The Nature, Meaning,

Importance of Art
and Art Appreciation
 The Nature of Art
• Art is very important in our lives
• It constitutes one of the oldest and most important means of
expression developed by man.
• In every age or country, there is always art.
• Art has been created by all people at all times; it has lived because
it is liked and enjoyed.
• A true work of art is made by man himself not imitatively, but
creatively.
• A true artist does not imitate nature but rather interpret it in his
own way by selecting the essential features of the subject and
rejecting the minor ones.
 Meaning of Art
• Art is derived from the Latin word “ars,” meaning ability or skill. -J.V. Estolas
• Art is taken from the Italian word “artis,” which means craftsmanship, skill, mastery of
form, inventiveness, and the associations that exist between form and ideas, between
material and technique. –A. Tan
• Art is the product of man’s need to express himself. –F. Zulueta
• Art is concerned itself with the communication of certain ideas and feelings by C. Sans of
sensous medium, color, sound, bronze marble, words, and film. –C. Sanchez
• Art is that which brings life in harmony with the beauty of the world. Plato
• Art is an attitude of spirit, a state of mind-one which demands for its own satisfaction and
fulfilling, a shaping of matter to new and more significant form. John Dewey
• Art is the skillful arrangement or composition of some common but significant qualities of
nature such as colors, sounds, lines, movements, words stones, wood, etc., to express
human feelings, emotions, or thoughts in a perfect meaningful and enjoyable way. Panizo
and Rustia
 4 Common Essentials of Art
• 1. Art must be man-made
• 2. Art must be creative, not imitative
• 3. Art must benefit and satisfy man-man make use of
art in practical life through artistic principles, taste and
skill
• 4. Art is expressed through a certain medium or
material by which the artist communicates himself to
his fellows.
Representational or Objective Arts

•Artworks that depict something easily

recognized by most people
Non-Representational or Non-Objective
Arts

•Artwork that have no resemblance to any

real subject
 The Four Main Function of Art
• 1. Aesthetic function- Through art, man becomes conscious of the beauty of
nature. he benefits from his own work and from those done by his fellowmen.
He learns to use, love, and preserve them for his enjoyment and appreciation.
• 2. Utilitarian function- With the creation of the various forms of art, man now
lives in comfort and happiness. Through art, man is provided with shelter, clothing,
food, light, medicine, beautiful surroundings, personal ornamentals,
entertainment, language, transportation, and other necessities and conveniences
of life. Art not only enriches man’s life but also improves nature through landscape
gardening, creation of super-highways and through propagation and conservation
of natural resources.
• 3. Cultural function- through the printed matter, art transmits and preserves
skills and knowledge from one generation to another. It burdens one’s cultural
background and makes man more civilized and his life more enduring and
satisfying.
• 4. Social function- through civic and graphic arts, man learns to love and help
each other. International understanding and cooperation are fostered and nations
become more unified, friendly, cooperative, helpful, and sympathetic.
The (2) General Dimension of Arts

•1. Fine Arts or Independent

•2. Practical Arts or Useful or Utilitarian Arts

Fine Art or Independent
•Fine Arts are made primarily for aesthetic
enjoyment through the senses, especially
visual and auditory.
•Fine Arts or aesthetic arts are music,
painting, sculpture, architecture, literature,
dancing and drama.
 Practical Arts or Useful Arts or
Utilitarian Arts
•Practical Arts are intended for practical use or
utility. It is the development of raw materials for
utilitarian purposes.
•Practical arts or useful arts are industrial art,
applied or household art, civic art, commercial
art, graphic art, agricultural art, business art,
distributive art, and fishery art.
PURPOSES OF
ART
 To Create Beauty
• Art has always added beauty to our lives. At times, artists has
considered nature as the standard of beauty. At other times, the
artist has aimed to improve upon nature, developing an
alternate standard-an idealized form. However, one art form
need not be seen as intrinsically superior to the other.
Standards of beauty in and of themselves are by no means
universal- for beauty is in the eye of the society’s beholder.
 To Provide Decoration
• Works of art have been used to create pleasing environments.
Paintings, sculpture and photographs find their way into rooms,
courts, and gardens for use as decorations.
 To Reveal Truth
• Artists have pursued truth and attempted to reveal it, truth about
how the world looks, how it works. They have also reached
outward to describe truth about humanity and have reached
inward to describe truths about themselves. The “ugly truth” just
the “beautiful truth” validates the human condition.
 To Immortalize
• An artist can defy mortality by creating a work that will keep his
talents and his tragedy in the public’s consciousness for decades.
 To Express Religious Values
• Art has been used to express hopes for fertility, to propitiate the
gods, to symbolize great religious events and values, and to
command heavenward the souls of the departed. Until modern
times, the history of art can be studied in terms of expressing
religious values alone.
To Record and Commemorate Experience
• From prehistoric cave paintings to the Vietnam Memorial in
Washington D.C. to the EDSA Shire in the Philippines, art has been
used to inform future generations of what and who have gone
before them. Art also serves to convey the personal experiences
of an artist and record his impression in ways that here words
cannot for posterity.
 To Create Order and Harmony
• An artist makes use of composition to put order in the diverse
content of his work. Composition is the aesthetic arrangement of
elements within a work of art. An example of a perfect
expression of order and harmony is found in the Japanese sand
garden. These medieval garden frequently accompany pavilions
and are at the service of Zen., a Buddhist sect that seeks inner
harmony through introspection and meditation.
STYLES OF ART
 REALISM
• Realism portrays people and things as they are seen by the eyes
or really thought to be, without idealization, without distortion.
An art or a work seem so natural. Realism is the common way of
presenting the art subject. An example of this is in Amorsolo’s
paintings.
• Poetry and dramas were influenced by realism, but it was the
novels of Edgardo Reyes “Sa Mga Kuko Ng Liwanag” and Efren
Abueg’s “Dilim Sa Umaga”. These novels are realistically, vividly
and clearly presented with its social commentaries.
 ABSTRACTION
• “Abstract” means “to move away or separate”. Abstract art
move from showing things as they really are. Here the artist
becomes so engrossed in one phase of a scene or situation that
he fails to shows the subject as an objective reality. Unlike in
realism, the artist show his personal feelings or ideas about it.
Such art may be completely non-objective or non
representational. It may convert reality into forms that can be
appreciated for its own sake. Sometimes it does not reference
to reality.
Abstraction comes in Two (2) Basic
Variations
• 1. GEOMETRIC or hard edge, which often suggest rationality and
is associated with such modern movements as Constructivism,
Cubism, and Concrete Art
• 2. The Looser and more personal style known as organic. Organic
abstraction is associated with such modern movement as
abstract expressionism.
• Abstract Expressionism originates from the New York School.
From this artistic melting pot, Abstract Expressionism flowered.
• Abstract Expressionism is characterized by large gesture brush
strokes, spontaneous, abstract imagery and fields of intense
color.
 CUBISM
• Cubism is a style of painting introduced by Pablo Picaso and
Braque in which objects are broken up into fragments and
patterns of geometric structures and are depicted on the flat
canvas as if from several points of view.
 SYMBOLISM
• A Symbol, in general, is a visible sign of something invisible such
as an idea or a quality. An example is the giant-sized painting by
Juan Luna, entitled “Spoliarium”. This artwork was an original
painting of Juan Luna painted in Rome from July 1883 to March
1884. with the use of heavy and strong brush strokes, Juan Luna
expressed his anger over abuses and cruelties during that time
being suffered by his countrymen, the Filipinos under the
Spanish authorities.
 EXPRESSIONISM
• This method was introduced in Germany during the first decade
of the twentieth century. Its influences were felt by the European
artist from 1910 up to the present. The exponents of
expressionism believed in the necessity of a spiritual rebirth for
man in an age that was fast becoming influenced by materialism.
The emotional expressions in expressionistic paintings could be
described as involving pathos, morbidity, violence or chaos, and
tragedy. It sometimes portrays defeat.
• In expressionistic art, form and color, are freely distorted by the
artist in order to achieve or heightened emotional impact. The
works of Van Gogh and Gauguin are examples of expressionistic
art.
 SURREALISM
• This movement in art and literature was founded in Paris in 1924
by the French poet Andre Breton. Surrealism uses art as a weapon
against the evils and restrictions that surrealists see in society.
Surrealism is an invented word meaning super realism. This
movement was influenced by Freudian psychology which
emphasizes the activities of the subconscious state of the mind. It
intends to express the true function of thought in the absence of
all control exerted by reason and outside all aesthetic and moral
preoccupation. Surrealists portrayed dream imagery, fantasies
and hallucinations.
 FAUVISM
• This was the first important art movement of the 19th century.
The fauves did not attempt to express ethical, philosophical, or
psychological themes. Most of these artists tried to paint pictures
of comfort, joy, and pleasure. They used extremely bright colors.
The subject matter centered on traditional nudes, still lifes and
landscapes.
• Fauvist painting was expressive and emotional, and often
consisted of flat planes of strong color, as in The Red Room
(1908-1909) by Henri Matisse. The process Matisse used to
create this painting involved constantly checking his own
reactions to the piece unfolding before him as worked and
continuing in this manner until the painting “felt” finished.
 FUTURISM
• Futurism painters wanted their works to capture the speed of
force and modern industrial society. Their paintings glorified the
mechanical energy of modern life. Subjects included
automobiles, motorcycles, and railroad trains subject that
express the explosive vitality of a modern city. The leading
Futurist painter and sculptor is Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916).
The often repeated word in Futuristic credo is dynamism.
Boccioni’s drawing “made figure in Motion Towards the left”
illustrate the principle of dynamism.