Introduction to Humanities and Art

Humanities

• Came from the Latin word humanus, meaning human, cultured, and refined.
• Three aspects of Humanities: Human thought, feelings, and human relationships.

Art

• Defined as a visual object or experience created through expression of skill or imagination.
• Originated from the Latin word arti, meaning craftsmanship, skill, mastery of form, and inventiveness.
• Six misconceptions about art: Art must be perfect, drawing and painting go hand in hand, more colors are better, small canvases are better than large canvases, painting is easy, and quantity equals quality.
• Two major varieties of art:
  • Fine art: Valued for imaginative, aesthetic, or intellectual content.
  • Minor art: Used for practical or everyday purposes.
• History of art started in immemorial times
• Kinds of Prehistoric/Stone age art:
  • Petroglyphs: Random rock carvings and engravings. Carvings have no specific sequence or story.
  • Pictographs: Graphic imagery symbols. Have a story and sequence. Need to be viewed in a specific direction.
  • Megalithic Art: Found on structural elements of megalithic tombs (capstones, kerbstones, and orthostats).

Visual Art

• Art which is visual in nature. Ex: painting, sculpture, architecture.

Performing Arts

• Artists utilize their body, face, and presence as a medium. Ex: Theatre and dance.

Literary Art

• Centered in creative writing. Ex: Poems, sonnets, and ballads

Artist

• Persons who perform any of the creative arts.
• Create art with aesthetic value using their imagination.

Artisan

• Skilled workers who make things by hand:
  • Jewelry and furniture

Elements of Art

• Line: A moving dot with a beginning and an end. Can be solid, dotted, or an outline.
• Shape: Created when lines enclose a space. Can be geometric or organic.
• Form: Shape with depth (3D).
• Space: The area between, around, or within an object. Can be 2D or 3D (overlapping, placement, size, and detail techniques).
• Value: The lightness or darkness of something.
• Color: Created when light is reflected into the viewer's eye. Color characteristics are in a color wheel.
• Texture: How an object feels to the touch.

Different Forms of Art 

• Paintings, sculpture, architecture.

Media in Visual Arts

• Drawing: Fundamental visual art skill - using pencils, different media for varying hardness or thickness.
• Encaustic: Heated pigmented wax applied to a surface.
• Oil Paint: Pigment suspended in drying oil, used in art.
• Tempera: Pigment mixed with water-soluble binder and used for fast-drying painting.
• Fresco: Applying water-based paint to wet plaster.
• Watercolor: Dry pigments mixed with binder, water applied to support materials (vellum, paper, or ivory).
• Acrylics: Fast-drying water-based paint, pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion.
• Pastel: Comprised of dry pigment held together by gum binder, compressed into sticks.
• Charcoal: Compressed or vine charcoal. Easy to blend or erase.

Sculpture

• Three-dimensional artistic forms
• Three kinds: Freestanding, relief, and kinetic.

The Artist and Their Medium

• Artist chooses medium based on their vision, materials availability, and special characteristics of medium
• Artist's skill and knowledge of the medium
• Medium (material) used: paints, music, images, etc.

Subject Matter (in Art)

• Visual focus or image within artwork.
• Representational (objective) art - depicts subject matter directly
• Non-representational (non-objective) art - does not depict specific imagery/subject matter.

Narrative in Art

• Naturalism, Realism, Abstraction, Symbolism, Fauvism, Futurism, Surrealism.
• The presentation of the subject may be directly depicted or indirectly implied, using elements like symbols or symbolism.

Art and His/Her Medium

• Production: The making of art, materials used are called medium.
• Medium (media): Materials artists use to create art (paints, sculptures, etc.)

Other Classifications of Arts

• Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Literary Arts.
• Combined Arts: using several mediums and forms simultaneously. Example: Drama, opera, movies.

Ways of Presenting the Subject

• Naturalism —depicts realistic objects in a natural setting
• Realism—attempts truthful representation without artificiality
• Abstraction—uses imagery to evoke emotion and ideas (beyond literal representation).
• Symbolism— uses a visible sign of an idea to convey the meaning or message of the artwork.
• Fauvism—emphasizes using bold colors
• Futurism—highlights speed, dynamism

Architecture

• Art and functionality are both important aspects of architecture.
• Building principles: Post and lintel, arch, wedge-shaped blocks, voussoirs, etc.
• Materials: Natural materials (stone, wood, etc.), synthetic materials (plastic, concrete, steel), and their related use in building design and constructions

Music

• Rhythm, Melody, Harmony, Timbre, Dynamics, Form

Dance

• Movement, Choreography, Technique, Theme.

Drama and Theatre

• Plot, Characters, Themes, Design, Genre of literature
• Drama: intended to be enacted on a stage for an audience

Cinema

• Set, Characters, Music, Sound, Colors, Makeup and Costume, Special Effects, Camerawork, Director