Art Appreciation

• Two General Fields of Learning


  • The Sciences - deals with natural, physical phenomena
  • The Humanities - deals with human phenomena
• Thinkers whose Thoughts were the Basis of Method in the Humanities

  • Socrates, 469-399 BC - "Know thyself."
  • Augustine, 354-430 AD - "Withdraw into yourself truth dwells in the inner man."
  • Thales of Miletus, 620-546 BC - "A scientist tends to know everything about the world that he forgets to know anything about himself."
  • Confucius 555-479 BC - "The Great Sage" Wise Man
• The Place of Humanities in the History of Western Civilization

  • Ancient 800 BC - Cosmocentric View
  • Ancient 800 BC - Protagoras: Man is the measure of all things
  • Ancient 800 BC - Geocentrism: Man is at the center of the universe
  • Medieval 300 AD - Theocentric View
  • Medieval 300 AD - Scholasticism: Man is created in the image of God. Man is at the center of creation
  • Renaissance 1400 - Anthropocentric View
  • Renaissance 1400 - Humanism: Nothing is more wonderful than man
  • Modern 1600 - Scientific-Technocentric View
  • Modern 1600 - Man is a part of nature
  • Postmodern 1960 - Eclectic View
  • Postmodern 1960 - Man is a piece of everything
• Humanistic discipline

  • History - Human events happening in the world
  • Language - Written and oral forms of human communication
  • Philosophy - Human reason concerning reality
  • Art - Admiration (Art Appreciation) of human-made objects and the human creativity (Art creation) by which these objects are made
• The word "art" comes from the Latin word "ars" which means skillful production or performance
• Types of art

  • Liberal art - associated with artists who make art related to Fine Arts as a professional and academic
  • Servile art - related to making crafts and considered as the minor art
• Western Concept of Art

  • Academic - only schooled people are artists
  • Elitist - meant for the higher social class
  • Hierarchical - liberal art and servile art, high and low art, major art and minor art or craft, fine art and practical art, folk art, indigenous art, popular art
• Western Classification of the Arts

  • Major Art - Made by artists and primarily concerned with the form of beauty
  • Minor Art or Craft - made by artisans and concerned with functionality and usefulness of human-made objects (artifacts)
• The Seven Major Arts in Western Civilization

  • Visual - Painting, sculpture, Architecture
  • Performing - Music, Dance, Drama
  • Linguistic - Literature
• Minor Arts: Crafts

  • Ceramics, Weaving, Sewing, Handicraft, Carpentry, Masonry, Stone Cutting, Gardening, Cooking
• The Humanities and the Filipino Personhood (Pagkatao)


  • The Jar and the Filipino Personhood - Labas - ulo and dibdib, Loob - isip and damdamin, Lalim - kaluluwa and budhi
  • Labas ng Pagkatao - Katawan (Physical) - kulay ng balat (maputi, maitim), tindig (matangkad, pandak), ilong (matangos, pango), dibdib (malapad, malaki)
  • Loob ng pagkatao - Kalooban (Espiritual, Emotional, and Moral) - isip (matalino), ugali, asal (mabuti)
  • Lalim ng Pagkatao - Kaluluwa (spiritual - anito (banal)
• Loob ng pagkatao - Kalooban


  • Espiritual
  • Emotional
  • Moral
• Non-Dualistic Relation in Filipino Psychology

  • LABAS
  • LOOB
• “Pagpapakatao” is the process on how a human being becomes a Filipino
• Pre-colonial Period (Before 1500’s) – Had our own cultural identity
• Colonial Period (1500-1950) – Our identity destroyed by colonizers: Westernization of Filipino Culture making us alienated from our own
• Post-Colonial Period (1950 onwards) – Reclamation, affirmation, and definition of our identity in our own terms
• Forms of Alienation Caused by Westernization of Filipino Culture

  • Alienation from community
  • Alienation from our source of cultural energy: Thinking in borrowed forms and the economics of dependency
  • Alienation from our race: The Doña Victorina Syndrome
  • Alienation from the Indigenous: Denigrating the local
  • Alienation from the land
  • Alienation from being Filipino
  • Alienation from sustainable living
• The arts can provide us the most vivid images of social relations and cultural values. They are perhaps the most lucid symbols of a people’s quality of being or consciousness. Contemplating the arts is like reflecting on the psychic template of an artist or a cultural community
• Western Concept of Art: Academic - Only schooled people are artists, Elitist - Meant for the higher social class, Hierarchical - High and low art, major art and craft, fine and practical art, folk, indigenous
• Damian Domingo (1796-1834) – Father of Philippine Painting: Son of Chinese immigrants converted to Christianity, but thought to be a noble Spanish descent by the Spaniards so that they commissioned him to paint, Engaged by a merchant to paint, in miniaturismo style, albums of people wearing their daily costumes, Had a vision of making art more accessible to the Filipinos (Indios), Founded the first Art School in the Phi
• Engaged by a merchant to paint

  In miniaturismo style, albums of people wearing their daily costumes
• Founded the first Art School in the Philippines

  Escuela Dibujo y Pintura in Tondo Manila in 1821
• Sociedad Economica de los Amigos del Pais


  His patron saint
• Filipino Concept of Art has no such Western distinctions
• Juan Luna (1857-1899) was an Academic Westernized Filipino Painter
• Juan Luna's Achievements

  • Bachelor of Arts Degree, Ateneo Municipal de Manila
  • Studied in Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
  • Won gold medal in Exposicion Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1884 for Spoliarium
  • Commissioned by Spanish government to do paintings like La Batalla de Lepanto and El Pacto de Sangre
  • Arrested for murdering his wife and mother-in-law, but was acquitted on grounds of crime of passion
• Rizal: 'Winning the exposition had proven that Filipinos were equal with the Spaniards, so that Filipinos deserve the recognition of other people in the world with equal dignity and respect'
• Rizal: 'In the history of mankind there are names which in themselves signify an achievement.... To such belong the names of Luna and Hidalgo: their splendor illuminates two extremes of the globe-the Orient and the Occident, Spain and the Philippines. As I utter them, I seem to see two luminous arches that rise from either region to blend there on high...to unite two peoples with eternal bonds; two peoples whom the seas and space vainly separate; two peoples among whom do not germinate the seeds of disunion blindly sown by men and their despotism. Luna and Hidalgo are the pride of Spain as of the Philippines-though born in the Philippines, they might have been born in Spain, for genius has no country; genius bursts forth everywhere....'
• One positive way of looking at Filipino identity in the arts is to see Philippine Art as integrated in Western Art, and these two traditions are uniting and harmonizing with one another
• The Philippine culture has to be dynamic in its relation with other cultures in the world. By harmonizing the Western and the Filipino concepts of art and its practice, a truly Philippine identity in the arts would emerge out of the shared cultural universe, not only of our own people, but of the humanity as a whole
• Three Human Faculties

  • Mind
  • Will
  • Senses
• Senses

  • Eyes
  • Ears
  • Nose
  • Tongue
  • Skin
• Imagination

  • Perception
  • Sensation
  • Seeing
  • Hearing
  • Smelling
  • Tasting
  • Touching
  • Imagining
• Formal Arts


  • May be judged as objective - seeing only lines and colors and has no representations
  • May be subjective - representing anything you see that fit your imagination and thoughts
• Art is subjective because we are creative
• The Process of Art Appreciation

  1. Positive perceptual emotional intellectual response to the beauty of artworks

  2. Sense-Data and Representation

  3. Feelings

  4. Meanings

  5. Communication and Reaction

  6. Value that delights
• Art and Reality

  • Art is talent, skill, passion, emotion, idea, truth, reality, goodness, beauty, form, expression, representation, power
  • Art is reality
  • Art is seen as representational image
  • Art is seen as abstract image but still representational
  • Art is seen as form composed of shapes, colors, etc
  • Art is seen as pure form
  • Art is seen as the object itself
• Gombrich, E.: 'Pygmalion’s power. Art and illusion: a study on the psychology of pictorial representation, pp.80-83'
• Orate, A.: 'Art and perception of the world, in UE Today, Vol. 12, No. 2., pp. 7-8 & 14. Manila: University of the East'