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SUMMER 2020
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Introduction
The Meaning of the Humanities

From time immemorial man has puzzled over the meaning of his existence. “What am
I? Why am I in this world?” where do I go from here?” These are some of the questions he
has sought answers to in an effort to “make sense” out of life’s apparent confusion.

Through he ages many attempts have been made to answer these questions, and records
of these attempts can be found in the writings of great thinkers as well as in the arts. Yet
even now it seems taht man has not yet found the definitive answer to what he really is. The
meaning of his existence has become all the more puzzling today when his traditional
functions are being taken over by machines.

We learn what it is to be human by studying humanity. But to do this we obviously

cannot depend on direct contacts wiht fellow human beings. Our contacts within out short
lifetime will naturally be confined to a limited set of people, places, and events. Thus, we
have to depend heavily on vicarious experience, and we rech out to people of different
cultures in different times and places through whatever means would bring us nearer to them.
This encounter is made possible for us in the humanities.

What, then, are the humanities?

Broadly speaking, they are records of man’s quest for answers to the fundamental
questions he asks about himself and about life. The content of humanities is anything that is
inherently human – man’s experiences, his values, his sentiments, his ideals, his goals. The
humanities are thus expressions of man’s feelings and thoughts.

The term “humanities” was first applied to the writings of ancient Latin authors which
were read not only for their clarity of language and forceful literary style, but also, and more
specially, for their moral teaching.

During the Medieval Age, the humanities dealt with the metaphysics of the religious
philosopher. The goal was the cultivation of the spiritual life and the preparation for the
hereafter.

During the Renaissance, the word came to refer to the set of disciplines taught in the
universities, which included grammar, rhetoric, history, literature, music, philosophy, and
theology – a body of knowledge aimed to make man “human, cultured, and refined.” This
developed from the concept which recognized man’s essential worth and capacity for self-
advancement in this world.

In our century, the humanities serve to provide the student with certain skills and
values through the arts. Instruction places his area of specialization within the broader
perspective of the human condition and ideal as imaginatively rendred in painting, sculpture,
architecture, photography, dance, drama and cinema, as well as in the traditional components
of the humanities.

The humanities thus provide more than just an appreciation of what is “the true, the
good, and the beautiful,” concepts which vary from age to age, from country to country.
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They are aimed to shape the student’s subjective energies (his feelings, attitudes, and
aspirations) in accordance with a particular view of the social world in which he dreams, acts,
and fulfills himself. The view about man and his world changes and so too the content and
direction of the humanities; but in all cases, their principal task remains the same, which is to
make man conscious and critical of, and sensitive and responsive to the norms and hopes of
his society.

The Humanities and the Sciences

The humanities are distinct from the sciences, which are studies dealing with the
external world of man, as well as with the facets of man’s being that can be subjected to
observation, measurement, and experiementation. The sciences enable man to understand
and control nature and to harness its energy to make his life more comfortable and
convenient.

The humanities, on the other hand, deal with man’s internal world – with his
personality and experiences, matters that cannot be exactly measured, classified, or
controlled. For this reason, the study of the humanities cannot be as precise nor as well-
structured and uniform as the study of, say, biology or physics. The humanities’ approach is
subjective: it makes much use of perception, feeling, intuition, and insight.

There is, too, a difference between the humanities and the social sciences. While both
are concerned with man, the focus of the humanities is on man as an individual. In the social
sciences, the main interest is on types and groups of human beings, and on the institutions and
processes of society.

Are the humanities necessary? Yes, as much as the sciences are. Man needs an image
of himself, an understanding of his nature. Through words, lones, mass, line, color, or design,
the arts provide man with a measure of his own passions and desires, his relation with other
men and his environment, as well as his potentials.

Both the sciences and the humanities are necessary for the development of the
complete, social man, ready to take on his responsibilities in this rapidly changing world and
to enjoy life as he lives it.

I. Understanding the Arts

Art: Its Meaning and Importance
The Nature of Art

Art is Everywhere

The popular feeling about art is that it exists only in concert halls museums , and art
galleries in a wrld by itself, accessible only to those who can afford to pay for its enjoyment
or to the critics and scholars who take time to study the art objects. On the contrary, art is
found everywhere. It is very much a part of our lives. We cannot ignore its presence even if
we try to.
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We find art in the clothes and accessories we wear, in the design of our future and
furnishings, in the style of the houses we build and the vehicles we use. We find art objects
in the home and in the community, in reigion, in trade and in industry.

The coins we pay to the jeepney driver, as well as the religious medal we wear on a
chain around our neck – these are examples of relief sculpture. Our paper bills and postage
stamps are examples of engraving. The statues of angels and saints in our churches and
cemeteries are freestanding sculpture. And the multicolored designs on the sides of and
inside a jeepney are examples of decorative patterns. In every twon plaza we see a monument
of some hero, a fountain, or a consciously laid out garden. The buildings we pass by on our
way to school and our school buildings themselves are examples of architecture.

All these things are part of man’s effort to lessen the drabness and tedium of everyday
living and to transform his environment into a more interesting place to live in.

We may go further with out list – we cannot miss the paintings of fruits, flowers,
sunsets, vendors and busy streets hung for sale or hawked by vendors along equally busy
streets. Neither can we ignore the landscapes on ice cream carts or on the walls of narrow
downtown restaurants. And then every day, too, we hear of art exhibits in some art gallery or
of recitals in a school auditorium. Memorial parks, too, compete with one another in the
number and kind of sculptures they commission for use in their landscaping.

Almost every week we read notices about theatrical performances at the Cultural
Center of the Philippines or some other theaters and auditoriums. We also have occasional
plays and other stage presentations in campuses. Every year we look forward to the pabasa
and cenaculo during the Holy Week and above everything, there are moviehouses,
everywhere, for, after music, the cinema is the art form that we enjoy most nowadays.

Art is not confined to our cities and towns alone; it also exists among ethnic groups,
many of whom, by choice or necessity, live far away from urban centers. T’boli women have
been stringing colorful bead necklaces and wearing them for generations. The brightly
colored Lepanto cloth that our dress designers rave so much about comes from the
handlooms of the women of the Mountain Province. Some of the finest wood sculptures we
see in many souvenir shops today have been made by Ifugao woodcarvers whose deft hands
have also carved the images of thier ancestral spirits that keep constant watch over their
homes and granaries.

The Maranaws are noted for their exquisite metalwork – kris handles, vases, bowls, and
trays engraved with intricate floral and geometric designs. Their women wear colorful
handwoven malong and delicately handcrafted jewelry. And their houses, decorated with
ornamental abstractions, are interestig works of art themselves.

One must not overlook the music and dances of the Bagobos, Manobos, Tinguians,
Mangyans, and other ethnic groups. These are very much a part of their religious rituals and
social functions.

We find art at all times. If we go back in time to the prehistoric cave dwellers, we
would find art as an integral part of their communal lives. Evidences of early man’s attempt
to objectify his ideas and beliefs are found in the paintings of animals on the walls of caves in
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soutwestern France and northern Spain, as well as in Africa and Australia. Archaeological
diggings in various parts of the world have unearthed clay statuettes of fertility goddesses and
ppieces of bone, ivory and horn incised with images and animals. All these date back to
antiquity. Art is indeed as old as the human race itself.

How can we account for this universal presence of art?

Art exists in all forms of human society and in every generation because it serves some
fundamental human needs.

Art as Expression and Communication

No one can contain an intense emotion within himself for long. The tension results
would compel him to unburden himself or share the feeling with others.

We express our emotional state by some visible signs and activities. We burst into
song when we are happy, or we dance, for it is pleasant to express joy through rhythmic body
movements. We likewise sing out our love or our despair or try to convey our deep emotions
in poetic language.

Art has grown out of man’s need to express himself. Expression in the arts, however,
is not limited to the revelation of emotion alone. The personal and social values of the artist
and his penetrating psychological insights into human realityare also conveyed through the
arts.

An artist is usally gifted with a special sensitivity towards the world around him. His
perceptions is not only of surface appearances but of forces taht lie underneath – hidden
realities which we ordinary laymen, do not usally notice until they are framed for our
attnetion and consideration in works of art. It is the discovery of these realities that the artitst
expresses in his art.

“The artist,” says Joyce Cary, “always starts with an experience which is a kind of
discovery... It surprises him – that is what is ually called an intuition or an inspiration. They
joy of his discovery is his starting point”. This discovery may be the perception of something
interesting in the natural world such as the colors of a tropical sunset, the geometric design of
a flower or the rhythm of the falling rain. Or it may be an awareness of something in the
nature of man, in his relationship iwth other human beings, or in his relationship with other
human beings or in his relationship with God.

As John Canaday, a noted art critic, has remarked:

Since prehistoric times man has been preoccupied with three major searches in
the adventure of exploration that is recorded in works of art. First, he has been finding
ways to make appropriate images of his gods. Second, he has also discovered the
world around him. Or again, he has been discovering himself, pondering his own
nature, trying to decipher the mystery of what a human being is.

The artist’s discovery may stem from a close scrutiny of his environment, from contact
with ideas advanced by other persons and recorded in books, or from an observation of a
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society’s way of life. And his thoughts may be philosophical, idealistic, militant, bitter,
tolerant or humorous. Whatever it is, when an artist produces a poem, a song, a sculpture, or
even a chair, he is actually saying or revealling something significant.

As in other systems of communication, the artist uses symbols which he organizes into
some comprehensible equivalent of the experience that he is trying to convey. If the symbols
are understood by his audience, then communication has been established.

Sometimes it is not the artist’s main intention to communicate. It is enough for him to
express himself vent his spleen, so to speak, to relieve himself of tension. He finds
satisfaction merely in having created a new form. This is especially true of the action painters
of our time who are more intensely fascinated with the act of painting itself than with the
finished product. They do not care whether or not their personal imagery is understood by the
viewer, nor are they interested in delighting him through the pleasing use of color, shape or
design.

Generally speaking, thorugh while each work of art is evidently the expression of an
artist’s perosnal viewpoint, it is at the same time an expression of a general vision of the age
in which it was created. For the artist, like any other individual, belongs to a milieu and he
cannot escape the influence of his social, economic, political, religious, scientific, and
technological environment. These factors affect his artistic expression. His vision is also
necessarily influenced by his cultural traditions and by his own training. Yet a sensitive artist
is often not a conscious social agent, and a great work of art need not be a statement of what
has transpired in a particular age. But usually the artists becomes unwittingly a kind of
historian, recording in his work the attitudes and way of life of his period. Or he becomes a
critic or moralist, analyzing and commenting on the virtues and vices of his particular society,
as well as pointing out a course of action for its renovation.

At any rate, art in any given period simultaneously reflects two things – the genius of
its creator as well as the sensibility or th characteristic values and attitudes toward important
aspects of life held by the society in which the work of art was born. Even the most
subjective and personal expressions show these two aspects. If we take any kundiman by
Nicanor Abelardo, Francisco Santiago or any of their contemporaries, we will find that
although it shows the particular creative ingenuity of its composer, in its melody is a haunting
melacholy characteristic of the age which produced the song form.

Art as Creation

Man has also been led by an innate craving for order to create objects that are
delightful to perceive. The word “creation” in this sense refers to the act of combining or re-
ordering already existing materials so that a new object is formed.

As a creative activity, art involves skill or expertness in handling materials and

organizing them into new, structurally pleasing, and significant units. This skill does not just
happen. It is acquired through long training and constant practice.

The word “art” originated from the Latin ars, which means “skill.” It is equivalent to
he Green techne, from which our modern word “technology” is derived. In the early days, the
term was applied not only to craftsmanship but also to proficiency in performing any
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activitiy. Thus, medicine, agriculture and military expertise were considered arts. Now these
skills have been grouped under the category of the practical sciences. Although “art” is still
used to mean “proficiency”, as when we speak of the art of cooking and of the martial arts,
the word is now commonly used to refer to skills and products which are primarily intended
to delight the senses and produce a satisfying experience of the beautiful. While these works
may also have other functions – a buidling serves a particular purpose: as a residence, a place
of worship, or an office; and a stage play may have a religious or political intent – they are
considered workds of art because they have aesthetic value.

Art is a planned activity. Unlike the spider when it weaves its web, the artist does not
put his materials into shape instinctively. Rather, he thinks out a design, selects his materials,
and arranges them according to his design. To be sure, he may not be wholly original; no
artist really is. But he would be producing something that never existed before. Sometimes,
the finished product may not turn out as he had originally envisioned it to be. Creation
involves constant correction and redirection, depending on the demands of the material and
the challenges it poses.

Sometimes, the art object may be the result of a cooperative activity, by a team of
artists motivated by a common goal, as in the production of a play or a movie.

Each finished product is an expression of order – the artist’s idea of order. The artist
has made the form the vehicle of his idea. Its parts have been so integrated as to produce a
unique entity which communicates to all men for as long as it lasts. It is taken as a self-
contained object, reacted to, and evaluated by people who come in contact with it.

Art and Experience

At least three major kinds of experience are involved in the artistic activity. As we
noted earlier, it usually starts as an experience which the artist wants to communicate. Then
the act of expressing this experience – that of crating the art object or form – is itself another
kind of experience. Finally, when the work is done, there is the artists’ gratifying experience
of having accomplished something significant.

But there is still another kind of experience associated with art. This refers to what an
onlooker or listener undergoes when he perceives the work of art. The perception may kindle
an experience which is similar or related to that which the artist tried to express.

It goes without saying that art must be directly seen or heard in order to be enjoyed or
appreciated. No amount of reading about a painting or sculpture can take the place of
actually seeing it. Listening to a lecture on music is of very little value unless one also hears
the music itself, and reading a play is not a fair substitute for seeing it actually performed.

A varying combination of sensory, emotional and intellectual responses is involved in

experiencing art.

Some people looking at a painting for instance, experience a kind of delight similar to
that which one feels when he sees a beautiful girl or lovely scenery. This is largely a sensory
response. It is the same kind of response many people have when they hear a lively march or
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a lilting melody. They feel like marching or dancing. They do not seem to need a deeper
understanding of what the artists has tried to express and how he has managed to achieve his
purpose, although, of course, such understanding would further enchance their enjoyment.

Then there is emotional response triggered by the recognition of a familiar situation

presented as the subject of the work. The response may stem, on the other hand, from
memories evoked by the subject. A landscape painting may recall happy childhood days
spent in some such landscape; a song may bring back a pleasurable experience in the past
associated with it.

Sometimes our emotional response sprigs from our identfying ourselves with the
people portrayed in the work of art. This is especially true when we watch a play or a movie.
We go through what Samuel Taylor Coledridge described as “the willing suspension of
disbelief” and accept as real what is happening o the stage or on the screen. We may even
assume the role of one of the characters and go through the same range of emotions that he
goes through. This identification with the character is known as empathy. Thus, when one
character has a tragic experience, we cry with pity for him, and we also feel fear and sorrow
with him, because we virtually live the sme life he lives. Of course, when the lights are
turned on at the end of the performance, we go back to our former selves, relieved to note that
the experience was something we had only vicariously gone through.

Some works, on the other hand, delight the mind primarily. These are works whose
unique arrangements of elements, apart from subject matter, stimulate the intellect more than
they do the emotions.

Our reaction t oart is personal and individual. We tend to respond to works of art
according to the level of our expectation. Thus, we like some works and we don’t like others,
simply because they don’t reveal to us what we feel they should. We cannot escape from our
personal preferences. And when we look at art, we do so with a prejudiced eye. Our reaction
would be colored, too, by the ideas of our time about particular aspects of art. Each
generation rends to prefer one style of art to another.

Appreciating a work of art does not just mean responding emotionally to it. It implies
an intellectual involvement with what is to be appreciated, be it a painting, a novel or a
musical composition. To learn to appreciate any on the arts, we must understand what goes
into its making; its elements or components and how these are put together in a pattern of
relationships, coalescing and becoming the unity which is the work of art itself. We can
hardly appreciate that which we cannot understand. For example, we cannot like (or dislike)
a poem in Chinese if we do not understand Chinese at all.

In some cases, then, our appreciation of art may be blocked by our inability to
understand the language used by he artist or by his presentation of an altogether unfamiliar
viewpoint. But if we are interested in getting at the artistic truth that he has tried to convey,
then we must make an attempt to understand his expression. We may not altogether agree
with his statement, but the work of art will at least led us to form ideas of our own about the
matter.

Whatever response we have to a work of art, we cannot fail to experience a sense of

awe at the objects existence. We look at its form and complexity, we consider the insight
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expressed and we think of the artist’s talent as something extraordinary, almost magical,
even divine. And the wonder of it all is that the artist is first and foremost a man, just like all
of us.

Art and Nature

Art is not nature. A distinction must be made between the two. The colorful sunset
over Manila Bay, the sky full of stars on a summer evening, the sound of mayas singing in the
field – these are natural things. They are not works of art.

A work of art is man-made, and although it may closely resemble nature, it can never
duplicate nature. The closest that we can get to doing this is with a camera. But eve then, a
photograph is only a record of the subject or the scene.

The plastic flower that grace many of our shop windows and living rooms may be so
much like real flowers as to fool people into thinking they are real, but they will always be
what they actually are – artificial, not natural. Real flowers metamorphose from buds to full-
blown blossoms to faded beauties, but artificial flowers do not change. If they have been
shaped as buds, they will remain buds while they last. Nature is evanescent and always
recreating itself; art is non-repeatable and unchanging.

It is this permanenceance that John Keats speacks of in “Ode on a Grecian Urn” when
he describes a scene painted on the Greek vase thus:

Fair, youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

Thy song, nor ever can these be bare;
Bold, lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal – yet, do not grieve;
She cannot face, though hast not thy bliss,
Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Nature has been a constant source of models for art, and great artists have drawn their
subjects from nature, but they have never tried to make an exact copy of a natural thing.
Their concern has not been to describe the actual appearance of objects but to tell us what
they felt or thought about theses objects.
In presenting a human experience, although artists draw from actual life situations, they
do some altering of details so that the work becomes a modified representation of real life, not
an exact copy. Human experience is always complex and cluttered with incidents that are
unimportant and unrelated. The artist, in his desire to help us see life more directly and
clearly, re-orders the details, removing irrelevant ones and rearranging the rest, so that the
“slice of life” presented is intensified and made more significant.
In many ways, we use art to improve on nature. In a garden, if we allow nature to have
its own way, the plants would grow anywhere and any way they would. With art-in this case,
the art of landscaping – we can bring order into the garden sculpture for accent. The result
would be something different from the wilderness it would have been without our
intervention.
Art and Beauty
The desire for beauty and order around us is another basic human need. Somehow
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these provide the much needed comfort and balance to our lives.
We may find beauty in nature, as in the loveliness of a volcano rising majestically to
the skies, or of a slender waterfall that looks like a bridal veil from a distance. Or we may
find it in man-made objects like an impressive bridge, a ceramic vase, or even in a tender love
song.
A thing of beauty is one which gives us pleasure when we perceive it. The delight that
we experience is called aesthetic pleasure, “aesthetic” coming from a Greek word which
means “to perceive with senses.”
Our desire for beauty stems from a primordial sense of order and consistency. We
close our eyes to tense up when we see garish colors, illogical arrangements, unbalanced
forms, and deformities. This is an automatic, non-thinking reaction. We stop our ears when
we hear shrill or harsh sounds and lou noises. But our senses quicken when we see our touch
pleasurable shapes, textures and designs and hear melodious sounds.
What we call beauty is relative, however. What may be beautiful to us may not be so
to others. And no two persons would derive exactly the same degree of satisfaction from
seeing what they mutually agree upon as a beautiful object or from listening to what they both
consider a beautiful tune. Our attitude is usually conditioned by many factors, among which
are our social involvement, our education and training and our past experiences or some
psychological and emotional associations we have with the object. Very often, then, this
attitude is colored by some personal preferenes and biases. This explains why, when men and
women sit to judge a beauty contest. It is never easy for them to quickly arrive at a verdict on
the winner. There will always be as many different opinions as there are members on the
panel. Some would find dark-complexioned ones. And while there would be particular
standards set down on the scorecards, there would certainly be wide differences in the number
of points given each contestant, so uch so that the services of a computer are often regarded
as necessary nowadays in getting the final judgement.
Concepts of beauty change as time passes. The prevailing idea held by one generation
is usually different from that of the previous one. Nowhere is this more apparent than in
fashion designs. One period may consider slenderness very attractive, and so dress designs
would be such as to create the illusion of slenderness. On the other hand, one period may
emphasize the fullness of the female figure, still another may conisder flat-chestedness very
appealing.
An artist’s own concept may change as he grows older. This accounts for differences
in an artist’s own style and expression.
Concepts of beauty vary between cultures too. That is why the Western listener finds it
difficult to appreciate Asian music, just as we in our time, with our ears attuned to music in
the Western tradition, find little pleasure in listening to the music of our ethnic group.
We expect every work of art to be beautiful. But it may not always be so. If we look
around us, we will find many works of art which we would not exactly regard as delightful to
perceive. It is not always an artist’s intention to present a beautiful subject or to evoke a
pleasant sensation in the viewer. Sometimes he may deliberately communicate a feeling of
revulsion about things he has observed in the human condition. Sometimes he may aim to
jolt us from our complacency by showing us the borrors of deprivation, violence and war.
Francisco Goya’s etched series The Disasters of War, and Pablo Picasso’s Guernica
especially show these.
However, “ugly” the subject, if we find in the representation a sense of order, a
harmonious arrangement of formal elements, then we can also experience aesthetic pleasure
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from looking at it. Beauty in art may be the result of hte successful organization of lines,
color, shapes and spaces in order to convey an idea or emotion.
THE SUBJECT OF ART
What Subject Is
When people look at a painting or a sculpture for the first time, the initial question that
they usually ask is “What is it?” or “What does it show?” Somehow, they expect to see
recognizable images in these works of art.
To a majority of peole, the appeal of most works of art lies in the representation of
familiar objects. Their enjoyment of painting, sculpture and literature comes not from their
perception of the “meaning” or composition butfrom the satisfaction they get out of
recognizing the subject or understanding the narrative content.
The subject of art refers to any person, object, scene or event described or represented
in a work of art. Some arts have subject, others do not. The arts that have subject are called
representational or objective arts. Those that do not have subject are known as non-
representational or non-objective arts.
Painting, sculpture, the graphic arts, literature and the theater arts are generally
classified as representational, although, a good deal of paintings, prints and sculptures are
without subject. Music, architecture, and many of the functional arts are non-
representational. Some musical compositions have subject, though. They are generally
referrd to as program music. This kind of music may imitate natural sounds like Rimsky-
Korsakov’s “Fight of the Bumblebee”; set a mood, like Debussy’s “Claire de Lune”; or
narrate a story like Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”
The non-objective arts do not present descriptions, stories or references to identifiable
objects or symbols. Rather, they appeal directly to the senses primarily because of the
satisfying organization of their sensuous and expressive elements. Most musical pieces are
not imitations of natural sounds, but we enjoy listening to them because the sounds have been
pleasingly arranged and because they evoke certain emotional responses in us.
Through such elements of design as line and color, a painter may convey a message
non-objectively. Bright colors usually convey a happy mood; dark, drab ones create a somber
mood. Similarly, light and delicate lines suggest gaiety, while dark, heavy ones communicate
some serious or heavy feeling.
Many contemporary painters have turned away from representational to non-objective
painting. Theyhave shifted their attention to the work of art as an object in itself, an exciting
combination of shapes and colors that fulfills an aesthetic need without having to represent
images or tell a story. Many modern paintings have purely visual appeal; they are therefore
difficult for the literal-oriented spectator to relate to.
Ways of Representing a Subject
The manner of representing subject matter varies according to the inventiveness and
purpose of each artist. He may employ realism, abstraction, or distortion.
When things are depicted in the way they would normally appear in nature, the
representation is said to be realistically rendered.
Strictly speaking, no work of art is truly realistic, since no work of art is an accurate
copy of what exists in the natural world. Anyone who has watched a painter at work knows
how many details he leaves out, alters, and adds, departing from recording optical reality.
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Many great artists have been able to create the illusion of reality through a selective use of
details.
A realistic novel is not just a narration of events which actually took place. Rather, it is
an imaginative narrative, the details of which the author has so manipulated that the situation
appears as something that could have really happened or may possibly happen. It could, in
fact, be anchored on a historical fact, but its characters would be imaginary people, although
they would seem to be like some peole we know or have met.
Some paintings seem to be photographic renderings of facts. But most paintings and
sculptures are abstract to a certain degree. Abstraction is the process of simplifying and/or
reorganizing objects and elements according to the demands of artistic expression. The artist
selects and renders the objects with their shapes, colors and positions altered.
In some abstract works, enough of a likeness has been retained to represent real things.
In others, the original objects have been reduced to simple geometric shapes and theycn be
rarely identified unless the artist has named them in his title. His concern is the rendering of
the essence of the subject rather than the natural form itself.
When the figures have been so arranged that proportions differ noticeably from natural
measurements, the objects are said to be distorted. Distortion could also mean twisting,
stretching or deforming the natural shape of the object.
The relief sculptures and paintings of ancient Egypt were distorted. The head and the
lower part of the body were shown in profile, while the eye and the upper part of the body
were in frontal position. Convention demanded the higly stylized representation of the figure.
Distortion is usally done to dramatize the shape of a figure or to create an emotional
effect. El Greco elongated the bodies of Christ and the saints in his paintings to enhance the
illusion of spirituality. Caricatures employ distortions so that their targets of ridicule would
appear grotesque and hateful.
We generally regard surrealism as realism plus distortion. This is only one type of
surrealism, though. In giving expression to what is in the subconscious, the surrealists
compose dreamlike scenes that show an irrational arrangement of objects. The images are
recognizable, sometimes drawn from nature, but they are combined in utterly fantastic and
unnatural relationships. Galo Ocampo’s Ecce Homo depicts a bound Christ-figure, his heart
and blood vessels exposed, standing amidst ruin and decay, with bombs falling and dogfights
going on in the background. And Marc Chagall’s I and the Village is an unusual rendering of
a village scene with a man and his cow shown in the foreground along with what they are
both thinking about.
Another type of surrealism depicts the workings of the subconscious, the artist using
symbols which are not directly associated with the familiar physical world. Some of the
paintings of Paul Klee have a definite suggestion of doodling and those of Joan Miro remind
us of improvisations done by children.
The Artist and His Choice of Subject
Practically everything under the sun is raw material for the artist to draw his subject
from. Most, if not all, of athe visual arts are representations of things the artists imagined or
dreamed about.
Whatever subject an artist chooses, his choice involves some personal statement; it
shows what he considers significant or aesthetically satisfying.
An artist’s choice of subject is usally affected by his medium. He cannot represent
 12
landscape in a free-standing sculpture, for instance. The nature of the medium demands
subjects that would show solidity and bulk.
An artist’s choice of subject also depends largely upon the time in which he lives and
on the patronage he gets. During the Middle Ages, for example, almost the only subject that
a European artist could depict was religious. The Church, having great influence over
practically every human activity then, employed the arts in its work of spreading the Gospel.
With the withdrawal of the Church’s patronage, artists turned more and more toward secular
subjects, especially when the concern of man shifted from the other-worldly to matters in this
world.
In our century, many subjects have become available to the artist. Developments in
science and technology have opened new vistas to him. The stark mechanization of our time
has led him to study and represent mechanical forms. And researches in medicine and
psychology have drawn him to explore the inner world of man.
The value of a work of art does not depend on the artist’s choice of subject. It does not
necessarily follow that the more profound the subject, the greater the work of art. Rather, the
worth of any representational work of art depends upon the way the subject has been
represented. As Harold Osborne says:
“How a work of art is to be appreciated and assessed, it would now be agreed,
has more to do with the way in which its subject or theme is presented than with what
is presented... It would generally be taken as a matter of course that no subject or
situation or theme can of itself guarantee the aesthetic quality of a work of art by
reason of any such qualities as nobility or grandeur ascribable to it independently of hte
work in which it is presented... The most sublime themes can become the subject
matter of trivial and medio-sublime themes can become the subject matter of trivial and
mediocre works of art. Conversely, no subject or theme, however trivial or unattractive
it may be, is precluded from becoming the topic of an aesthetically admirable work of
art.”
Kinds of Subject
The subjects depicted in works of art, particularly the visual arts, can be grouped into:
1. Landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes. Artists have always been fascinated with
their physical environment. Since ancient times, landscapes and seascapes have been the
favorite subjects of Chinese and Japanese painters, who would observe nature, meditate
lengthily on its eternal qualities and paint it in its varying moods. It is not uncommon to see
on wide screens or handscrolls Chinese brush paintings of mist-covered mountains dwarfing
human figures and animals.

Filipino painters, too, have captured on canvas the Philippine countryside, as well as
the sea bathed in pale moonlight or catching the reflection of the setting sun. In his works,
Fernando Amorsolo romanticized Philippine landscapes, turning the rural areas into idyllic
places where agrarian problem are virtually unknown.

In Europe, the painting of pure landscapes without human figures was almost unheard
of until the Renaissance, when artists began to rediscover their natural environment. But for a
time, though, landscapes served only as background for figures, as in the Mona Lisa, or as
settings from some religious scenes.

Modern painters seem to be more attracted to scenes in cities. Traffic jams, high-rises,
and skylines marked by uneven rooftops and televeision antennae have caught their fancy.
 13
Vicente Manansala, Arturo Luz, and Mauro Malang Santos are among the Filipino painters
who have done interesting cityscapes.

2. Still life. Some artists love to paint groups of inanimate objects arranged in an
indoor setting. While flower and fruit arrangements are among their favorites, they also
portray such objects as dishes of food on a dining table, pots and pans on a kitchen table, or
musical instruments and music sheets. They usually arrange the objects to show particular
human interests and activities.

The still lifes of Chinese and Japanese painters usually show flowers, fruits and leaves
still in their natural setting, unplucked from the branches.

Today, artists generally ar not so much interested in the realistic portrayal of the
objects as they are in the exciting arrangement and combinations of the objects’ shapes and
colors. The cubists deliberately flattened out and simplified the forms or rearranged their
parts so that a unique visual effect was achieved. Cezanne’s and Picasso’s still lifes are of
this nature. And so are some of Manansala’s and Ang Kiu Kok’s.

3. Animals. Another popular subject is animals. They have been presented by artists
from almost every age and place. In fact, the earliest known paintings are representations of
animals on the wall of caves. The grace and vigor of animals in action have attracted painters
and sculptors alike and have inspired poets as well. William Blake wrote about the symmetry
and power of the tiger and the meekness of the lamb.

The carabo has been a favorite subject of Filipino artists. Romeo Tabuena’s stylized
carabaos have graced Philippine Christmas cards. Napoleon Abueva’s bronze and marble
sculptures have captured the strength and beauty of the animal.

The Maranaws have an animal formcalled the sarimanok as their proudest prestige
symbol. Mounted on a pole and given a place of prominence during feastivities, it is shaped
like a rooster whose long tail is made to look like fern frond whorls. The sarimanok is a
legendary bird that figured prominently in the story of Indarapatra and Sulayman. It is said
that the great Indarapatra once saw the moon goddess bathing in a perfumed pool near his
palace, as she wont to do every Friday evening. Indarapatra fell in love with her, but the
goddess told him that he would have to follow her to the moon and woo her there. This
impossible request made him very sad. One night, as he was playing with one of his
treasures, a golden bird, he expressed his longing to be with his beloved goddess. The
enchanted golden bird then promptly rose with the rajah to the sky and vanished forever with
him. To remember the beautiful bird, the people made copy of it and called it the sarimanok.

Animals have also been used as symbols in conventional religious art. The dove stands
for the Holy Spirit in representations of the Trinity. The fish and the lamb are symbols of
Christ; the phoenix, of the Resurrection; and the peacock, of immortality through Christ
(from the notion popularized in medieval bestiaries that the peacock’s flesh was not subject to
decay).

4. Portraits. People have always been intrigued by the human face as an index of the
owner’s character. As an instrument of expression, it is capable of showing a variety of
moods and feelings.

A is a realistic likeness of a person in a sculpture, painting, drawing, or print. It need to

be photographic likeness. A great portrait is a product of a selective process, the artist
 14
highlighting certain features of his subject and de-emphasizing others. It does not have to be
beautiful, but itm ust be truthful. But some painters, desiring to please their patrons, usually
soften the lines of experience on the faces, thereby robbing the onlooker of the pleasure of
studying the true character of the subject.

Besides the face, other things worth noticing in portraits are the subjects hands, which
can be very expressive, and his particular attire and accessories. They reveal so much of the
person and his time.

States and busts of leaders and heroes were quite common among the Romans, but it
was not until the Renaissance that portrait painting became popular in Europe. Rulers and
religious leaders sat for their portraits or had their profiles etched in coins and medals, and the
faces and figures of donors and patrons were incorporated in paintings and sculptures with
religious themes.

Portraits are also used to mark milestones in people’s lives. Baptisms, graduations and
weddings are often occasions for people to pose for their portraits.
Many artists did self-portraits. Their own faces provided them unlimited opportunities
for character study.

In literature, Chaucer’s Prologue to The Canterbury Tales is an interesting portrait

gallery of a cross-section of English society during the 14th century. There are the
unforgettable Knight and his son, the Squire, the demure Prioress, the worldly Monk, and the
inimitble Wife of Bath, to name a few.

5. Figures. The sculptor’s chief subject has traditionally been the human body, nude
or clothed. The body’s form, structure, and flexibility offer the artist a big challenge to depict
it in a variety of ways, ranging from the most idealistic, as in the classical Greek sculptures,
to the most abstract, as in Henry Moore’s “reclining figures”.

The grace and ideal proportions of the human form were capture inreligious sculpture
by the ancient greeks. To them physical beauty was the symbols of moral and spiritual
perfection: thus they portrayed their gods and goddesses possessing perfect human shapes.
Fond of athletics, they also enjoyed representing healthy and graceful athletes, as in the
Discus Thrower.

Early Christian and medieval artists seldom represented the nude figure. And the
figures they used to decorate the entrances and walls of their churches were distorted so as
not to call undue attention to the sensuous physical shape and distract the mind from spiritual
thoughts.

But Renaissance artists reawakened an interest in the nude human figure.

Michelangelo’s David shows a closer tie with the Greek sculptures than with the Romanesque
ones.

A favorite subject among painters is the female figure in hte nude as in Botticelli’s
Birth of Venus, Goya’s Naked Maja, Ingres’ Odalisque, and Mnaet’s Olympia.

6. Everyday life. Artists have always shown a deep concern about life around them.
Many of them have recorded in paintings their observation of people going about their usual
ways, performing their usual tasks. Among these are representations of rice threshers,
cockfighters, candle vendors, street musicians, and children at play. These are called genre
 15
paintings. Amorsolo’s Planting Rice, Laundry Women, and Batis belong to this category.
Anita Magsaysay-Ho painted women doingtheir farm chores, and Manansala has painted
candle vendors. Carlos V. Francisco’s favorite subjects were the fisherfolk and farmers of his
hometown, Angono, Rizal whom he portrayed at work, at play and in prayer.

Honore Daumier also loved to observe the life of his times. He poked fun at the well-
to-do in his paintings and drawings, but he portrayed working men and women with
compassion, as in his Third-Class Carriage. Similarly, Jean Francois Millet tried to capture in
all his paintings the toil and suffering of his fellow peasants. Pieter Brueghel celebrated the
peasants, too.

7. History and legend. History consists of verifiable facts, legends of unverifiable

ones, although many of them are often accepted as true because tradition has held them so.
Insofar as the ancient past is concerned, it is difficult to tell how much of what we now know
is history and howmuch is leagend. The story of urduja, for instanse , is shrouded in
mystery. Up to this date, no one has conclusively proven that she existed astradition says.
Ofa few pantings, as well as of an opera and a tagalog movie.

History and legend are popular subjects of art. Juan luna`s blood compact. Now at
malacan~yang, commemrates the agreement between Si-katuna and Legazpi which they
supposedly sealed by drinking wine in which drops of each other’s blood had been mixed.
Luna’s prize-winning Spolarium depicts a scene during the days of the early Roman Empire
when gladiatorial fights were a popular form of entertainment for the upper class.

Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, Luna’s contemporary, painted the controversial

Assassination of Governor-General Fernando Bustamante. History narrates that Governor
Bustamante had been conducting during the administration of his predecessor. He had
uncovered some anomalies whick involved some high ranking officials and religious leaders,
and he was advised to keep from making further inquiries. As he was going down the
stariway of his palace one day, he was met and attacked by an angry mob led by some
members of the clergy. When the mob had gone, the Governor-General lay dying on the
steps. It is this assault that Hidalgo depicted.

It is said that the Governor-General’s wife tried to avenge his death by causing the
mysterious and violent deaths of those whom she suspected to be responsible for the crime.
Her revenge is the subject matter of La Loba Negra, purportedly written by Fr. Jose Burgos.
Out of this story, Virginia Moreno wrote a play, “The Onyx Wolf”, which became the basis
of “Itim Asu”, a dance drama.

Carlos Francisco executed the mural that now graces the second-floor lobby of the
Manila City Hall. The mural depicts figures and events in the history of the city. He was also
responsible for the huge mural, which was a pageant of Philippine History for the
International Fair held in Manila in 1953.

At Fort Santiago are paintings showing incidents in the life of Jose Rizal. These had
won awards during the Rizal Centennial Celebration.

While many works may not be consciously done historical records, certain information
about history can be pieced from them. The costumes and accessories worn by the people
depicted the status symbol, the kinds of dwellings and the means of transportation, and other
such incidentals reveal so much of the period as to constitute historical records.
 16
Malakas and Maganda and Mariang Makiling are among the legendary subjects which
have been rendered in painting and sculpture by not a few Filipino artists. The Mariang
Makiling theme has been particularly exploited by Francisco and his pupil, Jose V. Blanco, in
their paintings.

8. Religion and mythology. Art has always been a handmaiden of religion. Most of
hte world’s religions have used the arts to aid in worship, to instruct, to inspire feelings of
devotion, and to impress and convert non-believers. The Christian Church commissioned
craftsmen to tell the stories about Christ and the saints in pictures, usually in mosaics, murals,
and stained-glass windows in churches. It also resorted to the presentation of tableaux and
plays to preach and teach.

Some religions expressly forbid the representation of divinity as human beings or

animal forms, although they allow the use of some signs or symbols in their place. Pictures
of God, human beings, or animals are forbidden by Judaism and Islam because people might
worship the images themselves. Other religions have taught that a god may sometimes
assume human or other visible forms. Thus he is distinguished from human beings by a halo,
wings, a darker complexion, or by the use of some attributes. The ancient Egyptians
portrayed their gods as part of human and part animal. The ancient African tribes gave the
carved images of their gods some human characteristics, but they distorted the gods’ features.
Among the Hindus, Shiva the Destroyer is shown as a four-armed god. Buddha, on the other
hand, is symbolized by his footprints, a wheel or a tree.

In the early Christian world, representations of divinity were also symbolic. There
were precise conventions in rendering them. The eye, the dove, the fish, the ship and the
shepherd were widely used images. As in other religions, the serpent has been used to
symbolized eveil. The four Evangelists were represented by animal forms: St. Luke, by an
ox; St. John, an eagle; St. Mark, a lion; and St. Matthew, a winged man.

An interesting work which includes scenes and figures from both Christianity and
classical mythology is Michelangelo’s fresco which covers the whole ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel. It is typical of Renaissance man’s interest in classical matters as well as of is
religious orientation.

Religious beliefs and mystical experiences are also popular subjects of art, especially
of literature. Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia represents the finest statement of Christian
sought during the Middle Ages. In our time, T.S. Elot has written of a sense of spiritual
emptiness as charateristic of hte 20th century. “The Hollow Men” and “The Waste Land” are
poems about the sterility of life in a world given to erotic sensuality.

Some Filipino artists have attempted to render in art not only traditional religious
themes but folk beliefs in creatures of lower mythology as well. Solomon Saprid has done
statues of the tikbalang and some painters have renedred their own ideas about hte matanda sa
punso, aswang, tianak and mangkukulam.

9. Dreams and fantasies. Dreams are usually vague and illogical. Artists, especially
surrealists, have tried to depict dreams, as well as the grotesque terrors and apprehensions that
lurk in the depths of hte subconscious. A dream may be of a lifelike situation; it can thus be
realistically represented. Unless the artist tells us, we would not know that his work had a
basis in dreams. But if the picture suggests the strange, the irrational, and the absurd, we
would right away classify it as a fantasy or a dream picture, although the artist may not have
gotten the idea from a dream at all but from the workings of his imagination. No limits can
 17
be imposed on an artist’s imagination; it can go beyond thereal and the possible.

The Ugly and the Tragic in Art

There is nothing that maybe considered an improper subject for a work of art. The
grotesque, the ugly and the tragic are all ligitimate subjects as much as the pleasurable and the
beautiful are. As a matter of fact, artists have often deviated from the sterotyped and
“beautiful” subjects. Many have been attracted to decaying or dilapidated objects whose
forms, colors and textures have intrigued them. They have rendered these in aesthetically
pleasing paintings and prints. Rembrandt van Rijn’s painting of the flayed carcass of an ox
hanging in a butcher’s stall is an example. And so ar Manuel Baldemor’s paintings and prints
of weather-beaten barong-barong.
A good number of works of art are concerned with pain and evil. Among the most
appealing subjects of painting and sculpture are the Crucified Christ and “La Pieta”. The
greatest plays are invariably tragedies. And many of our songs speak of love denied or lost.
“Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts,” Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote.
There are reasons for the wide appeal of works of art that show human suffering. The
interest does not have to spring from a sadistic or a masochistic tendency at all.
Each of us has suffered grief, frustration or loss one way or another. In these works of
art, we find an affinity with the rest of humanity who have likewise experienced these painful
emotions and tensions. It is as if by vicariously experiencing the suffering evoked by these
works, we are purged of the pain and we achieved a release of tension.
Subject and Content
Recognizing the subject is not necessarily grasping the content of a work of art.
Subject and content are two different things. While subject refers to the objects depicted by
the artists, content refers to what the artists expresses or communicates on the whole in his
work. Sometimes it is spoken of as the “meaning” of the work. In literature, it iscalled the
“theme”. In fact, we may define it as the statement we apprehend or the feeling or mood we
experience with the work of art. Content reveals tha artist’s attitude toward his subject. The
subject of Hidalgo’s Wounded Soldier is a soldier nursing his wound, but its content is
definitelymore than this. It is the soldier’s stoicism and dignity that the artists wanted us to
see.
One does not always see content, but it is transmitted by the way subject and form
interact in a work. It is easier to grasp the content in arts with explicit subject matter than in
abstract arts.
Subject matter may acquire different levels of meaning. Cleaver classifies them as (1)
factual meaning, (2) conventional meaning and (3) subjective meaning.
The factual meaning is the literal statement or the narrative content in the work which
can be directly apprehended because the objects presented are easily recognized. This
meaning is often supplemented by other levels of meaning.
The conventional meaning refers to the special meaning that a certain object or color
has for a particular culture or group of people. The flag is the agreed-upon symbol for a
nation. The Cross is a Christian symbol of faith; the wheel is the Buddhist symbol for the
teachings of Gautama Buddha.
The subjective meaning is any personal meaning consciously or unconsciously
 18
conveyed by the artists using a private symbolism which stem from his own association of
certain objects, actions or colors with past experiences. This can be fully understood only
when the artist himself explains what he really means, as in the case of the poems of T.S.
Eliot where he provides footnotes. Otherwise, it tends to be interpreted differently by each
viewer or reader who may see it in the light of his own associations.
No one can be expected to understand without effort and study the meanings of many
works of art, especially those that deal with religion and mythology. To a non-Christian the
dove would not have a vivid religious meaning, nor would the four arms of Shiva or the
elephant head of hte god Ganesh have to the non-Hindu. To fully grasp the content of works
of art, one must learn as much as he can about the culture of the people that produced them
and maintain an open mind.
THE FUNCTIONS OF ART
Function in Art
Compared to other activities of man, art is generally regarded as impractical, not meant
to meet the requirements of day-to-day living. To the layman, art has very little function, the
term function being taken to mean “practical usefulness”. Architecture, weaving, furniture-
making, and a few other crafts have obvious purposes and are therefore classified as
functional. But painting, sculpture, literature, music, and the theater arts seem to serve no
other end than to amuse or provide a pleasant escape from life’s daily problems. Thus, they
are classified as non-functional.

Broadly speaking, all arts have a function, for man, the maker creates things because he
has a particular need for them.

From one point of view, we may consider art has having the general function of
“satisfying” (1) our individual needs for personal expression, (2) our social needs for display,
celebration and communication, and (3) our physical needs for utililtarian object.

The Personal Function

We said that the arts are vehicles for the artists’ expression of their feelings and ideas.
The arts also serve as means of expression for us. Music, for instance, and literature, at times,
have a way of expressing our emotions for us. As we listen to certain musical compositions,
we feel that they reflect exactly what we feel and thus release the tension such emotions
create in us; or, as we read certain literary passages, we note that the writer has presented
exactly what we think, though we could never have expressed it as clearly as beautifully.
The therapeutic value of music cannot be ignored. “Music hat charms to soothe the
savage breast,” wrote William congreve. Soft, sweet crooning can easily lull a baby to sleep.
Soft, sweet music piped into modern hospital rooms has been found to speed up the recovery
of patients, and music sessions are effective in treating mentally disturbed patients.’
The power of music make us feel certain emotions and act in certain ways has been
written about by a good number of poets. In “Alexander’s Feast”, an ode on the power of
music, John Dryden describes how the court musician Timotheur made Alexander the Great
respond his playing on the lyre, now “swelling the soul to rage”, now “kindling love and
desire”.
As a defense against the many upleasant and strident sounds and sights that assault our
senses today, we tend to develop an indifference or a capacity of being deaf or blind to a lot
 19
of significant things around us. Art helps to educate our senses and sharpen our perception of
colors, forms, textures, designs, sounds, rhythms, and harmonies in our environment. Visual
and auditory “literacy” through contact with the arts can lead us to an intensified awareness of
the beautiful in life. It can thus make our existence less humdrum; it can refine and elevate
our aesthetic taste.
Works of art make us aware of other ways of thinking, feeling and imagining that have
never occured to us before. They offer us fresh insights into nature and human nature so that
we gain a better understanding of ourselves and the world around us. They help us improve
our lives. This is especially true of literature, drama and cinema which capture and vivify
human experience.
Social Functions of Art
One cannot conceive of a society without art, for art is closely related to every aspect
of social life.
Art performs a social function when, (1) it seeks or tends to influence the collective
behavior of a people, (2) it is created to be seen or used primarily in public situations, and (3)
it expresses or describes social or collective aspects of existence as opposed to individual and
personal kinds of experiences.
Influencing Social Behavior. Many works of art influence the way we think, feel or
act. They cause us to laugh at certain phenomena, raise our voices in protest over certain
matters, or see a social reality which had never been apparent to us before. They can bring
about in us decisions to collectively change, correct or improve upon the human condition.
The pictorial form is a very powerful mens of putting across a message. Paintings,
photographs, posters and cartoons have been used to express humanitarian concern as well as
ideological or political comment. Protests agianst man’s inhumanity to man are seen in
Goya’s Disasters of War. A concern for the plight of the working class is seen in the works
of such Mexican artists as Jose Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera, who sought to promote
social change through their art.
Satire – which puts up people and institutions to ridicule so that they will change – is
effectively communicated in various cartoons and caricatures. The editorial cartoons in many
of our newspapers and magazines often convey the message more directly and clearly than
the printed word does. Cartoonists usually comment on the foibles of society and of its
leaders with the hope that something is done to correct these faults and improve the human
condition.
Literature has served just as well as for political and ideological expression. And it is a
powerful tool in shaping society and its manners. Propaganda literature – usually very
moving and persuasive – has swayed people’s minds and feelings toward certain ends. The
picture of oppression so graphically described by Rizal in his two novels undoubtedly
disturbed the sensibilities and aroused the indignation of the leaders of the Philippine
Revolution, motivating them to rise up in arms.
The stage and the screen are also very effective tools for political and ideological
expression, the artists capitalizing on their power to make the audience empathize with the
characters and situations presented.
In spreading a doctrine or teaching ideas, attitudes and wasy of behaving, paintings,
prints and sculptures have been used either in place of or as complements to the written word.
Religion has especially capitalized on the arts to spread belief and reinforce and sustain faith.
For centuries, the stained glass windows, frecoes, statues and paintings in Christian churches
 20
have served as the “catechism” for people who do not know how to read. They not only
interpret theological or spiritual matters but also provide models for the faithful. These art
forms, along with religions music and rites, contrive an atmosphere in church that would put
the worshipper in hte mood for spiritual meditation and communion with God.
The traditional arts of Africa south of the Sahara Desert are basically religious,
exercising a significant function in the rituals of each tribe. African art reveals an animistic
belief: the Supreme Being is conceive as a creative energy or force that animates all forms of
life. The sculptures, masks, dances, and music all serve to reinforce the workings of such
power.
African art is also bound up with ancestor worship and belief in the continuity of life.
To the Africans, death is not the end of life but the transformation of the being into another
kind which does not really leave this world. As with our Mountain Province communities,
their statues serve as sanctuaries of the spirits of the dead ancestors and thus they continue to
“live” with the family as household gods.
We usually associate art only with such “noble” functions as enlightening us in our
spiritual beliefs and elevating our moral character, and we tend to ignore the more practical
concerns of art which directly touch our workaday lives.
Nowhere is the function of art as an influence on social behavior more clearly seen
than in commercial or advertising art. Advertising art aims to affect the buying behavior of
people. The mediums include posters, billboards, magazines and newspapers ads, catalogs,
handbills, package design, radio and television. By making a deep impression of people to
buy a product, a service, or an idea, such as family planning, for example, or participating in
the Green Revolution. The artistic activitiy involves the production of an attractive visual
composition, as in a poster or package design; an arresting melody that drives home the
message and makes it familiar through constant repetition, as in jingles; or film sequences
that would unconsciously remind people of the product or service. Poster designs are so
planned that the clear, simple message can be grasped and understood at a glance. Package
design is a small-size poster that attracts immediate attention to itself, tells the prospective
buyer what is inside the container, and conveys a sales message.
Display and Celebration. One function of sculpture and painting is the
commemoration of important personages in society. The statues of national heroes that grace
our parks and plazas are commemorative works as are the commissioned paintings of leaders
of rulers. Often they serve to record important historical events or reveal of heroism and
leadership that the community would want the young to emulate.
The arts are also linked to rituals. Rituals have played an important role in poeple’s
lives and have influenced the growth of certain arts as well. The religious worship of
Dionysus among the ancient Greeks gave rise to the Greek drama, and Hindu religious
ceremonies have produced dance traditions that have remained virtually unchanged through
the centuries. The daily commemoration in the Christian Church of Christ’s death at Calvary
has been formalized in the dramatic form that is the Mass. Not only have liturgical texts been
written for it; music has also been composed for its celebration. A most recent composition is
Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass”.
Public celebration such as festivals, involve rituals of some kind and these, in turn,
employ the arts. Lanterns are made for Christmas, decorative bamboo arches are put up at
street intersections during fiestas for the passage of religious processions, and masks are
made for such celebrations as the Moriones Festival in Marinduque and the Ati-atihan in
Kalibo, Aklan. Artistic attention is lavished on them. And it does not matter that theses
objects last for only a few days, they are really meant to serve only the particular occasion.
 21
These activities unite people in a shared experience, just as the celebration of important
phases of life do. Music and dance are the arts most often employed when a person’s coming
of age, graduation, engagement, or marriage is celebrated. Certain musical compositions
have now become identified with graduation and wedding rites, although they were not
originally composed for such occasions.
Social Description. Even without the slightest intention of artists to present historical
pictures, art works are vital historical documents. They describe aspects of existence at
certain periods. Because many of them focus on facets of daily life, they tell us what the
societies that produced them were like.
Tools, weapons, furnitures, paintings, statues, stories and songs, and buildings reflect
the feelings, struggles and achievements of people. They reveal how people thought, felt and
lived in a certain historical period. The temples, sculptures, epics, plays and even the pottery
of ancient Greece tell us so much about the age when man first regarded himself as the
measure of all things.
Portraits are especially informative. For example, the portrait of Romana Carillo done
by Justiniano Asuncion in 1875 shows a young woman in a richly embroidered baro and
panuelo and wearing pearl earrings, a pearl brooch, a pearl-studded comb, and several rings
on her right hand which clutches a prayer book. Here we are not shown only the costume of
ladies belonging to the ilustrado class in the 19th century. The painting also attests to the
values and tastes in material acquisition of hte middle class Filipino families of the time. This
affluent middle class had just emerged by then as a result of the country’s having attained
some economic prosperity following the opening of Manila to international trade.
Physical Functions of Art
Tools and containers are objects which function to make our lives phsycially
comfortable. Functional works of art may be classified as either tools or containers. A spoon
is a tool; so is a car. A building and a community are containers, as is a ceramic vase or a
chair.
The problem of the artist in designing a functional object is making the thing exactly
right for its particular use and at the same time pleasing to the eye of the user.
Form and Function. The function of an object generally determines the basic form
that it takes. A chair is so designed as to allow the seated body to rest comfortably on it. Its
different parts are harmoniously related to one another and integrated into an object that
fulfills its particular purpose.
The shapes and sizes of spoons indicate their uses: a teaspoon, which is smaller than a
tablespoon, is used to put sugar in the tea or coffee and to stir the beverages. It is unlike a
baby’s spoon which has a blunted end so as not to hurt the baby’s soft palate as he is fed, nor
does it look like the grapefruit spoon which has serrated edges for scooping out the fruit’s
meat.
The shapes of knives also tell us about their uses; the curved blade of the scythe for
mowing; the large, sharp butcher’s knife for cutting and slicing meat; the serrated bread knife;
the small-sharp-edged knife; the carving knife for meat and poultry; and the blunt table knife
to spread butter with.
Architecture. The design of a building is determined primarily by its operational
function. What is the building for? Who are going to use it? How many are they? These are
some of the questions usually asked by the architect before he begins. A place for worship
requires a big hall for the congregation to gather in, a school, a place where it can offer a level
 22
or type of education (kindergarten, elementary, vocational, etc.) and serve a given number of
students. These considerations determine the height of the building, the sizes and shapes of
the rooms, the locations of doors and windows, the traffic patterns and the location of
facilities.
The design that a building tkes is also adapted to the climate of the region. The pitched
roofs of most houses in the tropical countries are suitable to the alternation of periods of
heavy rainfall months of warm sunshine. Extending far beyond the supporting walls, these
roofs allow for rain water to speedily slide down and not accumulate and cause the roofing
material to deteriorate. At the same time, the wide overhang keeps the glaring sunlight from
getting into the house through the wide windows that are characteristic of the architecture.
With the introduction of new construction materials, methods and provisions for
overcoming climatic limitations, architects are now freer to innovate designs.
Houses are built for people to live in. Obviously, then, then the architect must take the
physical, psychological and physical needs of the family into account when he designs the
house. He must consider the occupants needs and interests and must allot space for the varied
activities, locating the activity areas where they show logical relationship with each other and
providing paths for easy circulation. A family that love to entertain will need a particular
entertainment area; a family of booklovers and collectors may need a library. The room must
be sensibly located in relation to each other and the pattern for moving about must be planned
to cut down on unneccessary steps between areas as well as to avoid interference with other
activities.

The designs of modern industrial building show a big difference from the factory
stereotypes of the past. Their interiors have become more suited to human needs, both
physical and psychological. Murals, mosaics and sculptures now appear in lobbies and
hallways of office buildings. Potted plants and even carpets, are used to relieve the severity
of the walls.

Function and Beauty. Many things remain the same in shape throughout the years
because their functional requirements do not allow for greater variations in their form. Time
has proved that their designs best enable them to accomplish their purpose.

But these designs may not necessarily be the most beautiful ones. Within the
limitations of the functional requirements of a cup, for example – it must have a particular
breadth and depth to contain liquid – varied shapes are formed. Some are pleasing to our
eyes, others are not. Since cups, like chairs and tables, pots and pans, and many other
functional objects in our home are seen and used daily, theycan be a constant source of
satisfaction and dleight or of irritation. Their visual appeal must also be given consideration.
Functional works of art must not only perform their function efficiently but must also be
aesthetically pleasing.

A home should not only meet the needs but also express the personality of its owner. It
should likewise stimulate the eyes and spirit and awaken in the one who looks at it a sense of
balance, rhythm and harmony, not just because of the design of the house itself, but also in
the relation to the surrounding landscape and the other buildings nearby.

It is the presence of this quality of delighting the beholder because of a harmonious

arrangement of the formal elements that distinguishes a work of art from an ordinary
functional object.
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STUDY GUIDES
What to discuss
1. Why is art found in human societies? What basic needs does it meet?
2. What are some of the thoughts that man conveys through his art?
3. Must art communicate? What is communicated by a church?
By a ceramic vase? By a piece of furniture?
4. What is the relationship between art and nature?
5. How is beauty in art different from beauty from nature?
6. From the concepts that you have learned about art, form a definition of art?
7. What would you gain from a study of art?
8. Is the presence of subject matter an important consideration in judging a work of art?
9. Differentiate subject matter and content?

II. THE MEDIUM OF ARTS

Medium and Technique
Medium Defined
Unless an artist translates his experience into a form that can be perceived, it cannot be
shared by other people. Art has to exist in some medium to be recognized as such.
Medium in art refers to the material or means which the artist uses to objectify his
feeling or thought: pigment in painting; stone, wood and metl in sculpture; various building
materials in architecture; sound in music, words in literature; and budy movements in the
dance.
According to medium, the arts are classified into:
1. The visual or space arts – those whose medium can be seen and which occupy
space. These in turn are grouped into two categories:
a. The two-dimensional arts, such as painting, drawing, printmaking and
photography, and
b. The three-dimensional arts, such as sculpture, architecture, landscaping,
community planning, industrial design and the crafts like ceramics and
furniture-making.
2. The auditory or time arts – those whose medium can be heard and which are
expressed in time. These are music and literature.
3. The combined arts – those whose mediums can be both seen and heard, and which
exist in both space and time. These include the dance, the drama, the opera, and the
movies. Along with music, there are also known as the performing arts, because
each art work is apprehended as a happening. Each requires time in which to occur.
These arts depend for their continued existence on repeated performance.
As you must have noticed, the arts may be enjoyed primarily through either the visual
or the auditory sense, or through both, although other senses help toward their enjoyment.
The sense of touch, for example, enhances the appreciation of sculpture and textile design.
The Artist and His Medium
When an artist proceeds to give shape to his vision, his first thoughts are on what
medium to employ. There are no fixed rules governing the choice of materials and processes
to use. Sometimes the requirements of a patron or the nature of the work leaves the artist no
 24
choice at all. Oftentimes, however, the matter of selecting the medium is left entirely to the
artist himself.
An artist’s choice is usually influenced by such practical considerations as the
availability of material, the use to which the art object will be put, the idea that he wants to
communicate, and the nature and special characteristics of the medium itself. The artist
normally selects the material that he can handle well and that would best suit his purpose as
well as adequately bring out the qualities which he wants it to show.
When an artist chooses to paint in oil instead of watercolor, he does so because he feels
that oil paint has characteristics that make it a better medium to express his idea. When a
designer decides on the material for a furniture set, he thinks about the set’s precise function.
Living room furniture call for grace, comfort and elegance; hence, its materials must show
these qualities.
The nature of each medium determines the way it an be worked and turned into a work
of art. Stone must be chiseled, metal must be cast.
The nature of the medium also determines what can be expressed through it. Only
subjects that are captured or frozen in one moment of time can be shown by the mediums of
the space arts. Actual movement cannot be reflected in stone, for example. Paintings can
show people in certain poses, not in motion. Through multiple exposure, a photograph can at
best only suggest sequenes of movements.
Each medium has its own range of characteristics which determine the physical
appearance of the finished product. Wood is capable of a smooth, shiny finish; it can be
carved in great detail. But limestone is rough-textured and is good only for massive work
which call for simple lines.
Each medium has inherent limitations, as well as potentials. And it is a wise artist wh
accepts these limitations and at the same time exploits them. For each medium has its own
way of behaving. Although it responds to the artist’s way of handling it, it nevertheless
imposes its will on him, daring him to explore its various possibilities.
The Artist and His Technique
A good artist make his medium work for him to produce effects he cannot possibly
attain by any other means. An artist’s knowledge of his medium and his skill in making it
achieve what he wants it to, make up what is called technique. A poet’s technique is his way
of putting words together to express an emotion or narrate a story. A pianist’s technique is
his skill in handling the instrument and in interpreting a musical composition.
Obviously, artists differ from each other in technique even if they work with the same
medium. Each artist, working with the same medium may employ a different technique at
another time for another purpose. Technique is adapted as the need arises.
It is in the use of technique that the artist differs from the craftsman. The making of a
piece of sculpture, for instance, is not the same as the making of a spoon or a cabinet.
Although both require technical competence, creativity enters into the work of the sculptor.
His work is amost always in response to some leap of imagination as some critics put it. It is
an attempt to objectivity an original, imagined design and in the process of working his
material, he exploits every possibility that the medium offers, never really knowing how his
work will turn out until it is finished. The process then becomes some kind of adventure to
him. He uses technique only as a means to an end.
Not so with the craftsman. He merely follows the dictates of the designer and is
 25
concerned exclusively wiht the manipulation of hte material in order to produce the kind of
product that he is expected to turn out. He is not free to innovate. At best, he is a mere
copyist, using technique as an end in itself.
Originality, then, is what distinguishes an art from a craft – originality in expression, at
least, for there is really no such thing as a completely original work of art.
In judging a work of art, what matters is not so much the technical virtuousity of he art
as how well he has employed his means – medium and technique – to achieve his end.
THE MEDIUMS OF THE VISUAL ARTS
Painting and the Related Arts
Painting Mediums
Painting is the process of applying pigment on a smooth surface – paper, cloth, canvas,
wood or plaster – to secure an interesting arrangement of forms, lines, and colors. Pigment,
that part of hte paint which supplies the color, is fine poweder ground from some clay, stone
or mineral, exptracted from vegetable matter or produced by a chemical process. It is mixed
with a binder, usually a liquid, that allows the powder to be spread over the flat surface until
it dries. This substance is called a vehicle
Each kind of paint has unique qualities that the artist can use to advantage.
Encaustic. Encaustic, one of the early mediums, is the application of a mixture of hot
beeswax, resin, and ground pigment to any porous surface, followed by the application of
heat to set the colors and bind them to the ground. When the surface cools, it is polished with
a cloth. This gives the wax a soft luster that heightens its transluscent quality.
The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans used encaustic to paint portraits on coffins.
Tempera. Tempera paints are earth or mineral pigments mixed with egg yolk and egg
white. Since the paint dries quickly, corrctions are difficult to make. Thus, the artist using
this medium must plan his design well.
In the past, tempera was most often used for painting on vellum in the poduction of
books. Now tempera is normally applied on wooden panels carefully surfaced with gesso, a
combination of gypsum or chalk and gelatin or glue.
Fresco. Fresco painting is the application of earth pigments mixed with water on a
plaster wall while the plaster is damp. Color then sinks into the surface and becomes an
integral part of the wall. The image becomes permanently fixed and lasts as long as the wall
exists.
The most famous example of fresco apiting is that done my Michelangelo of the Sistine
chapel ceiling. Leonardo da Vinci painted his Last Supper on the refectory wall of hte Santa
Maria della Grazie Convent in Milan. However, his experiment in painting on a dry wall
with a medium that was not mixed with water resulted in a work that began to deteriorate ot
longafter he had finished it.
Watercolor. Watercolor in tempered paint made of pure ground pigment bound with
gum arabic. Painters apply watercolor in thin, almost transparent films. The surface of the
paper then shows thorugh giving a delicate, luminous texture to the painting. Gouache is
paint in which the pgiment has been mixed with a chalklike material. This materials makes
the paint opaque.
Normally, watercolor painting has to be done in one sitting. Spontaneity is its very
 26
essence. There can be very little orno corrections made at all with watercolor.
Oil. In oil painting, pigment ground in linseed oil is applied to primed canvas.
Traditionally, artists either ground their own colors or had the work done by apprentices.
Present-day oil paint, however, is factory-prepared and comes in tubes. Since it is rather
thick, it has to be thinned with oils, turpentine or any other solvent before it is applied on
canvas.
Oil paint is a very flexible medium. Using a brush, an air brush, a palette kniefe or
even his bare hands the artists can apply the paint thinly or thickly as a transparent film or an
opaque surface. Sometimes it is applied to smootly that we are not aware of the artist’s brush
strokes.
The transluscent quality of oil allows one color painted underneath another to show
through. Thus, the direct method of superimposing transparent layers of colors can result in
an exciting mingling of tomes and fine gradations of light and dark.
Oil paints ar slow to dry and the painting can be changed and worked over a long
period of time. When oil dries, it forms a tough, glossy film on the surface.
Acrylic. Synthetic paints using acrylic polymer emulsions as binder as the newest
mediums and the one that are widely used by today’s painters. They have many advantages.
For one thing, they combine the transparency and quick drying characteristics of watercolor
and the flexibility of oil. They are completely insoluble when dry, and theycan be used on
almost any surface. They can be applied thinly with a water dripped brush or laid on in thick
impastos with a knife. Unlike oil, acrylic paints do not tend to crack, turn yellow or darken
with age.
Mosaic
Mosaic art is related to painting only because it creates pictures on flat surfaces.
Mosaics are wall or floor decorations made of small cubes or irregularity cut pieces of
colored stone or glass called tesserae. These are fitted together to form a pattern and glued on
a surface with plaster or cement.
The traditional mosaic technique consistd in embedding individual tesserae directly
into a wall of damp mortar, following a well-planned design or cartoon. In the modern
process, the tesserae are glued with a special paste to sheets of paper on which segments of
hte whole design have been drawn in reverse. These sheets are pressed, tesserae side down,
agains the wet mortar freshly applied on the wall. The temporary paper support is peeled or
washed off when the mortar has set.
Mosaic art was an important feature of Byzantine churches. A very famous mosaic is
that of Empress Theodora an her attendant, which can be found in the church of San Vitale of
Ravemna, Italy.
Examples of religious art in the Philippines done in mosaic are found at Sta. Cruz
Church in Manila and at the Victorias Church in Negros Occidental. The altar design at Sta.
Cruz Church shows a wounded white lamb, symbolizing Christ, straddling a stream that flows
down to the tabernacle. Th wall mosaic at the Victorias Church depicts scenes from the New
Testament and shows Christ, Mary, Joseph and the Apostles in the garb of Filipino peasants.
Th tesserae used are bits of glass from beer, cold cream and blue medicine bottles collected
by the workers of the sugar central and their families.
Stained Glass
Stained glass developed a major art when it appeared as an important part of the Gothic
 27
cathedral. It served many purposes. Stained glass windows admitted the much-needed light
that was missingfrom the Romanesque churches. By doing this, they enlivened the otherwise
tomblike interiors and introduced a brightand warm atmosphere. They were also means of
religious, instruction, depicting scenes form the Bible and from the lives of saints.
Stained glass derives its effects from the variations in the light that shines through it. It
is transluscent glass colored by mixing metallic oxides into the molten glass or by fixing them
onto the surface of the clear glass. The glass is then cut into shapes determined by the artist’s
design. These pieces are finally assembled into the desired image and held together by strips
of lead. Because there is a very sharp division of lines and colors, it is very difficult to
achieve much espressive detail in stained glass windows. Big window panels are frequently
supported further by iron rods placed in strategic positions.
Tapestry
The walls of palaces, castles and chapels in Europe were decorated in the Middle Ages
with hangings called tapestries. These hanging added color to the drab interiors and also
served to retain in the room whatever heat was generated from the fireplace.
Tapestries are fabrics into which colored designs have been woven. In making
tapestry, the weaver closely follows a pattern, the actual size of the finished tapestry which is
placed under the warp threads on the loom. A shuttle is employed to weave each color thread
used as weft over the area where the color appears in the pattern.
Drawing
Drawing is the most fundamental of all skills needed in the arts. All designed objects
are first visualized in drawings before they are actually made.
A drawing may be a study made for the sake of learning how to draw some forms or as
a means of investigating a particular detail of what may eventually become a larger
composition. It may be a sketch showing the general organization or design of a product
being planned. It may be a cartoon, such as the fullsize work meant to be a basis for some
other work like a tapestry or a relief print. Or it may be a finished work in itself.
Drawing can be done with various mediums. The mostcommon these is pencil, the
lead (graphite) of which comes in differing harness, from soft and smudgy to very hard and
needlelike, making possible a wide range of values.
Ink, one of the oldest material still in use, allows for a great variety of qualities,
depending on the tools and techniques used in applying the ink and the surfaces on which it is
applied. India ink comes in liquid form, chinese ink in solid sticks that are dissolved in water
before use. Bistre and sepia are two kinds of ink that artists use extensively. Bistre is gray
brown ink made from the soot produced by burning some resinous wood and sepia, a strong
dark-brown ink, comes from the ink sacs of cuttlefish or squid.
Pen and ink drawing are characterized by precisely controlled and uniformly wide
lines. When done in combination with washes, they offer an interesting contrast to the soft
and shadowy quality of the wash background. Chinese ink drawing, often executed on silk or
rice paper with a brush, are either in monochrome ink or in combination of ink lines and
watercolor.
Pastel and chalk are dry pigment held together with a gum binder and compressed into
sticks.. chalk is usually employed in preliminary sketches. As finished works of art, these
drawings are quite fragile and must be sprayed iwth a fixative to prevent the pgiment from
rubbing off.
 28
Charcoal is especially useful in representing broad masses of light and shadow.
Charcoal may justcome from a burned twig or piece of wood, but in modern manufacture,
charcoal sticks or pencils are made from particles of carbon mixed with a binder and
compressed. Available in a wide range of hardness, theycan be used directly for crisp lines or
rubbed to velvety tones, while the hardest produces the lightest, grayest ones.
Crayons are pigment bound by wax and compressed into sticks. They adhere well to
the paper surface but they do not lend themselves to rubbing to achieve gradations in value.
Silverpoint, popular during the Renaissance, is not in general use today. In this
medium, a silver-pointed instrument or a silver wire is drawn over a sheet of paper prepared
beforehand with zinc white. It then produces a thin, even graying line that cannot be erased.
Printmaking
A print is a graphic image that results from a duplicating process. The technique of
printmaking involves the preparation of a master image on a plate made of wood metal, or
stone from whch the impression is taken. Each print is considered an original work, a
reproduction. Although often a fascimile of an orignal work, a reproduction is usually a
photomechanically made image, in the making of which which the original artist has no hand
at all. Calendar pictures are reproductions.
The making of prints was originally resorted to in order to make many faithful copies
of a drawing. Today, printmaking has become an independent art; it is as popular as painting
and sculpture.
The four major processes involved in printmaking are the relief, intaglio, planographic
and stencil process.
Relief Painting
Relief painting involves cutting away from a block of weed or linoleum the portions of
the design that the artist does not want to show, leaving the design to stand out on the block.
The uncut, smooth surface is then covered with ink, which under pressure, leaves an
impression on paper on cardboard.
Color prints are made with separate block for each color, as in the Japanese ukiyo-e.
The artist must becareful to insure that the color is printed precisely on the proper area.
For linocuts, linoleum is mounted on a block of wood and worked in the same manner
as a woodcut. Like the woodcut, the linocut does not allow for great detail in the design.
Both lend themselves to bold lines and wide areas of light and dark.
Intaglio Printing
The principles of printing in intaglio are exactly the opposite of those of relief printing.
The design is scratched, engraved or etched into a metal plate. The incised line or depressed
area is filled with ink, which, under considerable pressure, leaves a sharp impression on damp
paper.
Engraving is one of the most highly skilled methods of incising lines into a hard
surface. It is done with a cutting tool called a burin.
Drypoint is done with needlelike instruments. Instead of the lines being gonged out, a
burr or a tiny curl of metal is left along the edges of the line by the tool drawn across the
plate. The resulting printed image has finer lines and a velvety appearance produced by the
ink caught in the burr.
 29
The basic procedure of etching involves drawing an image witha blunt needle on a
metal plate that has been covered with a protective waxlike film called the ground. Portions
of the wax covering are thus scratched away, exposing parts of the metal plate. The plate is
then immersed in an acid bath adn the acid slowly eats into the exposed lines and areas. After
the plate is cleaned of th acid-resisting coat, it is inked and then wiped clean so that the ink
remains only in the incised lines. The plate is then ready for printing.
Aquatint and mezzotint are variations of the etching process. With mezzotint,
however, no acid is used. The artist firts roughens the surface of htemetal plate with a tool
that looks like a vegetable chopper with many sharp cutting teeth. Some areas are scraped or
burnished. Ink is retained in unscraped parts of the plate and so a dark value results; only a
trace of ink remains in the scraped areas, and so, the printed area is light.
The Planographic Process
Planographic or surface printing is done from an almost smooth surface whch has been
treated chemically or mechanically so that some areas will print and others will not. The
lithographic process is based on the fact that grease repels water and that fatty substancs tend
to stick to each other. The artist draws his design with a greasy crayon or pencil on a slab
special limestone or a zinc plate. The drawing is then fixed with an acid solution. Then a
greasy ink is spread over it with a roller. A print can then be made by pressing a piece of
paper on the plate.
The Stencil Process
Stencil printing is done by cutting designs out of special paper, cardboard, or metal
sheet in such a way that when ink is rubbed over it, the design is reproduced on the surface
beneath.
Seisgraphy, or silk-screen printing is fundamentally a multicolor stencil process. The
printing is done through a screen which consists of a very fine silk or nylon mesh stretched
tightly over a simple wooden frame. Parts of the mesh are blocked out with a stencil and the
areas whcih are to print are left open. The screen is then placed over the paper to be printed.
Ink or paint is squeezed through the open portions in the mesh onto the paper or cloth
underneath. For multicolor prints a separte screen is used for each color.
Contemporary artists often combine different printmaking method to produce new and
exciting effects.
Photography
A painting is not, strictly speaking, an actual likeness of an object; rather it is a likeness
of what exists in the artist’s mind, which may or may not resemble anything in the actual
world at all. A photograph on the other hand, is an actual likeness, the production of which
may not actually involve an artist’s creativity. One only has to press a button on a camera to
produce this actual likeness. And, as a matter of fact, nowadays a camera connected to a
simple trigger device can take pictures all by itself. It is this exlusion of the artist that
accounts for photography’s not being regarded as an art by many people.
But technological development and experiments on the camera’s potential have
produced photographers like Edward Steichen whose creativity extends far beyond just
technical expertise. Consequently, not a few now consider photography a legitimate art like
painting.
Photography is, literally, drawing or writing with light. It is a three-step process that
involves the use of such equipment and materials as a camera fitted with a lens, shutter nd
 30
diaphragm; filters, film, either black and white or colored; a special kind of paper onto which
the image is transferred and other materials for developing the negative and producing the
print.
The first step – that of choosing the subject – requires the wise judgment and artistic
sense of the photographer. The second step is a mechanical one. A light-sensitized film
contained in a darkened box (camera) is exposed to the light from the object being
photographed. The lens on the front of the camera captures the light reflected from the object
and transmits it to the film. The shutter opens and closes to admit light to the film for certain
interval of time. The result is an image created by the light of the object itself and so fixed on
the sensitive film that is will not affected by the further exposure of hte material to light.
The third step is a chemical process. After the film is exposed, it is treated with a
series of chemical solutions to develop the film and to produce a permanent negative. A
photographic print is produced from the negative.
It is now possible to produce a photographic image without the use of a camera and
film. A photogram is a permanently recorded image made by placing objects directly on
light-sensitive paper and exposing the paper to light.
Sculpture
The Techniques of Sculpture
A work of sculpture is a three dimensional form constructed to represent a natural or
imaginary shape. It can be free-standing, carved in relief, or kinetic.
Free-standing sculpture, or sculpture in the round, is one which can be seen from more
than on position. The status of saints in our churches are examples of free-standing sculpture.
Some contemporary critics and museum curators refer to this kind of sculpture as statuary,
reserving the term sculpture for those in the round but penetrated or pervaded by space as in
the works of Jacques Lipchitz and Henry Moore.
The figures of relief sculpture project from a flat background. When the forms are
slightly raised, the sculpture is called a bas relief. Coins and medals are of this kind. High
relief sculptures are those whose figures project to the extent of one half their thickness or
more, so that they are almost round.
Mobiles , a kind of kinetic sculpture, are made of strips of metal, glass, wood or plastic
arranged with wires and hung where they can move. Mobiles are usually associated with
Alexander Calder who first created the in the 1930’s.
The traditional methods employed in making sculpture are carving, modeling and
casting.
Carving. Carving is a substractive process; that is, it involves removing unwanted
portions of the raw material to reveal the form that the artist has visualized. Wood, stone and
ivoy are the materials employed in this process.
Carving has always been regarded as the most difficult of the sculpture processes.
Before beginning his work, the carver musthave a clear concept of how his finished product
will look. He cannot afford a trial and error method because once the material has been
chiseled way, it can no longer be restored. He has to be very careful with his strokes, too, lest
he chip off material that he cannot afford to lose and so destroy the form.
Some sculptors still carve the materials themselves. They enjoy meeting the challenge
posed by the medium. Recent carving practices, however, allow the sculptor tofirst make a
 31
miniature model in plaster, scaled to proper proportions. This he gives to an assistant who
uses it as a guide for a pointing machine to transfer the exact contours of hte model to marble
or stone. The assistant roughs out the form on the block of stone and the sculptor just give
the statue its finishing touches; he refines the details and polishes the surface. This is a less
laborious task.
Modeling. Modeling on the other hand, is an additive process. It means building the
form, using highly plastic material such as clay or wax. This results in a type of creative
spontaneity. Unlike carving, the additive process permits the artist to rework his material and
introduce details as he sees fit. It is possible for him to build up, tear down and modify
without ruining his material and destroying the finished product. An armature is frequently
used as a skeleton for the form. The metal wire holds the clay together so that the sculpture
will not collapse under its own weight. When the form is finished, it is then fired or cast.
Casting. Casting can faithfully reproduce in bronze or other metals the spontaneity
achieved in the modeling process. Casting is a complex process. It begins with the
production of a negative mold. The artist covers the original model with a mold, usually of
ceramic material, in such a way that a faithful negative reproduction is created. This mold
usually consists of two or more tightly fitting parts that can be taken apart and reassembled
with ease. Some separating material is first applied on the model so that the mold can be
easily removed. When the mold is done, it is then fired. The nthe plaster or metal is
introduced into the mold to form the solid mass. Metal used for casting must be in a molten
state when it is poured into the mold. Then it is allowed to cool and solidify, and the outer
mold is peeled off. Big solid –cast metal sculpture is rare because it consumes much metal,
which is expensive, and it is very heavy to move around.
Metal casting is most often done with the cire-perdue or lost wax method. In this
process a core of clay is shaped roughly into the form of the finished work. Over this a
coating of was is laid on whch the sculptor does the final modeling. The wax is next carefully
covered with plaster. Whenthe thick firm shell has been formed, the wholemass is heated.
The wax melts and runs out through openings provided for the purpose, leving in its place a
thin space between the inner core and the outer shell. Molten metal, often bronze, is poured
into this space. When themetal has set, the outer mold is removed and the inner mold is dug
out. The metal sculpture is the polished. Sculpture of this kind requires less metal is lighter
and easier handle and is stronger despite thefact that it is hollow.
Fabrication. A fourth method developed in the 20th century is fabrication. This
method came about because of the rising cost of traditional materials and the difficulty in
getting them. The more popular mediums ofstone and wood are now scarce and expensive.
But scrap metal readily available and easy to work with, provided one has the necessary
equipment.
Fabrication is an additive process but it has its own characteristics which differentiate it
from modeling. It employes any method of joining orfastening, such as nailing, stapling,
soldering and welding. In this process ,the artist builds his form piece by piece. He may even
combine differen materials together.
Welding is done by joining pieces of metal with oxyacetylene torch. Today, welded
metal is getting to be more popular as artists have moved away from the representation of
traditional human forms to the creation of abstract works.
With hammered sculpture, the artist uses metal sheets, usually copper or lead, which he
fastens in such a way that bothsides are exposed for him to work on. Then he hammers
themetal from one side or the other, pushing out some portions and pushing in others, until
the work is complete.
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A sculptor can also make fabrications with other materials besides metal. He can work,
for instance, with laminated wood and plastics. Found objects – parts retrieved from
junkyards may also be incorporated into a type of construction known as assemblage. This
has emerged from the concept of collage; images are created by putting together pieces of
discarded materials into a three-dimensional form.
The Materials of Sculpture
There are many kinds of materials that a sculptor can work with. Each presents a
particular challenge to him.
Stone. Limestone nad sandstone are relatively soft and porous. They are fairly easy to
carve but theydo not weather as well as the harder stones. Their finish is dull and granular,
and they are suited for strong, generally simple effects.
Granite and basalt both stones of volcanic origin, on the other hand, are very difficult
to chisel. That is why they are good for large works with only a few details. The Egyptian
sculptures of the Pharaohs were mostly done in granite.
Marble is easier to carve than granite because it is softer. The ancient Greeks produced
sculpture in marble not only because the material was easy to work with but also because it
was capable of a very smooth and lustrous surface that could represent the human flesh very
convincingly.
An internationally famous marble sculpture is Michelangelo’s Piet at St. Peter’s
Basilica in the Vatican City. We have an exact copy of the sculpture at the Loyola Memorial
Park in Marikina, done in Carrar marble too, by Bruno Bearzzi. In the Philippines, marble
and plaster are extensively used for religious sculptures.
Jade, the various types of quartz, including rock crystal, and alabaster are other
materials for sculpture. Jade is a fine, colorful stone used widely in ancient China. Later, its
use as limited to religious objects or those with certain social significance. It has been
employed to symbolize certain virtues, such as faithfulness, wisdom, and charity, thus it is
considered a precious stone.
Wood. Wood is lighter and softer to work with than stone. It can be intricately carved
and subjected to a variety of treatment not possible with stone. It has greater tensile strength
than stone, hence, it can be used in long pieces without breaking. In thin sheets it can even be
permanently bent and molded. Grain and color are the most interesting qualities of wood.
Without proper treatment, though, wood gets destroyed rather quickly. Hence, it is usually
smooth with sandpaper an finished with oils, varnish, lacquer or opaque paints.
Ivory. Ivory which comes fromthe tusks of elephants and wild boar, in intrinsically
beautiful and easy to carve into themost intricate designs. Ivory is actually worked by
scraping with a sharp knife. Because it is rather expensive and does not come in very big
chunks, it is frequently used only for small religious images.
Metals. Metal possess three unique qualities: tensile strength, ductility and
malleability. Metal resists breakage from stress palced upon it. Being ductile, it can be
drawn into the fine wires or threads. And it can be shaped into any form under great pressure
without cracking.
The metals traditionally used for sculpture are copper, brass, bronze, gold, silver, and
lead. Aluminum is a recent addition to the list.
Bronze continues tobe one of the most universally popular metals for sculpture. It is
suited for dramatic subjects because it permits the artist to arrange his figures in poses that
 33
would not be possible in stone or any other brittle material. Because bronze is strong,
durable, and resistant to atmospheric corrosion, it is the ideal material for sculptures placed in
open places like parks. It takes an excellent polish and develops a rich patina with age.
Brass, an alloy of copper and zinc, is used to a limited extent. It has many practical
uses because it does not rust and it takes a high polish.
Copper was used in its pure form in ancient times as a casting medium. It is normally
shaped by hammering. It may be handled in sheets and fashioned into relief forms as well as
fully round ones. Its rich, reddish color, great strength and resistance to corrosion offer many
possibilities to the sculptor as well as to the craftsman who uses it for making kitchenware.
Gold and silver are employed as casting materials for small pieces only, like
commemorative medals and coins. Rare and expensive, they are primarily used for either
religious purposes or personal adornments.
Lead is used for casting, iron for forging and some casting. With the help of a welding
torch, iron can be worked into a variety of exciting abstract forms.
Aluminium has been used as a casting material. It is also employed in the production
of fabricated sculpture. The fact that it is very light and that it can be treated in a variety of
ways has been an advantage in the making of architectural pieces, kitchen utensils and even
pieces of furniture.
Plaster. Plaster is finely ground gypsum or burned limestone. When mixed with water,
it forms a solid material with new qualities of workability. When the material has set, the
artist can easily carve away excess parts, or he can add plaster where he needs to. The
setting process of plaster can be slowed down or speeded up as desired.
Clay. Clay has been used for ceramics and sculpture since hte earliest times.
Moistened to a putty-like plasticity, it is kneaded and coaxed into form by the sculptor’s bare
hands. Clay is fragile, so that it is often necessary for works built in this medium to be cast in
another, more durable material. The surface of clay forms may be waxed, painted or glazed.
Earthenware and stoneware are commonly referred to as terra cotta, baked clay or clay
fired at a relatively high temperature. Firing or baking the clay causes its form to become
permanent and keeps the work from decaying or eroding. Terra cotta breaks and chips easily,
however and it cannot survive great stain or carry much weight. It is not suited for large
works.
Porcelain is made from mixed clay containing a generous amount of koalin and
feldspar. Fired at a high temperature, the result is a thin type of ceramics of a translucent,
white or bluish-white material that is impervious to liquid. It is often used for figurines and
bric-a-brac as well as dinnerware.
Plasticine is a synthetic nonhardening compound of earth clays, sulfur, and oil or
grease. Extremely plastic, it is almost exclusively used for sculptural sketching and model-
making.
Glass. Glass can also be used to make beautiful but very fragile sculptures. It can be
molded in various colors and shapes. Hand-blown glass is produced without the use of molds
or machinery. It is made by gathering an amount of molten glass with the tip of a blowpipe,
rolling it on a polished iron plate, and then blowing it into a bubble and twisting and shaping
it with tools while the glass is still hot and plastic. The excess glass is cracked off or melted
away by very intense flame.
Plastics. One of man’s successful inventions in hsi search for new materials to meet
 34
his construction and designing needs is plastic. Transformed by chemical procsses from
organic materials like wood, natural resins and coal, plastic are durable substances tht ca nbe
made to look and feel like glass, ceramics , leather, wood or even metal. They can be molded
into a variety of forms, cast like metal, pressed into sheets, shaped into tubes or rods, or even
sprayed like paint onto materials. They are lightweight, easy to handle and remrkably scratch
and stain-resistant.
Luminal sculpture. The newest materials for sculpture are electronic devices – cathode
tubes, photoelectric cells and the like – that make beams to light travel in patterns or just
remain in place to subtly light up a sculptural form. These lights may blink alternately or
glow steadily. Onfte, they are made part of the sculptural form itself. Intriguing
constructions made with these lights together with other man-made materials, somehow
typify the spirit of the technological age.
Architecture and the Related/Complimentary Arts
The Mediums of Architecture
Architecture is the art of designing and constructing a building which will serve a
definite function, ranging from providing the simplest shelter to meetin the technological
demands of our modern cities.
The usefulness of beauty of a buidling are directly related to the choice and handling of
the materials employed in the construction. And the nature of the materials chosen inevitably
determines the construction principle to be employed.
The Principles of Construction
1. Post-and-lintel, the oldest construction systems, which makes use of two vertical
supports sapnned by a horizontal beam. Most of our houses are built on this principle.
2. The arch, which consists of separate pieces of wedgeshaped blocks called voussoirs,
arranged in a semicircle. The keystone, which is the last set stone at top center, locks
the pieces together into a single curved structure. This form relies on a buttressing
force from the side to counteract the outward thrust of the curve of the arch.
3. The truss, which is a system of triangular forms assembled into a rigid framework and
fucntioning like a beam or lintel. It is employed in bridges assembly plants, theaters,
gymnasiums, and halls where wide spaces must be spanned with very few interior
supports.
4. Skeleton construction which employs reinforced concrete and steel. Concrete
construction makes use of concrete poured, while still in its semifluid state, into a
hollow frame. Steel rods are embedded in the concrete to make the structure strong
enough to support great weight. The introduction of steel has also made possible the
construction style which relieves the exterior walls of their function as supports so that
they serve only as protective “skin” or sheathing to the building. Steel beams are used
for the framework of the building. The steel skeleton or cage formed is sufficiency
strong to hold up the floor, the roof and the partitions; it does not buckle under
tremendous weight.
5. The cantilever, which makes use of a beam or slab extending horizontally into space
beyond its supporting post, yet strong enough to support walls and floors. Steel and
ferroconcrete are ideal cantilever materials. Cantilever relies on the material’s
resistance to breaking and on the safe anchoring of its supported end.
Stone and brick can withstand compression forces without crushing out of shape.
Concrete also has compressive strength, which makes it ideal for foundation walls. Steel has
tensile strength. That is why steel calbes are the best supports for suspension bridges.
 35
Structural steel has enabled the architect to overcome the problems of space and weight posed
by other materials. It has allowed him to design longer bridges with wider spaces and to keep
safety factor without much trouble. Reinforced concrete combines the compressive strength
of concrete and the tensile strength of steel.
Interior Design
A well-designed interior should cap the architect’s work of providing his client with a
comfortable place to live and work in.
Interior design is concerned with the selection of space and furnishings to transform an
empty shell of a building into a livable area. The interior designer works with such articles as
pieces of furniture, appliances, fixtures, draperies and rugs with an eye for texture and color
that would bringabout both unity and variety in the place. With the tastes and the needs of
the occupants in mind, he selects furnishings on he basis of use, appropriateness, and beauty,
and organizes them in the alloted space for convenience and ease of movement.
Landscaping
A building does not exist in a world of its own. It must be harmoniously related to its
natural setting as well as to the other buildings in the area. Thus, most architects are much
concerned about the planning and utilization of the spaces between and around these
buildings. Thsi involves the arts of landscaping and environmental planning.
The artificial arrangement of outdoor areas to achieve a purely aesthetic effect is
known as landscaping. The landscape artist makes use of the terrain as his basic medium
along with the sand, rocks, water and growing plants found on it. Occasionally, he gives
artificial forms to trees and shrubbery by pruning and shaping them to blend structurally with
the architecture. Sometimes he adds such emblishments as fountains, pools, lanterns, and
benches, depending on the desires of his clients.
Landscape design is determined by many factors. Among them are the site and size of
the building; the building’s relationship to other existing buildings in the area; the
topography, or the nature of the terrain; the amount of privacy desire, which would determine
the height and type of fence needed; the soil and the climate of the area, which would
influence the choice and arrangement of plants and the embellishments that the owner wants
to include in his lot.
THE MEDIUM OF MUSIC
The Musical Instruments
The material of music is sound. How sound and its physical properties are organized in
musical compositions will be discussed in the next chapter.
Musical sounds – tones; are produced by man-made instruments and by the human
voice. We thus have two medium in music; the instrumental medium and the vocal medium.
Most musical instruments have three things in common; a part which vibrates a part
which amplifies the sound by bouncing off the vibrations away from the instrument and a
system for producing and regulating fixed pitches.
Musical instruments are generally grouped according to their vibratos and their
resonators. Each group is often referred to as a family or choir. The groups are:
1. The stringed instruments;
2. The wind instruments which are grouped into two separate choirs:
a. The woodwids, so called because they were originally made of wood, and
 36
b. The brasses, which are usually made of brass or some other metal.
3. The percussion choir, which may be grouped into two types:
a. Those that produce musical tones an have definite pitch, and
b. The noisemakers, which do not have definite pitch.
4. The keyboard instruments.
The Stringed Instruments
The string choir consists of the violin, the viola, the violoncello and the double bass.
Each of these instrument has a hollow sound box accross which nylon, wire or gut strings are
stretched. These strings are made to vibrate by means of a horsehair bow which is rubbed
over them. The pitches of the string are set by pressing the fingers of the left hand o the
strings at different points on the fingerboard, so that only a part of the string vibrates at a
time.
The violin is the smallest of the stringed instruments in the symphony orchestra. It is
also the highest pitched among them.
The viola is slightly larger than the violin, and also has longer thicker and heavier
strings. Both the viola and the violin are played in the same way; they are tucked under the
chin of the musicians who play them.
The cello is much larger than the violin and the viola, and it therefore rests on the floor
when it is being played. A large, protruding pin at its base holds it firmly on the floor. The
musician props it between his knees as he plays.
The Woodwinds
The wind instrument are found behind the string choir in an orchestra. These
instruments are sounded by blowing into them, thus setting a column of air vibrating. These
are grouped under the woodwind and the brass choirs.
The flute is a slender pipe which used to be made of wood. Today, the flute is made
entirely of metal. The flutist holds the instrument sideways and blows across the hole which
is found at one end of the tube. The flute is a melody instrument, and os it often plays solo
parts in orchestral compositions.
The clarinet is a cylindrical tube which is about tow feet long. It has a very wide range.
Like the flute it is a solo instrument. It usually plays the alto part when the flute plays the
melody.
The bassoon is considerably longer and larger than the other members of the woodwind
choir. It looks like two wooden tubes fastened together. It does not usually play solo
passages, but when it does, it often suggests the humorous or the grotesque.
The saxophone is not a regular member of the orchestra. It is considered a woodwind
instrument although it is made of brass, because it is equipped with a reed.
The Brass Instruments
All brass instruments consists of a cylindrical brass tube of varying length. This tube is
either double on itself or coiled and expands into a bell-shaped end.
The player of a brass instrument not only blows into the tube, but also makes his tightly
stretched lips to move in a certain way on the mouthpiece. To go from one pitch to another,
the musician uses the valves or a slide to lengthens or shorten the length of the tube, varies
the pressure of his lips and control his breath.
 37
The trumpet is actually an eight foot long tube, ehich has been coiled up so that it is
only abouta foot and a half long. It has a piercing tone and is associated with martial pomp.
It frequently appears with modern jazz bands. In these instances, it is muted taht is, a pear-
shaped metal or cardboard device is inserted in the bell.
The tuba is the bass of the brass choir. Like the double bass and the contrabassoon, it
furnishes the lower tones of the harmony as well as marks the rhythm of the music. It is the
largest of the brass instruments and is quite bulky and unwieldy.
Other brass instruments are played in military and outdoor bands. The cornet is a
smaller and simpler trumpet, whose tone is not as piercing as that of the trumpet. The bugle
has a pwerful tone which carries in the open air. It can however, play only a few tones in the
scale.
The Percussion Instruments
The word percussion mens the sharp striking of one body against another. The
complete percussion section includes almost any instrument that is sounded by striking,
shaking or scratching with the hand or with another object. These instruments are used to
emphasize the rhythm, generate excitement, and enliven the orchestral sound.
The most important percussion instruments in an orchestra are the kettledrums or
tympani. These consist of calfskin stretched accross a bowlshaped coppershell and hel in
place by a metal band. Adjustable screws or a pedal machanism enables the player to change
the tnesion of the calfskin hed, thus raising or lowering the pitch. Kettledrums are used in
sets of three or four.
The xylophone is made of tuned wooden blocks which produce clicking sounds when
struck. The marimba is a type of xylophone which is African and South American in origin.
It is associated with exotic dance music. Hollow resonators in the marimba and the
xylophone increase their volume.
The bass drum has two calfskin heads and gives out deep booms when struck with
padded sticks; the snare drum has a set of snares or strings stretched across one of its sides,
which produce a buzzing sound when hit with padded sticks. Cymbals consists of two metal
plates which are clapped together to climactic portion of the music; they are also sometimes
tapped with a drumstick.
The Keyboard Instruments
Instruments which are equipped with keyboards occsionally play with the symphony
orchestra.
The piano is the most familiar keyboard instrument. It isbasically a stringed instrument.
Its strings are struck with small felt happers, which are controlled by levers attached to the
keyboard. The instrument was invented in hte 18th century and was called pianoforte to
indicate in the range and to distinguish it from its ancestor, the clavichord, which was smaller
and which produced very soft tones. The piano is used to accompany solo or choral singing
and because of its range, it is indespensable to musicians in studying their scores.
The harpsichord is a stringed instrument whose strings are plucked by plectra made
from quills, leather tongues, or brass tongues held in place by wooden jacks attached to the
keys.
Some keyboard instruments have fee needs that vibrate back and forth in a slot. The
accordion and the concertina are exmples.
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Instrumental Groups
Musical instruments are played either singly or in groups of various sizes.
A big gathering of instrumentalists having the string section as its nucleus is called an
orchestra. It is generally composed of four choirs; strings, woodwinds, brasses and
percussions. The number of instrumentalists varies according to the demands of the music.
A band is a smaller in size. It is composed mostly of wind and percussion instruments
with only few strings or none at all. A very popular band in our towns performing during
fiestas, is themusickong bumbong set consisting of Western-like wind instruments made of
bamboo, some brass instruments, and a bamboo-bodied bass drum.
The rondalla is the best known Philippine instrumental grouping today. It is a band
made up mostly of stringed instruments: the bandurria, whcih assumes the lead part and plays
the melody; the laud and the octavina, which carry the alto and contrapuntal parts; the
piccolo, tuned above the bandurria which plays the ornamental passages; and the guitarra and
the bajo, which give solidity to the rhythm and support the harmony.
The Conductor
As orchestras became larger and more unwidely through the years, it became necessary
to assign somebody to keep the members playing together harmoniously. The person
entrusted with this tremendous task of controlling some one hundred players at a time is
called the conductor of an orchestra.
The conductor ordinarily decides on what is to be played in a performance, unless a
soloist is included in the program, in which case the soloist himself decides what he is going
to play.
The performance is largely the result of painstaking rehearsals. This is where the
leadership of the conductor is put to test. With only two means of communication available
to him – gesture and facial expression –he must to borrow Leonard Bernstein’s words. “not
only make his orchetra play, he must make them want to play.”
The Human Voice
Man is equipped with a most wonderful musical instrument, the human voice. He must
have used it to express himself through music long before he ever conceived of making music
with instruments of his own invention. The human voice is rather like a wind instrument.
When one sings, his vocal chords are subconsciously tightened to a certain tension. A steady
stream of air is directed against them from the singer’s lungs, setting them into vibration. The
sounds are amplified in the cavities of he larynx, mouth and nose, resonators capable of
regulating the force and volume of the output of the vocal cords.

Human voices, like man-made instruments, are classifie according to their range and
tone quality. The high-pitched female voice is the soprano; the low, the alto. The high-
pitched male voice is the tenor; the low, the bass. Most choirs and choruses are made up of
these four voices. Two intermediate classifications are the mezzo-soprano, a voice combining
the attributes of both the soprano and the alto, and the baritone, lying betwee the tenor and
the bass.

THE MEDIUMS OF THE COMBINED ARTS

The Combined Arts
The dancer uses his body to communicate an idea or feeling to his audience. His
 39
movements may involve only parts of his body – his arms, legs or head – or the whole body
itself may move from one space to another to the accompaniment of music. He may move
rapidly or slowly.
The cinema – motion pictures – is an extension of photography. It makes use of a
combination of several shots ech shot made up of a series of pictorial units, or frmes, taken
from one point of view. To thsi series is added hich has been recorded of optical or magnetic
film and synchronized with the pictures. When projected in rapid succession, these pictures
produce an illusion of reality.
What we have considered so fare are the physical materials with which artists
communicate their ideas or feelings. These are not to be confused with the intangible
qualities that go into the making of works of art, which we will be concerned about next.
III.The Elements And Organization Of Art

The Visual Arts

Man has always tried to understand and control his environment. Inseparable from
these instinctive efforts in his impulse to express his understanding of his environment and
life.

Using hands as his nature guide, he has formulated a basic idiom with which to express
and communicate the vision of his life and the reality that surrounds it. The painter or sculptor
sees shape, color, texture, and space in nature. He uses them, manipulates them, and
organizes them into a work of art. These are called the elements of the visual arts.

The Elements Of The Visual Arts

Line

Line is a man`s own invention. It does not exist in nature. The lines we see in nature
are, on close observation, veins of leaves. He joining of two different surfaces, or the edge of
the objects. The artist uses lines to imitate or to represent objects and figures on a flat surface.
Lines have many qualities which the artist exploits. They maybe short or long, fine or thick
heavy or light wavy or jagged straight or curved. They usually delineate shapes. Used across
or within a shape, they give the effect of solidity or create an illusion of volume or rough or
smooth texture. A series of heavy lines drawn close to each other creates an impression of
roughness. On the other hand, a few light strokes an give a sensation of softness and delicacy.

A painter can use lines to simulate the gentle movement of the flowing river, the
graceful swaying of the trees, or the sharpness of the crags

Direction And Movement Of Lines. Lines may move in several directions. When the
line continues in only one direction we call it a straight line. The straight line may proceed
vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. These directions of line can express emotional states o
evoke emotional responses.
A horizontal line creates an impression of serenity and perfect stability since we
associate it with reclining forms in nature, such as that of a sleeping person, or with the
horizon.

A vertical line appears poised and stable. We generally feel that a straight tree is a
strong one or that the person who stands tall is one who has confidence in himself. The
vertical direction of Michelangelo’s David or of Rizal’s statue at Rizal Park conveys the
 40
feeling of strength and stability.

A diagonal line implies action. A man who is running bends forward and thus assumes
a diagonal position. A tree that is about to fall takes a diagonal direction. Diagonal lines show
movements and, consequently, instability. We notice this in the movement of trees buffeted
by strong winds, and in the bent of cyclists they pedal to the finish line. With diagonal lines
artist can convey a feeling of unrest, uncertainly and movement.

A curved line results when there is a gradual change of direction. Because it is gradual,
it shows fluidity. We see this in the curves of a woman`s figure, in the rounded petals of
flowers, and in the shape of the crescent moon. The curved line gives us a feeling of grace
and movement. It can also give us a feeling of serenity and stability as in the curves of the
rounded arches in the churches.

When the change in direction is abrupt, an angular line results. The abruptness creates
tension and an impression of chaos confusion or conflict Grunewald used angular lines in his
crucifixion intensifying the sense of chaos pain and sorrow inherent in the subject matter.
Lines whatever their direction control our eye movement and help us relate the various
element in a work of art with one another.

Shape
Our world is composed of a variety of shapes, some of which, because of constant use
have gained permanent meanings. They can be used to simplify ideas.

Classified according to their sources shapes maybe natural abstract non- objective or
geometric. Natural shapes are those we see in nature such as shapes of men animals or trees
natural shapes may be interpreted realistically or may be distorted.

Abstract shapes are formed after the artist has drawn out the essence of the original
objects and made it the subject of its work. Brancusi`s bird in space is an abstraction from
nature. Brancusi has adapted the essential element of a bird-his wing-and reduced them to a
feather, something that differentiates a bird from other animals.

Non-objective shapes seldom have reference to recognizable objects, but most often
they show a similarity to some organic forms. Sometimes these are called biomorphic shapes.
Many of Hernando Ocampo`s abstractions, such as that on the stage curtain of the main
theater of the cultural center of the Philippines, are of this kind.

Some buildings look like geometric solids- pyramids, cylindrical towers, and box-like
office buildings. They have geometric shapes.

Shape In Painting. In painting and other two-dimensional art-forms, shape is an area

on a flat surface enclosed by a line. It stands out from the surface because of a difference in
color value or texture or a combination of these

Often we find great difficulty in recognizing geometric shapes in paintings because we

see them as parts of objects, or as objects themselves. One way of developing our ability to
recognize such shapes is to see objects and people around us as particular tones, colors or
textures. We would soon discover that people are combinations of cylinders, triangles, or
cubes; blackboards are rectangles; and electric fans are circles. It is only when we are able to
identify objects as such shapes that we can recognize geometric shapes in the familiar thins
that surrounds us.
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Shapes can give the illusion of weight, volume, or flatness. Realistic painters can make
objects appear as more than two-dimensional with the use of lines or color. A room or garden
may be made to look like a place where we can actually move and walk about.

Sometimes shapes which are not parts of a single form are spread throughout the
composition. Some paintings, like those of Joan Miro, contain shapes in a variety of
permutations across the picture pane. They are often distinguished by color or textual areas
and unified by lines drawn on the surface.

Between the shapes of figures are areas which are not occupied by any form. These
areas are called negative shapes. In painting these spaces can be as important as the shape
themselves.

In Sculpture. Since sculpture is three-dimensional, shapes are identified either as

mass or as volume. Mass is matter that has weight and solidity. It can be lifted, pushed, or
viewed in the round.
When mass is structured or has a definite shape, it is said to have volume. The
fundamental unit in sculpture is the single volume. An example of a single volume is the
monument of Sultan Kudarat in Makati. Several volumes may be tightly grouped, as in the
Bonifacio monument, or they may be grouped but separated by open spaces as in the
redemption at the Loyola memorial park. The human figure, though taken as a single unit
may also be broken into component parts each of which may be regarded as a single volume.

An important consideration in sculpture is the treatment of its surface. Surface is

generated by line movement which in turn is determined by the structure of the mass inside it.
The expressive quality of sculpture depends on the curvature of the surface.

Sculpture ma have plane surface like those of solids (pyramids, cubes, and prisms);
cylinders and cones have surface which curved in a single direction and called single-curved
surfaces. When a surface curved in a several direction so that no two direction are parallel to
one another it is said to be a warped surface. Double curved surfaces are curved in all
directions so that it is extremely difficult to draw a straight line anywhere.

Single curve surfaces most often seen in sculpture made from sheet materials show a
straightness that has a mechanical simplicity and rigidity machine-produced formed.

The surfaces of sculpture maybe convex or concave. Convex surfaces seem to result
from the action of internal forces. Concave surfaces appear to result from the action of
external forces. They suggest a collapse, an erosion, or a dentation.

Concave surfaces are made o provide a shadows to contrast with the highpoints of a
convex surfaces. For example, the whole face of the African mask below the eyebrows is
scooped out in a hallow, contrasting dramatically with the convex rotundity of the high
forehead. Extreme contrasts between convex and concave surfaces, however, are seldom used
for human figures since concavities seem suggest deformities cause by disease or starvation.

Transition in Sculpture. Each of the component divisions of sculpture is connected to

each other in one way or another. It may project with parts of the surfaces touching; it may be
so joined that one looks as though it is embedded in another.

The places where the forms meet are very important. The expressive character of the
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sculpture depends highly on how passage or transition is made fro one o another.

Transition may be abrupt or smooth. An abrupt transition is one in which the

connnecti0on of the forms shows a clearly defined line. The abrupt changes in form provide a
staccato effect, producing shadows and highlights which reveal the three-dimensional
qualities of the figure.

A smooth transition is achieved when one form flows into or blends with another
element without any sudden interruption in the continuity of the surface. In most of Moore’s
works, especially his reclining figures, there are no abrupt transition at all. Each form blends
with another, providing a rhythmic continuity of contour. In his Reclining Figure shown in
Figure 3-2, the neck blends with the head and the shoulders, the hands have completely
disappeared, and the arms are continued to the hips. The inside of the elbow and the armpits
are all connected to the back of the knee. This kind of continuity is achieved through the use
of concave-convex surfaces.

In Architecture. A house, a church, or an office building has a shape of its own, defined
by its walls and roof. The individual parts that compose each building have their own shapes
which add up to the shape of the whole. This we note while we look at the building from
outside.

The form or a shape of buildings and other structures depends upon the materials and
type of construction used.

Texture

When we speak of texture in everyday conversation, we usually refer to the feel or

textile quality of the surface of an object---that is, whether the surface is rough or smooth,
grooved or ridged, furry or silky. A piece of sculpture, a building, and a painting may have
texture which we can described in much the same way.

For the sculptor and the architect, texture results chiefly from the physical properties of
the materials they use. The sculptor can produce any kind of texture that he wants his work to
have. If the material is soft, such as clay or wax, the artist manipulates or pulls and pushes it
into its final shape, leaving the marks of his manipulation on the surface as he wishes. He can
polished his finished work to give it a smooth texture.

The sculptor consciously produces texture even when he seems to neglect it. The rough
welded metal plates of Saprid’s Flagellant (figure 3-3) may seem to have an ‘unfinished’
texture, and yet it is precisely this texture which the artist intended his work to have. Had he
wanted the surface to be very smooth, he would have made it so.

An architect can use brick and wood to produce pattern on the walls and partitions. He
can exploit materials to create surfaces that may blend interestingly or contrast with the site
on which the building is built.

Function of Texture. Texture can be enjoyed for its sensuous, decorative quality alone.
N this level, textures are experienced as pleasurable sensation in the manner that we enjoy
stroking velvet, silk, and other materials we feel are pleasant.

In life, we enjoy contrast between different surfaces which emphasize and enhance one
another when they are brought together. When the artist wishes us to feel such contrast, he
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simulates the surface qualities of the objects he represents. He does this by a careful rendering
of light and dark patterns on the surface of the objet. We can “see” that something is smooth
or rough because of the way light is reflected. Metal for example, reflects light differently
from the way that water or silk does.

Painter can does show, with varying degrees of realism, the intrinsic textures of things
by initiating the way light is reflected by them.

Texture clarifies space. Textures built up from symbolic patterns can create a greater
degree of spatial depth as well as volume.

Artist also use passages of formal lettering and manuscript as part of textural areas in
their paintings. When painting was regarded as illustration to written narratives, as in the case
of the early Christian miniatures and illuminations, lettered textures were common. These
textures are also featured in Islamic and other Asiatic paintings which have narrative captions
written or printed on a corner of the picture as part of the total composition.

Sometimes the artist wants to draw attention to the texture of the entire picture surface
itself. He may do this by applying his pigments so thickly that we can see the movement of
his brush strokes. He does not pay too much attention to the imitation of the surface quality of
objects. We notice this in Van Gogh’s paintings as well as in Amorsolo’s.

Color

Color is not a permanent property of things we see around us. It is derived form light,
whether natural, like sunlight, or artificial, like fluorescent light. Under a weak light we see
some color, but under a bright light, we see more color. Objects lose their color under
moonlight or in a dimly lighted room, even though their form of shape is clearly perceived.

Color is a series of wave lengths which strike our retina. Every ray of light coming
from the sun is composed of different waves which vibrate at different speeds. We can
confirm this scientific fact if we allow a beam of light to pass through a prism. the ray of light
will break up and be seen on a sheet of white paper as bands of different colors---red, orange,
blue, indigo, and violet---constitute the color spectrum.

Some objects do not have color. Some are black, white, or gray. These are not present
in the color spectrum. They do not have any color quality. Instead they differ in the quality of
light that they reflect. They are called neutral since they do not reflect any one distinct color.
Black reflects no lights at all; white reflects all colors, and gray results from a partial
reflection of light.

Physical properties of Color. The color spectrum shows us a few colors and yet we
know that there many more color variations that exist. There are, or instance, many kinds of
red which differ in character from pure red. We have blood red, dull red, bright red, or dark
red. Every color that we see may be described in terms of its physical properties---hue, value,
and intensity.

Hue
Hue is the quality which gives a color its name. The colors of the spectrum are
therefore called hues.

Value
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Adding neutral, such as black or white to any hue (e.g. blue or red) result in changing
the quantity of light it reflects. A color combined with black will reflect less light than the
same color combined with white. When black is combined with a color, a shade is produced;
when white is added to it, a tint results. Black added to red results in dark red; when white is
added, we get light red. The lightness or darkness of a color is called value.

Intensity or saturation
Intensity is the strength of the color’s hue. It refes to the quality of light in a color. Red,
for instane may be seen as bright red if oly red rays of light are reflected. But if any of the
complementary green rays were reflected in it the effect will be a duller color. If green and
red were balanced, the resultnt color will be a neutral gray.

Many colors maybe formed by mixing two or more colors. There are, however, three
colors which we cannot form from mixtures because they are in a sense, pure colors. These
are red, blue and yellow. These colors are called primaries. Framed in a triangular pattern
they are called the color triad. When these colors are mixed in pairs they can produce all
other colors that we know of. A mixture of all these results in gray.

Principles of Design

Design is the overall visual structure of a work of art. It is a means by which the artist
makes comprehensible the ideas he wishes to express and communicate. Churches for
example, are so built as to inspire us to religious thoughts and feelings while houses promise
privacy and peace.

Design makes our environment more readily comprehensible. Architects give order to
space through their design of buildings, giving consideration to the buildings’ interior and
exterior partitions doors and windows.

The design of an object makes it what it is at the same time that it is made interesting
and stimulating. A vase can give us aesthetic pleasure through its shape and color; a piece of
sculpture can give a new, vitalizing experience in space, form and texture. The precise
organization of colors in a painting can brighten up a room and lift our spirit to great heights.

Harmony

Harmony is one of the most important principles of design. In the visual arts, it refers
to the adaptation of the visual elements to each other, the agreement between the parts of a
composition which result in unity. It is achieved by the repetition of characteristics which
are similar in nature, such as shape, size and color.

To take an example, a girl’s appearance will not please us at all if she combines a
bright violet, silk blouse with a red and orange plaid denim skirt. She will look attractive if
her dress color do not clash. Similarly, a room will be very inviting and will give us a feeling
of peace and quiet if the colors of the walls and draperies echo one another in value intensity
and hue.

Variety

Variation in nature is infinite. The varying colors of flowers, the variations of greens
and grasses and leaves, or the contrast of the dry and rainy seasons prevent utter uniformity
 45
and monotomy in the environment of man.

Harmony may be achieved through repitition. However, too much repitition esily
results in monotomy, hence, the principle of variety is needed to prevent this.

The use of a quality or an element which contrasts with or is slightly different from
those that surround it prevents sameness. If a shape is repeated, variety in size can prevent
uniformity. To make differences dramatic, a contrasting quality may be introduced. If bright
colors (red, yellow and orange for instance) are used, a cool, dark color (blue, green or blace)
can provide a refreshing change.

A janitor can contrast a very smooth, shiny surface with a very rough and jagged one;
an architect may interrupt the repeated squares of a series of windows with rectangular doors
to balconies; a pathway of smooth white stones and smooth dark green lawn around a
building make an intersting contrast.

A room with cool, dark colors is peaceful, but unless it is brightened by a few bright
pieces - ash trays or vases – it may become a dull and uninteresting place.

Rhythm

Rhythmical patterns exists in nature. There is rhythm in the tide created by the
alternating ebb and flow, just as there is rhythm in man’s heartbeat.

In the visual arts, rhythm is a continuance, a flow or a feeling of movement achieved

by the repitition of regular visual units. It exists in many ways. It may be simple that is only
one type of motif is repeated, or it may be composite, when two or more recurring motifs
exists simultaneously. It may even be a complex variation at times.

Proportion

Proportion deals with the ratio of one part to another and of the parts to the whole.
Ratio implies a comparison between parts. It is expressed in size, number and position.
When we look at an object we see its size as a whole, the sizes of the different parts that
compromise it and the relationships of these parts to one another. The space surrounding the
object also assumes an important relation to the object.

We find pleasure in looking at a well-proportioned shape or figure just as we find

pleasure in rooms in which the size and number of furnitures pieces are proportionate to the
length width and height of the room.

A low ceiling gives us the feeling that we cannot move about freely and that we are in
danger of being buried under a heavy weight. On the other hand, a high ceiling like that of a
church, gives us a sense of freedom because it seems we have plenty of room in which to
move about.

In sculpture, the relation of one part to another and the relation of the whole to its
surroundings are important. Th U.P. Oblation loses it magnificence by its location in front of
a large building that dwarfs it. Conversely the Gomburza Monument at Plaza Roma seems too
large for the space that surrounds it.
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Emphasis and Subortdination

Closely related to proportion are emphasis and subordination. The yare the principles
that concern the giving of proper importance to parts and to the whole. They are also basic to
life’s activities. Everyday we make choices what to do for the day and what to postpone for
another, what to value and what to discard. Emphasis and subordination involve the
differentiate between themore important and the less important.

In a room where the walls, curtains, floors, and furniture carry the same geometric
pattern and color, we would feel a irritating monotony. On the other hand, if each of these
would compete for attention because of a uniqueness in design and color, the room would
appear chaotic. We can bring order into the room by choosing on part or spot to be the focul
of attention, allowing it to stand out in importance through its position, color or design, and
making the other features of the room subordinate to it.

There a various ways of showing emphasis in a the painting. The artist may depict the
object as a single unit. An element may stand by itself. The artist may make use of size. When
more than one object is depicted, the larger ones may have more importance than the other.
Also, the important object may be made to appear closer to us than the less important
elements. Photographic techniques may be utilized as in the use of aerial perspective as well
as linear perspective. And emphasis may also be achieved through the use of colors. As
mentioned earlier, warm colors tend to advance and attract our attention while cool colors
tend to recede.

Balance

Unity in a work of art is dependent upon the balance between harmony and variety as
well as balance in the sizes and shapes in the work of art.

Balance is a feeling of equality in weight, attention, or attraction of the various

elements. In its simplest expression, balance suggests the gravitational equilibrium of a
single unit in space or a pair of objects arranged with respect to an axis of a fulcrum. There
are two kinds of balance – formal or symmetrical and occult or assymetrical.

Symmetrical Balance

The most obvious type of balance is symmetrical or formal balance. It is achieved by

the use of identical compositional units on either side of a imaginary vertical axis within the
pictorial space, or when one hald of a work mirrors the image of the other half.

Assymetrical or Occult Balance

Some artists resort to some kin of felt balance. This is more exciting than normal
balance. It is obtained when the visual unit on either side of the axis are not identical but are
placed in positions so equated as to produce a felt equilibrium. For instance, small area of
color may be calanced by a large empty space.
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MUSIC

Music is composed of tones and silences organized in such a manner as to convey the
emotions and ides conceived by the composer. The composer’s materials set limitations upon
his skill or craftsmanship and on his imagination and artistry.

A painting, piece of sculpture or a building exists in space. That is, each of them
occupies a definite space and remains static and unchanging while people look at them and
examine them from different points of view.

The definition of music appreciation as the acquired ability to listen to music

intelligently implies two important facts: that the ability to appreciate music is not inborn and
tht it may be acquired by anyone who makes up is mind to do so. A third fact which the
definition implies is that the conscious effort, intellectual activity, is also involved in the
appreciation of music.

Sound

In music, what confronts the audience is tones. This is its physical property – the thing
which is encountered by our senses. Logically then we can begin to understand and appreciate
music by trying to understand the material which the composer deals with: sound

All sound is produced by vibrations. When the vibrations are regular, tones or musical
sounds are produced. When the vibrations are irregular, noise results. Slamming a door or
clapping the hands sets up irregular vibrations, so tht these result in noise. On the other hand,
the vibrations set forth by strumming guitar strings or blowing through a flute are regular.
Thus, they produce tones.

Sound in general – both tones and noise – has four qualities: timber, pitch, intensity
and duration. Tones, and any sound for that matter, will always have these four qualities. Our
description of the sounds we hear are attributable to any or all of these qualities. When we say
for instance we heard a loud bang, we are referring to intensity: when we say that someone
has a nasal voice, we are talking about the timber of hils voice.

Timbre

Timbre, tone color or tone quality refers to the quality which enables us to distinguish
one sound from another, an instrument from another, a friends voice or singers voice from
that of another. We can tell for instance, the sound of a basketball bouncing on a concrete
court from the sound made by a can hitting the same concrete court. It is possible to
distinguish the voice of a man from that of a woman.

Pitch

Pitch refers to the relative highness of lowness of a tone. It isthe result of the
frequency of vibrations: the faster the vibrations the higher the pitch. Some vibrations can be
too slow or too fast for hte human ear to perceive. There is a dog whistle for example which
when blown will be heard bydogs but not by humans, because the vibrations itsets forth are
too fast to be perceived by the human ear.

Duration
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The third quality of sound is duration. This refers to the length of time which a sound
occupies how long a sound is heard.

Intensity

Intensity refers to the loudness or softness of a sound. This quality results from
pressure or force which is used to cause the vibrations that produce a sound.