Chapter 2: Functions, Philosophical Perspectives, Subject and Content of Art

personal function, social function, physical function

3 functions of art

music, sculpture

2 other functions of art

Aristotle

He said that every particular substance in the world has an end, which translates to purpose “every substance, defined as formed matter, moves according to a fixed path towards it aim.”

telos

Greek word which means end

varied, highly subjective

The personal functions of art are _____ and _____.

Functions

depend on the artists who created an art

self-expression, entertainment, therapeutic

An artist may create art out of ____, _____, or _____ functions.

it addresses a particular collective interest as opposed to a personal interest.

Art is considered to have a social function if and when _____.

convey a message or protest, contestation

Art may _____, _____, or whatever message the artist intends his work to carry

Performance art

like plays or satires can also rouse emotions and rally people toward a particular end

Political art

is a very common example of art with social functions

photography

Art can also depict social conditions such as _____.

physical purpose

The physical functions of art can be found in artworks that are crafted in order to serve some _____.

architecture, jewelry-making, and interior design

3 examples of art that serve physical functions

dance, religion

Music was principally used for _____ and _____.

facilitate worship, invocation to the gods

The ancient world saw music as an instrument to _____ and _____.

synchronicity of dancers

Music was essential for the _____.

warriors were simultaneous

Music guarantees that _____.

expanded its functions

Today, music has _____. There is a lot of music that has no connections to dance or religion.

plays, motion pictures

Music is also used as an accompaniment to stage _____.

sculpture

have been made by man most particularly for religion

vital, relevant, and symbolic

In the Roman Catholic world, the employment of sculptures for religious purposes has remained _____, _____, and _____.

art as an imitation, art as a representation, art as a disinterested judgement, art as a communication of emotion

4 philosophical perspectives on art

Plato

• Explains a picture of artists as imitators and arts as mere imitations.

• He advises against the inclusion of art as a subject in the curriculum and banning artists.

• “Art is false knowledge of reality.”

Aristotle

• He conceived art as representing possible versions of reality.

• For him, all kinds of art do not aim to represent reality as it is. They endeavor to provide a version of what might be or the myriad possibilities of reality.

experience of pleasure, ability to be instructive and teach its audience things about life

For Aristotle, art allows for the _____ and art also has the _____.

Immanuel Kant

He considered the judgement of beauty, the cornerstone of art, as something that can be universal despite its subjectivity.

Critique of Judgement

This is where Immanuel Kant tackled how he considered the judgement of beauty, the cornerstone of art, as something that can be universal despite its subjectivity.

Leo Tolstoy

He philosophized that art plays a huge role in communication to its audience’s emotions that the artist previously experienced.

communicates emotions

In the same way that language communicates information to other people, art communicates _____.

Music is the lowest of all arts

Immanuel Kant believes that _____ because it gives only sensible pleasure.

Immanuel Kant

He believes that music is the lowest of all arts because it gives only sensible pleasure.

Music is the greatest

Arthur Schopenhauer believes that _____ because it is capable of freeing man from his fears and desires, from his anger and despair, and from other passions and anxieties.

Arthur Schopenhauer

He believes that music is the greatest because it is capable of freeing man from his fears and desires, from his anger and despair, and from other passions and anxieties.

Poetry has the best qualities

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel believes that _____ like immediate perception, creative imagination, development of thoughts and events.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

He believes that poetry has the best qualities like immediate perception, creative imagination, development of thoughts and events.

fusion of poetry and music is the highest art

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz believes that _____.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz

He believes that fusion of poetry and music is the highest art.

Oscar Wilde

It is life that imitates art.

Henri-Louis Bergson

It is not reason that enables us to imitate; art is not imitation; art is made from intuition(immediate sensation and intense feeling)

G.E. Moore

Art is both imitation and intuition

Sigmund Freud

Art is a wish-fulfillment; an excellent work of art results from frustration

Jose Ortega Y Gaset

Art is a form of escape; escape from negative elements

Benedetto Croce

Art is merely an expression regardless if it is understood or not

Albert Camus

Art is rebellion

John Dewey

Art is not limited in the gallery and museum

Dante Leoncini

When man beautifies himself, he becomes a human art

Margarette Macdonalds

Art is esoteric. It is mysterious. It is indefinable. It is transintelligible. It is only describable

subject

the what

content

the why

form

the how

subject

is whatever is represented in a work of art

subject

is the expression of the artist’s view of his/her existence in his/her art

subject

is the theme or topic of the artist in his/her art

subject

refers to the main idea that is represented in the artwork

subject

is basically the essence of the piece

non-objective

arts without a subject, meaning that they do not represent anything as they are what they are without reference to anything in the natural world

representational art, non-representational art, abstract art

3 types of subject

representational art

These types of arts have subjects that refer to objects or events occurring in the real world.

figurative art

Representational art is also termed as ____ because of the figures depicted are easy to make out and decipher.

non-representational art

These are art forms that do not make a reference to the real world, whether it is a person, place, or even a particular event.

visual elements

Non-representational art is tripped down to ____, such as shapes, lines, and colors that are employed to translate a particular feeling, emotion, and concept.

everything in front of you would be the answer, everything you are inspired with

If you really ask in a plain way what can be sources of art in subjects, ____.

physical environment, Greek and Roman mythology, religion

3 examples of sources of subjects

physical environment

Artist have always been fascinated with the beauty of their ____. They would observe nature on its beautiful and restful mood, and apply pigments on canvas on varying textures and colors.

Greek and Roman mythology

They are also rich sources of art subject as stories from these are centered on the gods, goddesses, and heroes.

religion

It has played an enormous role in inspiring works of visual arts, music, architecture, and literature through the ages.

still life, landscape, portraiture, abstract, nature

5 main subjects artists have been exploring in art for centuries

still life

a collection of inanimate objects arranged in a specific way

landscape

is the depiction of natural scenery in art

landscape paintings

may capture mountains, valleys, bodies of water, fields, forests, coasts, and may or may not include man-made structures as well as people

portraiture

an image of a particular person or animal, or group thereof

abstract

a non-representational work of art

nature

a focused view of interpretation of specific natural element

realism, abstraction, abstract expressionism, expressionism, futurism, surrealism, fauvism, dadaism

8 ways of presenting the subject

realism

It concerns with the depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life.

realism

The artist’s main function is to describe accurately what is observed through the senses.

abstraction

It refers to art unconcerned with the literal depiction of things from the visible world.

abstraction

It means to move away or separate from showing things as they really are, making the art work not realistic.

distortion, elongation, mangling, cubism, abstract expressionism

5 kinds of abstraction

distortion

It is the alteration of the original shape of an object, image, or other form of representation.

misshaped condition

In distortion, the subject is in a _____.

elongation

The subject or painting is being lengthened or extended.

mangling

It shows subjects or objects which are cut, mutilated, lacerated, or hacked.

cubism

Subjects are shown in basic geometrical shapes.

cubism

Objects are broken up, analyzed, and reassembled in an abstracted form using cones, cylinders, spheres, or other pictorial elements.

abstract expressionism

It uses large canvasses; lack of refinement in the application of paint, strong color, uneven brush, and rough texture.

1. They depict forms unrealistically or, at the extreme end, forms not drawn from the visible world (nonobjective).

2. They emphasize free, spontaneous, and personal emotional expression, and they exercise considerable freedom of technique and execution to attain this goal, with a particular emphasis laid on the exploitation of the variable physical character of paint to evoke expressive qualities (e.g., sensuousness, dynamism, violence, mystery, lyricism).

3. They display the abandonment of conventionally structured composition built up out of discrete and segregable elements and their replacement with a single unified, undifferentiated field, network, or other image that exists in unstructured space

3 characteristics of abstract expressionism

expressionism

It presents the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas.

futurism

It emphasizes and glorifies themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed and technology.

futurism

Its work aims to capture the speed and force of modern industrial society and to glorify the mechanical energy of modern life.

surrealism

It tries to reveal a new and higher reality than that of life. They try to claim to create a magical world more beautiful than the real one through art.

super realism

Surrealism came from the slang of _____.

Surrealist artists

used their canvases to visualize what happens when the conscious and unconscious realms unite.

surrealism

The meaning of _____ is to unleash the creative potential of the unconscious mind through art to depict unspoken desires.

fauvism

Themes are either ethical, philosophical, or psychological.

bright

It uses extreme _____ color.

comfort, joy, pleasure.

Most of the fauves tried to paint pictures of _____, _______, and _____

simpler and less naturalistic form of expression

Fauvism preferred a _____.

intricate arrangement of cold and warm colors and the creation of decorative compositions

The genre’s followers adopted an expressive emotionalism that emphasized the artist’s inner feelings and ideas with the _____.