The Nature of Art 

 
Art as experience, expression, form 
● Form - physical manifestation + processes behind art 
○ Relies more on the technicality 
● Expression - space of communication 
○ Message 
● Experience - both societal and individual, is shared and embedded in society 
○ relates to aesthetic experience and artistic experience 
○ purpose ≠ practicality 
○ tekne​ = closest Greek word to art, stands for technology 
■ leads to question: “is consciousness required for there to be art?” 
 
Premises, constructions, and deconstructions 
● Art is a signifying practice (signifier: material object; signified: concept) 
○ sign > seme > semiotics 
○ conventions: universal sign 
○ polysemic: many different signs/interpretations 
 
● Death of the Author: artist having no control over the art once it is out 
○ meaning-conveying potential 
○ meanings are inherently dynamic, thus there is a need to corroborate: 
i. visible 
ii. documents 
 
● Specificity: exclusive peculiarity of the art 
○ hierarchy of art becomes irrelevant because of this 
○ it is irrelevant to compare a painting to a pot 
 
 
art  craft 

fine arts  applied arts 

aesthetic  functionality 
Western  local 
National Artist (first: Fernando Amorsolo)  Gawad Manlilikha ng Bayan (GAMABA) 
 
 
 
 
Art and aesthetics 
 
● The Academy’s favored genres: 
1. Historical paintings 
2. Mythological paintings 
3. Religious paintings 
● Genres: 
○ Still life 
○ Portrait 
○ Landscape 
● Impressionist artists (e.g. Monet) were refused to be exhibited, formed Salon des 
Refuses 
● The White Bird (John Berger) 
○ Aesthetic emotion - can come from both art and nature (but art ≠ nature) 
○ Capture momentarily felt emotions and turned into something permanent 
(like a creator) 
○ Art contributes to men’s ontological rights (man’s nature of being; e.g. 
pyramids might not be art because of slavery involved)