Art Appreciation: Humanistic Discipline Module 2

What Makes Us Human?

• The human brain, weighing only about 3 pounds, gives us the ability to reason and think on our feet beyond the capabilities of the rest of the animal kingdom.
• Empathy is a common human phenomenon, associated with advanced intelligence, which allows us to understand the harms or benefits that impact other humans, as well as their associated feelings.
• To be human is to have a logical mind and a feeling heart.

What Do We Study in School?

• Through art and language, we learn about:
  • Nature: land, water, and air (chemistry, physics, geology); plants and animals (zoology, botany, biology) which falls under Natural Sciences.
  • Culture: common knowledge (sociology, psychology, political science, and anthropology); art and language (humanities, linguistics, and history) that falls under Social Sciences.

Ideological State Apparatuses

• A term developed by Marxist theorist Louis Althusser to denote institutions that transmit state values and maintain order in a society, reproducing capitalist relations of production.
• These institutions utilize art and language to influence and teach people.
• Schools and educational institutions are part of the Ideological state apparatus, preparing working-class pupils to accept a life of exploitation.

Before Colonization, the Colonial Community, and Church Power

• The early Filipino inhabitants were mostly river dwellers, educated through rituals and beliefs using oral tradition.
• Using art and language, important knowledge was passed on from one generation to another.
• The church "controlled" education using art and language through oral traditions, observing that Filipinos were fond of poetry.

Mass Media, Branches of Art, and General Field of Learning

• ART CREATION, ART PRACTICE
• ART APPRECIATION, SPECTATOR THEORY
• SCIENCES: deals with Natural and Physical Phenomena, using the Scientific method.
• HUMANITIES: deals with Human Phenomena, using the Reflexive Method.
• Thinkers who were the basis of method in the Humanities:
  • Socrates: "Know Thyself"
  • Augustine: "Withdraw into yourself truth dwells in the inner man"
  • Thales of Miletus: "A scientist tends to know everything about the world that he forgets to know about himself"
  • Confucius: The Great Sage

The Sciences vs. The Humanities

• The scientist becomes a learned man/KNOWLEDGE.
• The humanist becomes a wise man/WISDOM.

Module 3: The Humanities in Western Civilization

• According to Erwin Panofsky, a Humanist:
  • Art is a humanistic discipline.
  • People in a state of culture in a civilized world are referred to as "humanitas".
  • Savages in a state of nature for survival are referred to as "barbaritas".
  • Gods in a state of perfection in heaven are called "divinitas".

The Place of Humanities in the History of Western Civilization

• Ancient Times (800 BC): Cosmocentric view, emphasizing human-kind as the most important element of existence.
• Medieval Times (300 AD): Theocentric view, believing that the Christian God is the central aspect to our existence.
• Renaissance Times (1400 AD): Anthropocentric view, considering humans to be the most important thing in the Universe.
• Modern Times (1600): Scientific-Technocentric view, centered on technology and its ability to control and protect the environment.
• Post-Modern Times (1960): Eclectic view, drawing upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject.

The Humanistic Discipline

• History: Human events happening in the world.
• Languages: 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.

Liberal Arts and Servile Arts

• Liberal Arts: produced by artists, considered the Fine Arts.
• Servile Arts: made by artisans, considered crafts.
• The seven (7) Major Arts produced by artists include:
  1. Literature
  2. Music
  3. Visual Arts
  4. Dance
  5. Theater
  6. Architecture
  7. Cinema