Subject: Art Appreciation
Lesson 1: What is Art: Introduction and
Assumptions
Art is something that is perennially
around us. We cannot deny that we
have nothing to do with it.
Example: clothes to wear, music
choices, marvelling of church designs
and cheering your favourite dance
team
Plato dignified, during the
“Symposium”, that beauty, the
object of any love, truly progresses.
One can never be totally content
with what is just before him. Human
beings are drawn toward what is
goof and ultimately, beautiful.
This lesson is about this yearning for
the beautiful, the appreciation of all
the consuming beauty around us,
and some preliminary clarifications
on assumptions that people normally
hold about art.
Why study HUMANITIES?
ART - came from the Latin word ars
which means “craft or specialization
form of skill, like carpemntry pr
smithying or surgery” (Collingwood,
1938).
- capacity to produce an
intended result from carefully
planned steps or method
Source: Caslib, Garing and Casaul (2017), Art Appreciation, Rex Bookstore
In the Ancient world, they did not
have any notion of art in the same
way that we do now.
In the Medieval Latin, Ars in came to
mean something different. It meant
“any special form of book learning,
such as grammar or logic, magic or
astrology.
During the Renaissance period that
the word was 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.
Focusing on the 17th century, 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”.
Finally, in the 18th century, the word
has evolved to distinguish between
the fine arts and the useful arts. The
fine arts would come to mean “not
delicate of highly skilled arts, but
beautiful arts”.
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.
ASSUMPTIONS OF ART
A. Art is universal – In every country
and in every generation, there is
always art. Art has always been
timeless and universal, spanning
generations and continents through
and through.
Age is not a factor in determining art.
An “… art is not good because it is
old, but old because it is good”.
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.
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 gets
depleted.
B. Art is not nature – art is man’s
expression of his reception of nature.
Art is a man’s way of interpreting
nature. It is made by man, whereas
nature is a given around us. What we
find in nature should not be expected
to be present in art too.
For instance, movies are not meant to
be direct representation of reality.
They may, according to the
moviemaker’s perception of reality,
be a representation or even distortion
of nature.
Source: Caslib, Garing and Casaul (2017), Art Appreciation, Rex Bookstore
C. Art involves experience - when
one says that he has an experience
something, he often knows what the
something is about.
Art focuses on a posteriori rather than
a priori.
Unlike fields of knowledge that
involve data, art is known is known by
experiencing.
A work of art then cannot be
abstracted from actual doing. It must
be sensed, see or hear it, AND see
and hear it.
An important aspect of experiencing
art is its being highly personal,
individual, and subjective.
Philosophically speaking, perception
of art is always a value judgement. It
solely depends on who the perceiver
is, his tastes, is biases and what he has
inside of him.
Degustibus non disputandum 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, every experience with are is
accompanied by some emotion.
One either likes or dislikes, agrees or
disagrees, that a work of art us
beautiful. Feelings and emotions are
concrete proofs that the artwork has
been experiences.