted to resemble the original porcelain. The signature is reproduced in black
paint. Fountain is an example of what Duchamp called a 'readymade', an ordinary
manufactured object designated by the artist as a work of art. It epitomizes the
assault on convention and good taste for which he and the Dada movement are best
known.
 Futurism

the
reflected the technological
development of urban success of a
life man beyond
nature

This beautiful painting, with its silvery lights and its the
vortex of cones and fin-like forms, is among Umberto automobile,
Boccioni’s most accomplished studies of dynamic the aircraft,
the
movement. Although the bicycle was first invented in industrial Futurism was
1818, it was not until the 1890s that the modern bicycle, town described as a
with its diamond-patterned frame, roller-chain drive and modernist
pneumatic tires, had become established. The racing movement
cyclist can be taken as a characteristic Futurist symbol embracing the
of dynamic modern life—man moving swiftly through future age of
time and space by the propulsion of his legs enhanced technology.
by modern technology. This subject highlights the
dynamic fusion of cycle, figure (bent double over his
handlebars with his backside in the air), and space in
single plastic form.
 Surrealism
Sometimes it has
It is an known as It focuses on realistic illustrating
offshoot or "super" realism, actual objects the inner
subjects
"which revolves found in mind's
a dada around the process imagination found in the
dreamlike
boy. of making things or fantasy subconsciou
images.
look ordinary sness
exceptional.”

The Persistence of Memory (1931) by Spanish artist and

Surrealist icon Salvador Dalí is one of the rare works of art
that can be conjured with the mention of two simple words:
melting clocks. Like Van Gogh’s Starry Night (1889) and
Picasso’s Les Demoiselles D’Avignon (1907), The Persistence
of Memory attracts visitors from all over the world to the
Museum of Modern Art as a work that has come to represent
an entire movement. The Surrealist vision brings an uncanny
landscape to life with unnerving accuracy—when you imagine
how a clock would melt, this is how it would melt. It would
droop, distort, and elongate.
The iconography may refer to a dream that Dalí himself had
experienced, and the clocks may symbolize the passing of time
as one experiences it in sleep or the persistence of time in the
eyes of the dreamer… Dalí often used ants in his paintings as a
symbol of decay.
Impressionism

It's also often called

optical realism because
of its interest in the
actual visual experience,

including things such as the

influence of color, light and
motion on the nature of the
objects portrayed in the This famous painting, Impression, Sunrise, was
works of art created from a scene in the port of Le Havre. Monet
depicts a mist, which provides a hazy background to
the piece set in the French harbor. The orange and
yellow hues contrast brilliantly with the dark vessels,
where little, if any detail is immediately visible to the
audience. It is a striking and candid work that shows
Impressionism centered
the smaller boats in the foreground almost being
on explaining the visual
stimuli originating from propelled along by the movement of the water. This
nature, directly. has, once again, been achieved by separate
brushstrokes that also show various colors "sparkling"
on the sea.
 Pointillism

It was developed from

Impressionism and
involved the use of
many small dots of
In his best-known and largest painting, Georges Seurat color to give a painting
depicted people relaxing in a suburban park on an a greater sense of
vibrancy when seen
island in the Seine River called La Grande Jatte. The from a distance.
artist worked on the painting in several campaigns,
beginning in 1884 with a layer of small horizontal
brushstrokes of complementary colors. He later added The equal size dots
never quite merge in
small dots, also in complementary colors, that appear as the viewer’s perception
solid and luminous forms when seen from a distance. resulting in a
Seurat's use of this highly systematic and "scientific" shimmering effect like
technique, subsequently called Pointillism, one experiences on a
distinguished his art from the more intuitive approach hot and sunny day.
to painting used by the Impressionists. Although Seurat
embraced the subject matter of modern life preferred by
artists such as Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste
Renoir, he went beyond their concern for capturing the
accidental and instantaneous qualities of light in nature.
 Expressionism

It is an artistic movement where artists express

their innermost feelings rather than to represent
the external world.

Expressionist painting is intense, passionate, and "The Girls on the Bridge" is a motif Munch returned to again
highly personal.
and again over a period of almost 30 years. The composition
is more-or-less unchanged in all the versions with the large
villa we recognize from "Red Virginia Creeper", the large
tree and the pier leading out to the steamship jetty at
Aasgaardsstrand.
It is usually characterized with violent, unreal
color, and dramatic brushwork. "The Girls on the Bridge" is regarded as one of Munch’s
most harmonious and lyrical pictures – though not without
erotic undertones. The three girls are peering down into the
water where the large tree - which can be interpreted as a
phallic symbol - mirrors itself in the summer night.
 Cubism
It was
introduced
between the
years 1906 &
1914.

Probably Picasso's most famous work, Its basic principle was a

Guernica is certainly his most powerful
political statement, painted as an immediate
As a new art
movement, it
result against the It was the new
reaction to the Nazi's devastating casual utilized
geometric forms
traditional idea that art trend then
with the later
bombing practice on the Basque town of arrangement, to representation has to style of Paul
Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. represent what Cezanne.
is seen. conform with what the
Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the eyes see at a particular
suffering it inflicts upon individuals, moment.
particularly innocent civilians. This work has
gained a monumental status, becoming a
He reduced his
perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an impressions of
anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of nature to simple
peace. On completion Guernica was geometric
shapes as
displayed around the world in a brief tour, starting point.
becoming famous and widely acclaimed. This
tour helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the
Social Realism
In Mexico and the US, The US during this Artist dealt on the
realism allied with period 1930-50 was subjects about social
social consciousness suffering from problems.
characterized the economic depression.
artists’ works.

urbanism, alienation, lack of social integration, dehumanization of people,

material greed and corruption, conflict between the interior and exterior world
etc.
Along with Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, Orozco was one of the three
famous Mexican muralists in the 1920’s working to reunify Mexico after the
Revolution. From 1927-34 Orozco lived in the USA and completed a 300m² mural
at Dartmouth College called The Epic of American Civilization. This is one of 24
panels.

Quetzalcoatl was the Aztec god of wind and wisdom, often shown as a feathered
serpent, although one myth may have described him as a man of white hair and
skin. After the conquistador Hernán Cortés landed in Mayan territory in 1519 and
conquered the Aztec Empire of king Moctezuma, Spanish clerics started conflating
the story of the Aztec god into their narrative of colonization. They wrote that
Moctezuma saw Cortés as Quetzalcoatl incarnate, arriving from the sea, as
prophesied in Aztec mythology, and so Moctezuma invited Cortés to take his
Pop Art
• was the art of popular culture.
• It was the visual art movement that characterized a sense of optimism during the
post war consumer boom of the 1950s & 1960s.

• It coincided with the globalization of pop music and youth culture personified by
Elvis and The Beatles.
• Was brash, young and fun, and hostile to the artistic establishment.

• It included different styles of painting and sculpture from various countries.

• However, what they all had in common was an interest in mass-media, mass-
production, and mass-culture.

Charles Fazzino, a graduate of the School of Visual Arts in New

York City is one of the most popular and highly-collected pop
artists of all time. During his more-than-thirty years as a pop artist,
he has inserted his unique, detailed, vibrant, and three-dimensional
style of artwork into the very fabric of popular culture.

Charles is often referred to as a pop culture historian because of the

breadth of his work and the way it touches his collectors and
captures the best parts of their contemporary lives.
 Op Art
Is a form of
When the viewer abstract art
Also known as Its works are
looks at them, there (specifically non-
optical art, is a abstract, with is an impression of objective art)
style of visual many of the movement, hidden
which relies on
art that makes better known images, flashing and
vibrations patterns, optical illusions
use of optical pieces made in or alternatively, of in order to fool
illusions. black and white. swelling or warping. the eye of the
viewer.
Bridget Riley is a heavyweight of the British art scene. Her work is distinct,
dynamic and undeniably appealing. There are very few school children this
half of the ’80s who haven’t sat down in an art lesson with a ruler and a black
marker to re-create her ‘Movement in Squares’. In this encompassing
retrospective of her work at the Southbank Centre‘s Hayward Gallery, we
encounter the artist through the many iterations of her distinct visual
language. As you stand facing off against her prodigious works, they
shimmer, flicker and even undulate before your eyes making the act of seeing
utterly rapturous.

From the mod Op art black and white pieces that solidified her stake in the
movement, to her “Recent Developments” in arranging colored disc, it’s both
a frantic workout and a feast for the eyes. Wondering around the space you’re
free to work your way thematically, and not chronologically, through Riley’s
nearly six-decade career. You walk through “Stripes and Diagonals” right up
the stairs to “Curves”. Reflecting the artist’s habits to return to certain pre-
occupations, pieces created decades apart slot seamlessly beside each other.
Performance Art
In Art, is a
performance
presented to an
audience,
traditionally It may be either
The actions of scripted or
individual or a interdisciplinary unscripted; random
group at a or carefully
particular place orchestrated;
spontaneous or
and in a otherwise carefully
particular time planned
constitute the with/without
work. audience
participation.

The
It can happen
performance
anywhere, in
can be live or
any venue or
via media; the
setting and for
performer can
any length of
It can be any situation be present or
time. that involves 4 basic absent.
elements such as time,
space, the performer’s
body, or presence in a
medium, and a
relationship between
performer and
audience.
 Happening
Is a form of avant-
garde art, a type of
creative expression,
closely associated
with performance
art.
Its nature was influenced by Italian
futurist performance, where the
This new media art It is an event that convention of “proscenium
aspect to happenings combines elements
eliminates the of painting, poetry, architecture” was assaulted, where
boundary between music, dance, and the “actors” could consist of moving
the artwork and its theater and stages
viewer. them as a live action. lights, machinery, and the audience,
and where simultaneously and
noise-music were developed.

It was also influenced by Dada’s

chance-derived assembly of found
The key elements of The term was objects and events and by gestural
happenings are coined by an
planned but artists painting, which was increasingly
sometimes retain American artist recognized as an event.
room for Allan Kaprow in
improvisation. the 1950s.
 Allan Kaprow Chicken 1962 Allan Kaprow with participants in
(Happenings) His Happenings often “Yard” at the Pasadena Museum in
include the usage of Found Space to 1967. The space is first found, filled
showcase the work. with whatever the designer may
desire, and then used to create a
Happening.
Flash Mob

Is a group of people who assemble

suddenly in a public place and perform
an unusual and seemingly pointless act
for a short time, before quickly
dispersing.

They are often used for the purposes

of entertainment, satire or artistic
expression and are organized via
telecommunications, social media, or
viral e-mails.

It started as one then suddenly others

came and people gathered around to
watch them perform. After a short
entertainment, the entertainers
dispersed.
The Content of Art

mass of ideas associated

the meaning, message
with each artwork and
and/or feeling imparted
communicated through
by a work of art.
the following:
 The
symbolic
meaning

Writings Its
that help The Arts’ surroundings
where it is
explain the
work imagery used or
displayed

The customs,
beliefs and
values of the
culture that
uses it
Three Levels of Meaning According to Cleaver (1966)

Factual • literal statement or the narrative content in the work

which can be directly understood because the
Meaning objects presented are easily recognized.

Conventional • special meaning that a certain object or color has for

Meaning a particular culture or a group of people.

Subjective • any personal meaning consciously or unconsciously

conveyed by the artist using private symbolism which
Meaning- stems from his own associations of certain objects,
actions, or colors from past experiences.
…
• Subject of art is the literal, visible image
in a work while content includes the
connotative, symbolic, and suggestive
aspects of the image.
• The subject matter is the subject of the
artwork, e.g., still life, portrait,
landscape, etc.
• Content is not subject or things in the
painting.
Assignment
A. Search for three (3) artists and their artworks for each
art style from the various art movements.

B. #KaLookAlArt
– Choose and select only one (1) artwork/masterpiece
that you have submitted in your Assignment about
the three (3) artists and their artworks for each art
style from the various art movements.
– Be able to be its art subject and content by
interpreting/imitating/portraying it creatively.
Remember ART APPRECIATION.
– Your portrayal will be uploaded on your own personal
FB account.