Lesson 1

HUMANITIES: Meaning, Significance and Components

Jake Darren T. Colina, Lecturer

Humanities
Humanities come from the Latin word Humunus which means human, cultured, refined. It refers to a loosely defined group of cultural subject area. It is not a group of scientific or technical subjects; it is Arts.

Humanities
Forms of Arts
1. Visual arts
Applied Art

2. Performing Arts

Humanities
Artist
is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art.

Visual Arts
Can be defined as a form of art that uses any medium to represent the artist's idea, emotion and imagination. Can be further classified as:
Drawing Painting Sculpture Calligraphy Photography

Visual Arts
Applied Art
a part of visual art and can be defined as art that has practical application and functionality.
Architecture Fashion Design Jewelry Design Wood Crafts Interior Design

Performing Arts
Are art forms in which artists use their body or voice to convey artistic expression Forms of performing arts are:
Dance Singing Films and Theatre Music

Purpose of Art
1. To create beauty
Artist considered nature as the standard of beauty. On the other hand, artist has aimed to improve upon nature.

2. To improve Decoration
Works of art have been used to create pleasing environments. (e.g. painting, sculpture, photographs)

Purpose of Art
3. To Reveal Truth
Artists have pursued truth and attempted to reveal it

4. To Immortalize
An artist can defy mortality by creating a work that will keep his talents and his tragedy in the public consciousness for decades.

Purpose of Art
5. To Express Religious Values
Art has been used to express hopes for fertility, to propitiate gods, to symbolize great religious values, and to command heavenward the souls of the departed.

6. To record and Commemorate Experience

Art has been used to inform future generations of what and who have gone before them. (e.g. EDSA Shrine in the Philippines)

Purpose of Art
7. To Create Order and Harmony
Artists makes use of compositions to put order in their diverse content of his work. (e.g. Japanese sand garden)

Principles of Artistic Composition

1. Proportion
Is the comparative relationship of the parts of or composition to each other and the to the whole.

Rara Avis by Jylian Gustlin

Principles of Artistic Composition

2. Unity / Harmony
Is the oneness or wholeness. Repetition of angles and curves, shapes, lines and color will give a harmonious effect.

Starry Night by Van Gogh

Principles of Artistic Composition

3. Balance
A work of art possess balance when its visual or actual weights or masses (including color) are distributed in such a way that they achieve harmony.

Photograph by Ian Bramham

Principles of Artistic Composition

3. Balance
Formal Balance or symmetric balance

Informal or Asymmetric balance or called accult balance.

Principles of Artistic Composition

4. Rhythm
A series of units repeated one after another produces rhythmic movement.

By Patrick Raymond

Principles of Artistic Composition

5. Emphasis
Means giving the proper importance to the parts or to the whole.

Styles of Art
1. Realism
Realism portrays people and things as they are seen by the eyes or really thought to be, without distortion.

Rice Planting by Fernando Amorsolo

Styles of Art
2. Abstraction
Abstract art moves from showing things as they really are.

Two basic variations:

1. Geometric 2. Looser

Styles of Art
2. Abstraction/Geometric
Often suggests rationality and is associated with such modern movements as constructivism, cubism, and concrete art.

by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque

Styles of Art
2. Abstraction/Looser
Associated with such modern movement as abstract expressionism.

By Jackson Pollock

Styles of Art
3. Symbolism
Is a visible sign of something invisible such as an idea or a quality.

Spoliarium by Juan Luna

Styles of Art
4. Expressionism
In expressionistic art, form and color, are freely distorted by the artist in order to achieve emotional impact.

The Scream by Edvard Munch

Styles of Art
5. Surrealism
Surrealism uses art as a weapon against the evils and restrictions that surrealist see in society.

By Salvador Dali

Styles of Art
6. Fauvism
Artist tried to print pictures of comfort, joy, and pleasure. The subject matter centered on traditional nudes, still lifes and landscapes.

The Red Room by Henri Matisse

Styles of Art
7. Futurism
Futurism painters wanted their works to capture the speed of force and modern industry society.