MODULE I

ART APPRECIATION

Lesson 1 Introduction to Art

Objectives:
Upon successful completion of this module, you should be able to:

1. Define ‘art’ within a cultural perspective;

2. Explain the difference between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’;
3. Recognize, evaluate, and describe artistic styles.

Abstraction

Introductions and Definitions

WHAT IS ART?

Panorama of a section of A Thousand Li of Mountains and Rivers, by Wang Ximeng (Links to an

external site.) from the 12th-century Song Dynasty
This image is in the public domain

How would you define ‘art’? For many people art is a specific thing; a painting, sculpture
or photograph, a dance, a poem or a play. It is all of these things, and more. They
are mediums of artistic expression. Webster’s New Collegiate dictionary defines art as “The
conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic
objects.” Yet art is much more than a medium, or words on a page. It is the expression of our
experience. Joseph Brodsky hints at a definition of art in his poem “New Life”:

“Ultimately, one’s unbound

curiosity about these empty zones,
ART APPRECIATION pg. 1
about these objectless vistas,
is what art seems to be all about.”

Art is uniquely human and tied directly to culture. It takes the ordinary and makes it
extraordinary. It asks questions about who we are, what we value, the meaning of beauty and
the human condition. As an expressive medium it allows us to experience sublime joy, deep
sorrow, confusion and clarity. It tests our strengths, vulnerabilities and resolve. It gives voice
to ideas and feelings, connects us to the past, reflects the present and anticipates the future.
Along these lines, art history, combined with anthropology and literature, are three main
sources in observing, recording and interpreting our human past. Visual art is a rich and
complex subject whose definition is in flux as the culture around it changes. Because of this,
how we define art is in essence a question of agreement. In this respect, we can look again
to the dictionary’s definition for an understanding of exactly what to look for when we proclaim
something as ‘art’.

FORM & CONTENT

Two basic considerations we need to be acquainted with are form: the physical and
visible characteristics inherent in works of art, and content: the meaning we derive from them.
Formal distinctions include a work’s size, medium (painting, drawing, sculpture or other kind
of work) and descriptions of compositional elements such as the lines, shapes and colors
involved. Issues of content include any visual clues that provide an understanding of what the
art tells us. Sometimes an artwork’s content is vague or hidden and needs more information
than is present in the work itself. Ultimately these two terms are roped together in the climb to
understand what art has to offer us. As we examine art from different time periods, styles and
cultures, the issues of form and content will apply to all of them. We’ll explore form and
content further in Modules 3 and 4.

AESTHETICS

Aesthetics is the philosophical argument about the nature of beauty. It’s an idea
central to any exploration of art. Aesthetics deals with notions of taste, cultural conventions
– ideas of art being ‘good’ and ‘bad’ based on specific cultural information and beliefs and the
judgments we make based on our perceptions.

As deep as visual art is embedded in the fabric of our lives, it still is the source of
controversy and irony. It thrives on common experience yet contradicts ideas of ourselves.
Art is part of the culture it’s created in, but can reflect many cultures at once. From where you
and I stand today art has become probably more complex than ever in its use of imagery,
mediums and meanings. We need a way to access the visual information of our society, of
past cultures, and cultures not known to us to have a way to understand what we are looking
at.

SUBJECTIVE & OBJECTIVE PERSPECTIVES

The first level in approaching art is learning to LOOK at it. In future discussions we will
spend more time in pure observation than you probably have done before. Generally, we
tend to look at art in terms of "liking" it FIRST, and "looking" at it later. From this perspective,
the subjective (knowledge residing in the emotions and thoughts of the viewer) almost
completely dominates our way of looking at art. In the arts, it’s especially important to begin
to develop an informed or objective opinion rather than just an instinctual reaction. An
ART APPRECIATION pg. 2
objective view is one that focuses on the object’s physical characteristics as the main source
of information. This does not mean that you will remove or invalidate your subjective feelings
about a work, in fact you will find that the more informed you become, the moreartwork will
affect you emotionally and intellectually. It does mean that you will learn alternative ways to
approach art, ways that allow you to find clues to meaning and to understand how art reflects
and affects our lives.

It’s complex, but the satisfaction of looking at art comes from exploring the work to find
meaning, not shying away from it simply because we may not understand it.

ARTISTIC ROLES

Visual artists and the works they produce perform specific roles. These roles vary
between cultures. We can examine some general areas to see the diversity they offer – and
perhaps come up with some new ones of our own.

Description

A traditional role of visual art is to describe our self and our surroundings. Some of the
earliest artworks discovered (Links to an external site.) are drawings and paintings of humans
and wild animals on walls deep within prehistoric caves. One particular image is a hand (Links
to an external site.) print: a universal symbol of human communication.

Portraits

Portraits, landscapes and still life are common examples of description. Portraits
capture the accuracy of physical characteristics but the very best also transfer a sense of an
individual’s unique personality. For thousands of years this role was reserved for images of
those in positions of power, influence and authority. The portrait not only signifies who they
are, but also solidifies class structure by presenting only the highest-ranking members of a
society. The portrait bust of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti, dated to around 1300 BCE, exemplifies
beauty and royalty.

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Egyptian, Bust of Nefertiti, painted sandstone,
c. 1370 BCE, Neues Museum, Berlin.
Licensed under Creative Commons and GNU.

The full-length Imperial Portrait of Chinese Emperor Xianfeng below not only shows
realism in the likeness of the emperor, it exalts in the patterns and colors of his robe and the
throne behind him.

Imperial Portrait of Emperor Xianfeng, China, c.

1855. Palace Museum, Bejing.
Licensed under Creative Commons.

Landscapes
ART APPRECIATION pg. 4
Landscapes – by themselves – give us detailed information about our natural and
human made surroundings; things like location, architecture, time of day, year or season plus
other physical information such as geological elements and the plants and animals within a
particular region.

In many western cultures, the more realistic the rendering of a scene the closer to our
idea of the ‘truth’ it becomes. In the 15th century German artist Albrecht Durer creates vivid
works that show a keen sense of observation. His Young Hare from 1495 is uncanny in its
realism and sense of animation.

Albrecht Durer, Young Hare, c. 1505,

gouache and watercolor on
paper. Albertina Museum, Vienna.
Image in the public domain.

Scientific Illustration

Out of this striving for accuracy and documentation developed the art of scientific
illustration. The traditional mediums of painting and drawing are still used to record much of
the world around us. Linda Berkley’s Merino Ram uses a layered approach to record in great
detail the physical anatomy of the head of the great sheep.

Merino Ram, composite drawing, colored pencil, acrylic on Canson paper, 2009. Linda
Berkley, Illustrator.
Used by permission of the artist

ART APPRECIATION pg. 5

Enhancing our World

Enhancing the world of our everyday lives is another role art plays. This role is
more utilitarian than others. It includes textiles and product design, decorative (Links to an
external site.) embellishments to the items (Links to an external site.) we use every day and
all the aesthetic considerations that create a more comfortable, expressive environment.

Narratives: How Artists Tell Their Stories

Artists can combine representation with more complex elements and situational
compositions to bring a narrative component into art. Using subject matter – the objects and
figures that inhabit a work of art -- as a vehicle for communicating stories and other cultural
expressions is another traditional function of visual art.
The narrative tradition is strong in many cultures throughout the world. They become
a means to perpetuate knowledge, morals and ethics, and can signify historical contexts within
specific cultures. Narrative takes many forms; the spoken or written word, music, dance and
visual art are the mediums most often used. Many times one is used in conjunction with
another. In his Migration Series (Links to an external site.) Jacob Lawrence paints stark, direct
images that communicate the realities of the African American experience in their struggle to
escape the repression of the South and overcome the difficulties of adjusting to the big cities
in the North.
In contrast, photographers used the camera lens to document examples of segregation
in the United States. Here the image on film tells its poignant story about inequalities based
on race.

Man Drinking at a Water Cooler in the Street Car Terminal, Russell

Lee, Oklahoma City, 1939.
Photo from the National Archives and in the public domain

Spirit, Myth and Fantasy

ART APPRECIATION pg. 6

Tied to the idea of narrative, another artistic role is the exploration of other worlds
beyond our physical one. This world is in many ways richer than our own and includes the
world of spirit, myth, fantasy and the imagination; areas particularly suited for the visual artist.
We can see how art gives a rich and varied treatment to these ideas. Artist Michael Spafford
has spent his career presenting classical Greek myths (Links to an external site.) through
painting, drawing and printmaking. His spare, abstract style uses high contrast images to
strong dramatic effect.
A Smiling Figure (Links to an external site.) from ancient Mexico portrays a god of
dance, music and joy. A third example, Hieronymus Bosch’s painting the Temptation of Saint
Anthony (Links to an external site.), gives the subject matter both spiritual and bizarre
significance in the way they are presented. His creative imagination takes the subject of
temptation and raises it to the realm of the fantastic. There is an entire module devoted to the
idea of the other world later in this course.

ARTISTIC CATEGORIES
Visual arts are generally divided into categories that make distinctions based on the
context of the work. For example, Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ would not fall into the same
category as, say, a graphic poster for a rock concert. Some artworks can be placed in more
than one category. Here are the main categories:
Fine Art
This category includes drawings, paintings, sculptures, photographs and, in the last
decade, new media that are in museum collections and sold through commercial art galleries.
Fine art has a distinction of being some of the finest examples of our human artistic heritage.
Here is where you will find Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (below), also ancient sculpture,
such as the Gandhara figure from India (also below), and stunning ceramics (Links to an
external site.) from different cultures and time periods.

Mona Lisa, Leonardo Da Vincic. 1503-19. Oil on Stucco Ganhara figure, India, 4th–5th century CE.
poplar. 30” x 21”. The Louvre, Paris Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
Image licensed through Creative Commons Licensed through GNU

Popular Culture

ART APPRECIATION pg. 7

This category contains the many products and images we are exposed to every day.
In the industrialized world, this includes posters, graffiti, advertising, popular music, television
and digital imagery, magazines, books and movies (as distinguished from film, which we’ll
examine in a different context later in the course). Also included are cars, celebrity status and
all the ideas and attitudes that help define the contemporary period of a particular
culture.
Handbills posted on telephone poles or the sides of buildings are graphic, colorful and
informative, but they also provide a street level texture to the urban environment most of us
live in. Public murals serve this same function. They put an aesthetic stamp on an otherwise
bland and industrialized landscape.

Street handbills. Image by Christopher Gildow

Licensed through Creative Commons

Public Mural, Seattle. Image by Christopher

Gildow
Licensed through Creative Commons

Craft
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Craft is a category of art that shows a high degree of skilled workmanship in its
production. Craft works are normally associated with utilitarian purposes, but can be aesthetic
works in themselves, often highly decorated. The Mexican ceramic vessel below is an
example. Handmade furniture and glassware, fine metalworking and leather goods are other
examples of craft.

Ceramic bowl, Mexico. Date unknown. Painted clay. Anahuacalli

Museum, Mexico City.
Licensed through GNU and Creative Commons.

ARTISTIC STYLES
Style

The search for truth is not exclusive to representational art. From viewing many of the
examples so far you can see how individual artists use different styles to communicate their
ideas. Style refers to a particular kind of appearance in works of art. It’s a characteristic of an
individual artist or a collective relationship based on an idea, culture or artistic movement.
Following is a list and description of the most common styles in art:

Naturalistic Style

Naturalistic style uses recognizable images with a high level of accuracy in their
depiction. Naturalism also includes the idealized object: one that is modified to achieve a kind
of perfection within the bounds of aesthetics and form. William Sydney Mount’s painting The
Bone Player (Links to an external site.) gives accuracy in its representation and a sense of
character to the figure, from his ragged-edged hat to the button missing from his vest. Mount
treats the musician’s portrait with a sensitive hand, more idealized by his handsome features
and soft smile. Note: click the image for a larger view.

Abstract Style
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Abstract style is based on a recognizable object but which is then manipulated by
distortion, scale issues or other artistic devices. Abstraction can be created by exaggerating
form, simplifying shapes or the use of strong colors. Let’s look at three landscapes below with
varying degrees of abstraction in them to see how this style can be so effective. In the first
one, Marsden Hartley uses abstraction to give the spare “Landscape, New Mexico” a sense
of energy. Through the rounded forms and gesture in treatment we can discern hills, clouds,
a road and some trees or bushes.

Landscape, New Mexico, Marsden Hartley, about 1916. Pastel on

paper. The Brooklyn Museum, New York.
Image in the public domain

Georgia O’Keeffe’s Birch and Pine Trees -- Pink (Links to an external site.) employs
abstraction to turn the painting into a tree-filled landscape dominated by a spray of orange
paint suggesting a branch of birch leaves at the top left. Vasily Kandinsky’s Landscape with
Red Spots, No. 2 (Links to an external site.) goes further into abstraction, releasing color from
its descriptive function and vastly simplifying forms. The rendering of a town at the lower left
is reduced to blocky areas of paint and a black triangular shape of hill in the background. In
all three of these, the artists manipulate and distort the ‘real’ landscape as a vehicle for
emotion.

It’s important to note the definition of ‘abstract’ is relative to cultural perspective. That
is, different cultures develop traditional forms and styles of art they understand within the
context of their own culture (see ‘Cultural Styles’ below), and which are difficult for other
cultures to understand. So what may be ‘abstract’ to one could be more ‘realistic’ in style to
another. For example, the Roman bust of Sappho below looks very real from a western
European aesthetic perspective. Under the same perspective, the African mask would be
called ‘abstract’.

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Roman bust of Sappho. Capitoline Museum, Rome.
Image in the public domain.

Yet to the African culture that

produced the mask it would appear more
realistic. In addition, the African mask shares
African mask some formal attributes with the Tlingit
photo by ‘Groundhog Mask’ (below under ‘Cultural
Cezary.
Image in the styles’) from Canada’s west coast. It’s very
public domain. possible these two cultures would see the
Roman bust as the ‘abstract’ one. So it’s
important that we understand artworks from
cultures other than our own in the context in
which they were originally created.

Questions of abstraction can also emerge from something as simple as our distance
from an artwork. View and read about Fanny/Fingerpainting (Links to an external site.) by the
artist Chuck Close. At first glance it is a highly realistic portrait of the artist’s grandmother-in
law. You can zoom it in to see how the painting dissolves into a grid of individual fingerprints,
a process that renders the surface very abstract. With this in mind, we can see how any work
of art is essentially made of smaller abstract parts that, when seen together, make up a
coherent whole.

Non-objective imagery has no relation to the ‘real’ world – that is – the work of art is
based solely upon itself. In this way the non-objective style is completely different than
abstract, and it’s important to make the distinction between the two. This style rose from the
modern art movement in Europe, Russia and the United States during the first half of the
20th century. Pergusa Three (Links to an external site.) by American artist Frank Stella uses
organic and geometric shapes and strong color set against a heavy black background to
ART APPRECIATION pg. 11
create a vivid image. More than with other styles, issues of content are associated with a
non-objective work’s formal structure.

Ground Hog Mask,Tlingit, c. 19 century. Carved

th

and painted wood, animal hair.

Collection the Burke Museum, University of
Washington, Seattle. Used by permission.

Celtic art from Great Britain and Ireland shows a cultural style that’s been identified
for thousands of years. Its highly refined organic motifs include spirals, plant forms
and zoomorphism (Links to an external site.). Intricate and decorative, the Celtic style adapted
to include early book illustration. The Book of Kells is considered the pinnacle of this cultural
style.

Page from the Book of Kells, around 800 CE. Trinity College, Dublin.
Image in the public domain.

IDEAS OF PERCEPTION & VISUAL AWARENESS

Images from media and the environment around us – dominate our perception. Our
eyes literally navigate us through a visual landscape all our lives, and we all make decisions
based on how and what we see. Separating the subjective and objective ways we see helps
ART APPRECIATION pg. 12
us become more visually aware of our surroundings. Scientifically, the process of seeing is
the result of light passing through the lens in our eye, then concentrating it on the retina at the
back of the eye. The retina has nerve cells that act like sponges, soaking up the information
and sending it to the visual cortex of our brain. Here the light is converted to an image that we
can perceive – the ‘truth’ – as we understand it to be.

We are exposed to so much visual information every day, especially with the advent of
mass media, that it’s hard to process all of it into specific meaning. Being visually aware is
more complicated than just the physical act of seeing because our perceptions are influenced
by exterior factors, including our own prejudices, desires and ideas about what the ‘truth’ really
is. Moreover, cultural ties to perception are many. For example, let’s look at two images that
share one particular element; that of raised arms, and see how we perceive each one
according to what we know about them.

Standing Bather with Raised Arms (Links to an external site.),

1930, Aristide Maillol, Marble
Photo by Flickr User: zebrawatcher
License through Creative Commons

(Links to an external site.)Touchdown

Jesus (Links to an external site.), Monroe, Ohio
Photo by Flickr User: danieljohnsonjr
License through Creative Commons

Art is a resource for questioning our perceptions about how objects and ideas present
themselves. The Belgian artist Rene Magritte (Links to an external site.) used his easel as a
soapbox to confront the viewer with confounding visual information. Click the hyperlink to

ART APPRECIATION pg. 13

watch a short video where Magritte considers language and perception (Links to an external
site.).

As was mentioned at the beginning of this module, there is a difference

between looking and seeing. To look is to glance back and forth, aware of surface qualities in
the things that come into our line of sight. To see is more about comprehending. After all,
when we say “I see” we really mean that we understand. Seeing goes beyond appearances.
So, as we confront the huge amounts of visual information coming at us we start to make
choices about what we keep and what we edit out. We concentrate on that which has the
most meaning for us: a street sign that helps us get home, a view of the mountains that lets
us enjoy a part of nature’s spectacle, or the computer screen that allows us to gather
information, whether it’s reading the content in this course or catching up on the day’s news
or emails. Our gaze becomes more specific, and with that comes specific meaning. At this
point what we see becomes part of what we know. It’s when we stop to contemplate what we
see – the view of the mountain mentioned above, a portrait or simple visual composition that
catches our eye – that we make reference to an aesthetic perception. That is, when
something is considered for its visual properties alone, and their relation to our ideas of what
is beautiful, as a vehicle for meaning.

No matter how visually aware we are, visual clues alone hinder our ability to fully
comprehend what we see. Words, either spoken or read as text, help fill in the blanks to
understanding. They provide a context; a historical background, religious function or other
cultural significance to the art we are looking at. We ask others for information about it, or find
it ourselves, to help understand the meaning. In a museum or gallery, it may be wall text that
provides this link, or a source text, website or someone knowledgeable about the art.

Now that we have a basic understanding of what art is, the cultural roles it plays and
the different categories and styles it can belong to we can begin to explore more specific
physical and conceptual issues surrounding it. Let’s start with the next module.

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Application
Activity 1: Read the questions below and answer the following questions.
1. What has been your exposure to visual art? Has it been
primarily from your family? School? Social activities?
Personal explorations?
2. Do you agree with the definition for ‘art’ as it’s
explained in module 1? Why or why not? Can you add
to the definition? Is your definition coming from a
subjective or objective perspective?

Activity 2: Using the external links as a resource or, choose to find any
resources, find a work of art to answer the following questions. The artwork can be
from any culture or time period.

 Provide the title, date and artist’s name. Make sure your source
has all of this information.
 What medium is used (painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture,
photograph or digital image, video, installation or performance)?

Give a short description of the work:

 Is it realistic, abstract or non-objective?
 What does it depict? What colors are used?
 What category does it fall under?
 What artistic role does it play? Does it take on more than one
role? Review the different roles discussed in Module 1 to help
you decide.

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References and Supplementary Materials

Books and Journals

Fernandez, Steven Patrick (2010) Making Theatre; The Craft of the Stage. Iligan
City: MSU – Iligan City: MSU Iligan Institute of Technology, Mindanao
State University

Marcos, Lucivila L. et.al. (2010) Introduction to the Humanities Visual and Performing
Arts: Mindshapers Co.,Inc.

Bascara, Linda R. et.al.- Rex Bookstore Inc.

Online Supplementary Reading Materials

http://www.saylor.org/courses/arth101b

http://www.sbctc.edu

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sac-artappreciation/part/context-andperspectives/

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