Chapter 2

• Context of art


  Factors that surround a work of art, including historical events, economic trends, contemporary cultural developments, religious attitudes, social norms, and other artworks of the time
• Inquiries about the context of an artwork

  • What key historical events occurred at the time the work was created?
  • What scientific discoveries or technological innovations may have influenced the artist?
  • What were the other artistic influences on the work?
  • What were the philosophical ideas of the time that informed the artwork?
  • What were the cultural influences?
  • Who was the intended audience?
  • Is the artist identified with a particular movement, school, or style?
  • What was the original purpose of the work?
• Primary context


  Pertains to the artist: their attitudes, beliefs, interests, values; education and training; and biography
• Secondary context


  Addresses the external conditions in which the work was produced: the apparent function of the work; religious and philosophical convictions; socio-political and economic structures; and even climate and geography
• Society


  Refers not only to systems of regulation and control, but also to social relations based on class, gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity, spiritual persuasion, political commitment, and moral norm
• Culture


  Involves how people in society make sense of the world around them by making meanings and sharing these meanings with others in the context of common but oftentimes contradictory and changing fields of exchange
• History


  The process by which society and culture are created by people who, because they are active human agents, transform nature into form in the constant remaking of everyday life
• Aesthetic experience


  Are our responses towards phenomena like enchantment, fear, awe, terror, or guilt all that it takes to name something as art, or consider something as artistic?
• Consensus of the art world

  The art world is a network of institutions (schools, museums, galleries, commercial market systems, and professions) which exercises the power to set the terms with which the public is made to perceive art
• Cultural practice and shared meaning

  Every culture creates art, and each has its own standards of representation, its own cultural context, and own aesthetic conventions
• Material conditions


  Refer to human labor and means of production, the social and technical relations of production, and the relations between social classes
• The value that an art object possesses is not inherently natural but bestowed upon it by individual aesthetic experience, institutional judgment, and social consensus
• The contexts set the conditions for art making and should be questioned in light of critical thinking
• Regionalism in art


  Celebrates local tradition and pride of place
• Regional art centers in the Philippines

  • Negros
  • Bacolod
  • Dumaguete
  • Baguio City
  • Davao
• The Promdi Project appropriates the derogatory term "promdi" (from the province) and turns it into an opportunity to educate Manileños with the Negrenses' cultural knowledge
• Fundamental components of art

  • Human imagination or creative thinking
  • Physical form through the imaginative use of materials or media
  • Appropriate tools and techniques applied to materials to craft the desired form based on concept
  • Art as a language or text which can be read and interpreted by the viewer
• Creativity is the ability to bring forth something new that has value
• Imagination or creative thinking


  Process begins with an idea or concept, which is given physical form through the imaginative use of materials or media
• Creative process


  Abstract concept is translated into something physical which can be experienced by others
• Creativity


  Ability to bring forth something new that has value
• Mere novelty is not enough; the new thing must have some relevance, or unlock some new way of thinking
• Creativity, the generation of new ideas, insights, and previously unimagined images and artifacts, is usually thought of as central to the making of art
• Art


  Akin to a language or a text which can be read by anyone, establishing a dialogue between the artist and the viewer
• Interpretation of contemporary artwork

  No single and correct meaning, differs from person to person based on individual experiences, prejudices, and cultural backgrounds
• When attempting to situate the meaning in a larger socio-historical context, the ideological and political implications of the work become apparent
• Fundamental components of art

  • Form
  • Language
  • Mode of Production
• Form


  Allows the work to be perceived by the senses and its ideas to be communicated through the arrangement of elements as a whole
• Elements of form


  • Line
  • Shape
  • Color
  • Texture
  • Mass
  • Volume
  • Space
• Creativity and imagination


  Must be taken into account in appreciating the form of art, beyond just the application of mechanical technique
• Imagination


  Faculty that allows us to generate mental pictures, ideas, and sensations that do not exist in the world and in some cases cannot exist
• Language of art


  Interprets reality and does not simply reflect it like a mirror, reworks reality to convey specific ideas and meanings
• Elements of the language of art

  • Image
  • Icons and symbolic meanings
  • Environment where it is used, displayed, or performed
  • Traditions, beliefs, and values of the culture
  • Writings and intellectual ideas that help explain the work
• Interpretation


  Concerned with the search for meaning, establishing meaningful connection between what we see and what we feel in a particular work of art
• For every artwork there is a concept of multiple interpretations
• Political economy


  Concerned with power and the distribution of economic resources in the context of art production, interrogates how institutions control creative industries and shape ideology
• Aspects of political economy of art

  • Capital and Labor
  • Power structures and power relations
  • Institutions of control
  • Art as propaganda and persuasive medium
• Ideological nature of art questions how images serve the interests of some, but not all, individuals in society
• Disciplines of art


  • Art production
  • Art criticism
  • Art history
  • Aesthetics
• Art production


  Process of responding to observations, concepts, emotions, and other experiences and interpreting these responses by creating artworks that employ human skill, intuition, and imagination