ART APPRECIATION
BENEDICK M. AGUILAR, RN, MAPSY
INSTRUCTOR
LESSON 1 - ASSUMPTIONS AND NATURE OF ARTS
Objectives: At the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
a) Define and identify assumptions and nature of arts
b) Give the significance of assumptions and nature of arts in real life
situation.
c) Cite Filipino artwork
WHAT IS ART?

Art is something that is perennially around us.

Some people may deny having to do with arts but it is indisputable that life presents us with many forms of and
opportunities for communion with the arts.

The word ART comes from the ancient Latin, “ARS” which means a “craft or specialized form of skill, like
carpentry or smithying or surgery” (Collingwood, 1938).

Ars in Medieval Latin came to mean something different. It meant “any special form of book- learning, such as
grammar or logic, magic or astrology” (Collingwood, 1983).

The fine arts would come to mean “not delicate or highly skilled arts, but “beautiful arts” (Collingwood, 1983).

“The humanities constitute one of the oldest and most important means of expression developed by man” (Dudley et
al., 1960). Human history has witnessed how man evolved not just physically but also culturally, from cave painters to
men of exquisite paintbrush users of the present.
ASSUMPTIONS OF ART
1. ART IS UNIVERSAL
 Timeless, spanning generations and continents through and through.
 Misconception: Artistic made long time ago.
 Age is not a factor in determining art.
 Literature has provided key words of art.
 lliad and the Odyssey are the two Greek Epics that one’s being taught in school.
 The Sanskrit pieces Mahabharata and Ramanaya are also staples in this fields (India).
 In every country and in every generation, there is always art. Often times, people feel that what is
considered artistic are only those which have been made long time ago. This is a misconception.
Age is not a factor in determining art. “An art is not good because it is old, but old because it
is good” (Dudley et al., 1960)
 In the Philippines, the works of Jose Rizal and Francisco Balagtas are not being read because
they are old.
 Florante at Laura never fails to teach high school students the beauty of love, one that is universal
and pure.
 Ibong Adarna, another Filipino masterpiece, has always captured the imagination of the young with
its timeless lessons.
 When we recite the Psalms, we feel in communion with King David as we feel one with him in his
conversation with God.
 When we listen to a Kundiman or perform folk dances, we still enjoy the way our Filipino
ancestors while away their time in the past.
2. ART IS NOT NATURE

Art, not directed by representation of reality, is a perception of reality.

In the Philippines, it is not entirely novel to hear some consumers of local movies remark that these movies
produced locally are unrealistic. They contend that local movies work around certain formula to the detriment of
substance and faithfulness to reality of movies.

Paul Cezanne, a French painted a scene from reality entitled Well and Grinding Wheel in the Forest of the Chateau
Noir .
3. ART INVOLVES EXPERIENCE
 It does not full detail but just an experience. Actual doing of something.
 Getting this far without a satisfactory definition of art can be quite weird for some. For most
people, art does not require a full definition. Art is just experience. By experience, we mean
the “actual doing of something” (Dudley et al., 1960) and it also affirmed that art depends
on experience, and if one is to know art, he must know it not as fact or information but as an
experience.
 A work of an art then cannot be abstracted from actual doing. In order to know what an
artwork, we have to sense it, see and hear it.
 An important aspect of experiencing art is its being highly personal, individual, and
subjective. In philosophical terms, perception of art is always a value judgment. It
depends on who the perceive is, his tastes, his biases, and what he has inside.