A&H 100 - Art Appreciation

Bryan Balaguir Marcial

Understanding Visual Arts
One of the important lessons you will
learn from this course is that every time
you look at a great work of art, it will
have something new to say to you. If
you consider, for example, the way an
artist designed the work, you may notice
something about the use of color or
contrast that had not struck you before.
When you study the medium the artist
chose (such as the particular choice of
paint selected), you will appreciate how it
contributed to the impact of the work.
Another approach that we can take to an artwork is to look at it from a historical
point of view: how does this work reflect the circumstances and the
society in which it was created? Does it express the values of those who held
political and economic power, or could it tell us something about the status of
women at the time? Alternately, you could ask yourself whether the work addresses
issues that have absorbed the attention of artists ever since humans began to paint,
draw, and make sculpture.

Does it touch on very big questions, such as the nature of the universe, or life and
death? Or is it engaged with more personal concerns, such as gender, sexuality,
race, and our own identities?

You can appreciate a work of art by examining it closely from one or more
of these perspectives.
Examine the photo. What can you say
about the artwork? Do you see
yourself in it? How do you feel about
it? Describe what you see and feel
and share it with the class.

https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/63983
Boxed Being by sculptor Louise Nevelson
Davilles, Gary C. et al., 2018, emphasized
the idea that sensing the arts in the everyday
is being able to perceive the elements of arts
and connecting and relating them to our
personal and communal experiences.
Relating the elements to our experiences is a
form of art appreciation and reflexivity.
Art appreciation is an encounter between the artwork and the
audience (viewer, listener, etc). We audience seek meanings of
artwork from our experience and life world relating to what the
artwork tries to convey. Such an encounter can only happen in
various sensory experiences, of seeing, listening, smelling,
touching, and feeling.

These sensory experiences are ways and media by which we make

sense of the artwork in question. By processing the sensory
experiences and telling us what we always see more, the artwork
becomes more visible or meaningful, and that we are transformed
in the process.
Reflexivity then is awareness of our own selves and of
our encounter with the artwork. The work of art
becomes like a mirror that provides a reflection of who
we are which further enables us to appreciate art. This
awareness and sustained participation with art are
where creativity ensues as we recreate the artwork by
finding other meanings, making sense of it, and doing
something out of that encounter and experience, such
as composing an essay, writing a journal or blog entry,
and creating another artwork, among others.
SENSORIAL EXPERIENCES

We see, hear, or feel an artwork, and the

sense perceptions, both literal and
metaphorical, contribute to the rich and
complex knowledge of and about art in
general.
Curved
“Art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it
was supposed to make you feel
something.”
–Rainbow Rowell
Sensing the Arts in the Everyday (Devilles, G et al.,2018): Contextualized
(Art Sense)

When the EDSA revolution of 1986 happened and during that time, most
people had a sense that something was very rotten in our country.

It would be during their senior year that they would be able to fully “see” the
situation when they had the chance to go to old Manila on their own to watch a
performance of ‘Hamlet’ at the deteriorating Metropolitan Theatre, an art-deco
(sometimes referred to as Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture and design that first appeared in France just before World War I. Art Deco
influenced the design of buildings, furniture, jewelry, fashion, cars, movie theatres, trains, ocean liners, and everyday objects such as radios and
vacuum cleaners. It took its name, short for Arts Décoratifs, from the Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes held in
) building built in 1931 and which has survived the bombings of 1945
Paris in 1925.

and several earthquakes.

After the play, they took a train on Manila’s
first flight rail line that has been in operation
only for four years. They rode south and - as
the train is on a raised platform some 15
meters above the ground-they saw for the
first time a panorama of Manila, from the
central station to Pedro Gil, to Taft Avenue
and EDSA.
The view was quite cinematic, albeit surreal.
Perhaps taking jeepney rides all their lives (and
never having been in a plane or a skyscraper) had
prevented them from seeing Manila as swarming
with so many people in rambling poverty.
Somehow the elevated train gave them a gripping
scene of a crowd, made them question many
things, including what it means to live in a city.
Seeing Hamlet that day and the crowd in
Manila then was not just a matter of random
coincidence but rather an unforeseen full-
bodied encounter in which we could relate
what we saw with what we were
experiencing. The philosopher Martin
Heidegger (1889-1976) would call such
moment as "geworfenheit," an instance of
being thrown into the maelstrom or chaotic
everyday but somehow revealing a
perspective by which one makes sense of
oneself and one's place.
Thrownness is an existential concept in philosophy introduced by German philosopher Martin Heidegger to describe humans' individual existences as being 'thrown' into the world.
“Thrownness is an English translation of the German
word 'Geworfenheit', a word with the meaning and
connotation of a kind of alienation that human beings
struggle against what is. It
leaves a paradoxical opening for freedom.

This concept, theorized by German philosopher Martin

Heidegger (1889-1976), purports that as human beings
we are "thrown" at birth into a world (class, nationality,
gender, etc.) that we have no control over and must
learn to cope with. It further purports that, after being
"thrown" into a world that is not of own choosing, we
then have to learn to navigate the challenges that come
with that world: frustrations, sufferings, demands, social
conventions, and ties of kinship and duty. These
challenges, and how we cope with them or rise above
https://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Throwness
them, ultimately becomes our identity.”
Seeing in this way should be understood as less passive-looking than
connecting or relating practically discrepant things in this world. To see is to
make sense. This is perhaps the reason that the Tagalog word for "meaning" is
kahulugan, which comes from the root word hulog or palpability. To find
meaning or kahulugan, therefore, is the condition or state of handling and
connecting palpable things, sensing their forms, and ultimately, understanding
them. So, a person who is not in his/her proper form or not in good shape is
fondly called wala sa hulog and the plumb bob used by carpenters as a
levelling instrument to make things straight is also called hulog. These words
and idiomatic expression add to the texture of our experience of seeing,
sensing, and understanding in general. To see as to find meaning is a full-
bodied engagement with the world. When we watch a Shakespeare play, we
are not just being entertained, we are trying to make sense of the Victorian era
in Britain, an era perhaps alien to us, but no more strange our present political
and social upheavals. And as we watch a play close, we begin to see
connections and insights from our own intimate experiences.
In this chapter, the various ways of seeing and understanding
visual arts are explored. Since seeing is not just a response
to visual stimuli but rather involves a gamut of emotions, then
to appreciate and interpret visual arts only in terms of
symmetry, color, balance, and form is a disservice. Here,
seeing arts in the everyday is not just asking what it is or
what it is all about. The question that is asked is how we
make sense of the artwork with us or with what is going on
around. How can art help us understand a little better the
complexity of the world? In what way does art mysteriously
begin to look at us?
When we talk of visuality, we can consider a variety of its
aspects or elements that make up art. Elements then can be
the form, shape, color, value, space, and texture.

The form of a work is its shape, including its volume or

perceived volume. A three-dimensional artwork has depth as
well as width and height. Three-dimensional form is the basis
of sculpture. Our very own, Napoleón Isabelo Veloso Abueva
(born January 26, 1930), Father of Modern Philippine
Sculpture, produced works such as Kaganapan (1953), Kiss
of Judas (1955), Thirty Pieces of Silver, The Transfiguration
at the Eternal Gardens Memorial Park (1979), UP Gateway
(1967), Nine Muses at the UP Faculty Center (1994), and
Sandugo or Blood Compact shrine in Bohol, Tagbiliran City by Napoleon Abueva
Sunburst at the Peninsula Manila Hotel (1994). His Sandugo
or Blood Compact shrine in Bohol, Tagbilaran City is a
landmark at the site of the first international treaty of
friendship between Spaniards and Filipinos.
A two-dimensional artwork can achieve the illusion of form with the
use of perspective and/or shading or modelling techniques. Many
modern visual artists including José T. Joya (1931-1995) pioneered
abstract expressionism in the Philippines. His canvases were
characterized by "dynamic spontaneity" and "quick gestures" of
action painting. He is the creator of compositions that were
described as "vigorous compositions" of heavy impastoes, bold
brushstrokes, controlled dips, and diagonal swipes." Joya added
the brilliant tropical colors. Among his masterpieces are the
Nanking (a collage rendered with Asian calligraphy and forms and
patterns resembling rice paddies), the Granadean Arabesque
(1958), and Biennial (1964). Granadean Arabesque by José T. Joya
Abstract expressionism is a development of abstract art that originated in New York in the 1940s and 1950s and aimed at subjective emotional expression with particular emphasis on the creative spontaneous act (e.g., action painting).
Dynamic spontaneity means marked by forcefulness & proceeding from natural feeling
A 2D, or two-dimensional, shape has length and height as its dimensions. A 3D, or three-dimensional, shape has length, height, and width (depth) as its dimensions.
Formalism is the analysis of works by their form or shapes in art history or
archeology. In formalism, we talk about how lines and curves span a distance
between two points (or the path of a moving point), in the various marks,
outlines, and implied lines in design. A line has a width, direction, and length and
its width is sometimes called its "thickness." Lines are sometimes called
"strokes," especially when referring to lines in digital artwork.

Color is the element of art that is produced when light, striking an object, is
reflected back to the eye. There are three properties to color. The first is hue, or
the name we give to a color (red, yellow, blue, green, etc.). The second property
is intensity, which refers to the vividness of the color. A color's intensity is
sometimes referred to as its "colorfulness," its "saturation," its "purity," or its
Formalism is a philosophy for making and judging art that values an artwork solely based on its compositional elements such as a line color and symmetry. Formalism disregards the art
intent technique and culture. In formalism this information is deemed unnecessary for the understanding of a work.

"strength."
“Reading material (online reference)
The Expressiveness of Form -
Formalism in Art
Art History https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/formalism-
in-art
The third and final property of color is its value, or how light or dark it is.
The terms shade and tint refer to value changes in colors. In painting,
shades are created by adding black to a color while tints are created
by adding white to a color. Interestingly, you can look at some of the
works of Cesar Torrente Legaspi (April 2, 1917-April 7, 1994), our
National Artist in painting. He was also an art director prior to going full-
time in his visual art practice in the 1960s. His early (1940s-1960s)
works, alongside those of peer, Hernando Ocampo are described as
depictions of anguish and dehumanization of beggars and laborers in
the city. These include Man and Woman (alternatively known as
Beggars) and Gadgets which depict how colors and geometric ordering
of figures interact to produce sentiments.
To study space, we can look at some of the works of Vicente
Silva Manansala (January 22, 1910 - August 22, 1981), another
Filipino cubist painter and illustrator. Manansala's canvases were
described as masterpieces that brought the cultures of the barrio
and the city together. His Madonna of the Slums is a portrayal of
a mother and child from the countryside who became urban
shanty residents once in the city. In his Jeepneys, Manansala
combined the elements of provincial folk culture with the
congestion issues of the city. Space is an area that an artist
provides for a particular purpose, as in the case of Manansala,
that space is the urban space. Space includes the background,
foreground and middle ground, and refers to the distances or
area(s) around, between, and within things. There are two kinds
of space: negative space and positive space. Negative space
is the area in between, around, through, or within an object.
Madonna of the Slums by Vicente Silva Manansala
Positive space is the area occupied by an object and/or form.
Positive space refers to the subject or areas of interest in an artwork, such as a person's face or figure in a portrait, the objects in a still life painting, or the trees in a landscape painting. Ne
background or the area that surrounds the subject of the work. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved
Texture, another element of art, refers to how something feels or looks.
Again, using some of Manansala's or Legaspi's works, one can feel and
make sense of the stirring sentiments in the 70s, the attitude for or against
modernization or urbanization, the formation of slums, the corruption in the
government, etc. In studying texture, it is important that we look also at
the history of the work and the prevailing circumstances during that
period that produced such work. Other elements of visuality include
value which is the degree of lightness and darkness in a color and shapes
that could be geometric, or organic and curvaceous. Again, looking at some
of the works of our national artists, what can you say about texture, value,
and shapes? How do these elements bring about what you feel about the
artworks, whether you imagine yourself in them or they remind you of
something similar in your past?