3/8/25, 8:04 PM 224 - GEE3: Lesson Proper for Week 7 | BCP

Lesson Proper for Week 7

VISUAL ARTS: OVERVIEW

Definition:

1. It is the arts created primarily for visual perception, as drawing, graphics, painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts. ([Link])
2. These are the arts that meet the eye and evoke emotion through an expression of skill and imagination. They include the most ancient forms, such as
painting and drawing, and the arts that were born thanks to the development of technology, like sculpture, printmaking, photography, and installation
art, the latter a combination of multiple creative expressions. Though beauty is in the eye of the beholder, different eras in art history have had their
own principles to define beauty, from the richly ornamented taste of the Baroque to the simple, utilitarian style of the Prairie School. ([Link])
3. Visual arts or studio art refers to art experienced primarily through the sense of sight. ([Link])

Different ways to describe the meaning of visual arts:

1. Artistic Expression: Visual arts are a form of artistic expression where ideas, emotions, and stories are conveyed through visual elements like color,
shape, and composition.
2. Creative Discipline: A broad category of creative disciplines, including painting, sculpture, photography, and digital art, that focus on creating works
to be seen and appreciated visually.
3. Visual Communication: Visual arts serve as a means of communication that transcends language, using imagery to convey messages, ideas, and
emotions.
4. Aesthetic Experience: An area of the arts that provides aesthetic experiences, allowing viewers to engage with beauty, form, and meaning through
visual perception.
5. Cultural Reflection: Visual arts reflect cultural values, beliefs, and histories, acting as a mirror of society and a record of human experiences across
time and space.
6. Personal Interpretation: A field where the interpretation of visual elements by the artist and the viewer creates a shared or individual understanding
of meaning and significance.
7. Emotional Connection: Visual arts create an emotional connection between the artwork and the audience, eliciting feelings, memories, and personal
associations.
8. Exploration of Visual Elements: Visual arts involve the exploration and manipulation of visual elements such as line, texture, light, and color to
create expressive and meaningful works.
9. Imaginative Representation: Visual arts often represent real or imagined worlds, offering perspectives on life, nature, and the abstract through
visual creativity.
10. Visual Culture: An essential component of visual culture, encompassing all forms of visual media and artifacts that influence and reflect society’s
visual environment.

VISUAL ART DIMENSION

2-D Art

Typical courses include drawing, illustration, sketching, painting, and collage. All are two-dimensional or 2-D forms of visual art, in which the final
product is created on a flat surface. Printmaking and photography are considered 2-D arts even though the images they portray may appear to be 3-D.
Most collages and many mosaics are also 2-D, although there is some overlap with 3-D art depending on the media the artist uses.

3-D Art

Three-dimensional or 3-D art courses include sculpture, metalworking, jewelry design, ceramics, pottery, woodworking, architecture, and landscape
design. Students create 3-D visual art pieces by starting with 2-D tools, like graphite pencils or charcoal, to sketch their designs. They then use the
media-specific to the final 3-D product, such as clay, wood, metal, stones, precious gems, glass, and other materials.

Medium of Arts

1. DRAWING - is a means of making an image, using of a wide variety of tools and techniques.
2. PAINTING - is the practice of applying pigment suspended in a carrier (or medium) and a binding agent (a glue) to a surface (support) such as paper,
canvas, or a wall.
3. PRINTMAKING - is creating for artistic purposes an image on a matrix which is then transferred to a two-dimensional (flat) surface by means of ink
(or another form of pigmentation).
4. PHOTOGRAPHY - is the process of making pictures by means of the action of light.
5. FILMMAKING - is the process of making a motion picture, from an initial conception and research, through scriptwriting, shooting and recording,
animation or other special effects, editing, sound, and music work, and finally distribution to an audience; it refers broadly to the creation of all types of
films, embracing documentary, strains of theatre and literature in film, and poetic or experimental practices, and is often used to refer to video-based
processes as well.
6. COMPUTER ART- is an art in which computers played a role in the production or display of the artwork.
7. SCULPTURE - is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials - typically stone such as marble - or metal, glass, or
wood
8. Mixed media - refers to an artwork in the making of which more than one medium has been employed.
9. DECORATIVE ARTS – These include art used for displace, design, and decoration.
10. FASHION ARTS - is a form of art dedicated to the creation of clothing and other lifestyle accessories.

ARTS: STYLE AND FACTOR

1. Geographical Factors - places where artists stay influence their work.

2. Historical Factors - historical events exert a great influence on the artist.

3. Social Factors – the purpose is for people.

4. Ideation Factors - ideas coming from various people that influence artists.
Example: Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, said that the human body is the most beautiful thing to present in art. This soon gave birth to
nudism.

5. Psychological Factors - works produced by artists are affected by their psychological make-up or framework.
Example:
“The Sick Child” by Edward Munch (right) – childhood experience of contracting an illness after the loss of a loved one; “The Filipino is Worth Dying for” by Sen.
Benigno Aquino, Jr. – written when he was still a deportee in the U.S.

6. Technical Factors - using different techniques, brushes, and strokes.

ELEMENTS OF VISUAL ARTS

The visual elements of art are a set of features in visual art. These features are tools at the artist’s disposal and also ways for viewers to
understand what they are seeing. It is with these simple features that every stunning masterpiece was created, along with every billboard design and video
game character.

To help us understand the elements, we will feature famous paintings that illustrate the power that these have. But remember, in almost any given
painting, an artist is using many elements to great effect — quite often, they use every element with purpose.

1. Line

Let’s begin with what is perhaps the simplest element. The line is a continuous mark between two points.

In Les trois baigneuses (1907), Henri Matisse uses bold outlines of the bathers, setting them off from the background. By using these bold lines,
Matisse helps emphasize the soft features of the bathers — notice their round shoulders.

Lines make up so much of visual art that it can be easy to forget them, yet they form the basis of everything else.

Figure 2: Les Trois Baigneuses by Henry Matisse

Source: [Link]

2. Shape

Shapes are created by enclosing a space in lines. Consider your basic shapes from kindergarten: the square, the circle, the triangle, etc. But
shapes can, of course, become much more complicated. Consider the bathers in the example above. Their body outlines are shapes.

Shapes are always two-dimensional. But with the right use of color or texture (as we’ll see below), an artist can make them appear three-
dimensional. But what if you’re working in a visual art that is three dimensional? Then you are working in forms.

3. Form

A form is a three-dimensional feature. It will have height, length, and depth. A sphere, cube, and pyramid are forms, just as the body of a tree is a
form (as long as it is 3D).

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Figure 3: Roof Architecture at Casa Batllo by Antoni Gaudí

Source: [Link]

Forms can be arranged in exquisitely complex ways. Antoni Gaudí was a master of form. His architecture explores organic forms in built
environments. In the above detail from the roof of Casa Batlló, you can see how Gaudí combines forms from the natural world like tortoise shells along the
curving roof.

4. Color

is defined by hue, value, and intensity. It is the range of visual light in the spectrum and properties of the pigments used in making visual art.

1. Hue is the name given to different wavelengths of light from the visual spectrum.
2. Value is the degree of lightness or darkness.
3. Intensity is the amount of pigment or saturation. The bright a color the more pigment it contains.

5. Value

Value refers to the relative darkness or lightness of a color or an area. In truth, this is deeply related to color, but people often break it out into its
own element. To get a sense of the values in a work of art, take a black-and-white photo of it with your smartphone. What you will see is a value map of
the work, showing how the artist uses the difference in values to create emphasis, realism, or some other effect.

6. Space and Perspective

Space refers to everything in a work of visual art related to area. That includes:

Perspective: how things look at a distance to the viewer

Proportion: the relative size of objects (i.e. smaller or larger)

Space can also denote the use of area:

Positive space: area in a work with a subject

Negative space: area without a subject

Figure 4: The School of Athens by Raffaello (Raphael)

Source: [Link]

In Raphael’s The School of Athens (1511), space and perspective are used to create an amazing sense of depth. He does this by lining up the
human subjects in staggered rows and using single-point perspective on the commanding architecture above, so that it shrinks down to a single point as it
moves away from the viewer.

7. Texture

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3/8/25, 8:04 PM 224 - GEE3: Lesson Proper for Week 7 | BCP
In many forms of visual art, the artist creates an image using some kind of marking. This creates a visual texture on the work.

This texture can be very real — what we call tactile. In Vincent Van Gogh’s masterpiece The Starry Night (1889), the artist applied paint in thick
layers. This produced a real texture. But texture can also be implied. That is, the eye can think it sees texture when really it is created (or exaggerated) by
the use of other elements like color and line.

Figure 5: Starry Night by Van Gogh

Source: [Link]

PRINCIPLE OF VISUAL ARTS

1. Rhythm - is a patterned organization of colors, lines, textures, or combinations of art elements that create a pleasing effect. A visual rhythm will lead
the eye from one area to another in a rhythmical and orderly manner.
2. Balance - is the perception of equilibrium between the elements in the piece of art.
3. Emphasis - is the focal point of interest in a piece created by accenting or exaggerating a specific area or art element to create greater interest.
4. Contrast - is the comparison of two elements that appear different (values of light and dark, hues). Strong contrasts are the most dissimilar examples
of an art element (dark - light, black-white)
5. Unity - is the perception of the parts of a piece and their relationship with the dominant or unifying elements.

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