This document discusses various topics relating to art, including what constitutes art, its functions in society, and how it is defined culturally. It addresses whether art is strictly a human phenomenon or if animals also create art. It explores the visual elements of art like line, shape, color, texture and space. It examines how art's form and content are influenced by culture and aesthetics. The document suggests that what is considered beautiful varies widely between cultures and there is no universal standard of beauty. It encourages examining concepts of beauty from different parts of the world.

1. A Human Phenomenon
& The language OF ART
& ARCHITECTURE
ART201
Ms. Beka
Exploring Art: A Global Thematic Approach

2. Let’s Discuss…
What is art?

3. A Human Phenomenon
AGREE or
DISAGREE?
• Art is strictly a
human
phenomenon. Only
human beings make
art to better
understand life or to
communicate
emotions or ideas to
others.
• phe•nom•e•non (n) an amazing
person, thing, or event.

4. A Human Phenomenon
AGREE or
DISAGREE?
• Art is strictly a human
phenomenon. Only
human beings make
art to better
understand life or to
communicate
emotions or ideas to
others.
• Do art-producing animals make art
“to better understand life or to
communicate emotions or ideas to
others”?

5. Toward
a definition of art
• No single • Art is a primarily
visual medium that
definition of art expresses ideas
absolutely about our human
applies for all experience and the
world around us.
times and
places. • Art engages our
attention in a way
Generally, that our everyday
however… environment cannot.

6. Toward
a Definition of Art
AGREE or MARCEL DUCHAMP.
DISAGREE? Fountain, 1917.
• Art is
whatever
the artist
says is art.

7. Toward
a definition of art
• Art is whatever • The definition of art
is not universal and
a society or a fixed in all its details.
culture says is
• It fluctuates, because
art. cultures are alive
and changing.

8. Toward
a definition of art
• There are four • Function
major areas of • Visual Form
art which • Content
culture
• Aesthetics
defines… |esˈθetiks
|

9. Four major cultural areas of
art: Function
Art has a job in culture.
It can do many things.
For example:
• Art assists (helps) us
in rituals that promote
our spiritual or
physical well-being.

10. Four major cultural areas of
art: Function
Art has a job in culture.
It can do many things.
For example:
• Art reflects customs
related to food,
shelter, and human
reproduction.
• re•flect (v) in the case
of mirrors–to show an
image of

11. Four major cultural areas of
art: Function
Art has a job in culture.
It can do many things.
For example:
• Art communicates
thoughts, ideas, and
emotions.

12. Four major cultural areas of
art: Function
Art has a job in culture.
It can do many things.
For example:
• Art gives us pictures of
deities, or helps us
conceive of what
divinity might be.
• deity/divinity (n) god
or goddess

13. Four major cultural areas of
art: Function
Art has a job in culture.
It can do many things.
For example:
• Art serves and/or
commemorates the
dead.
• com•mem•o•rate (v)
recall or show respect

14. Four major cultural areas of
art: Function
Art has a job in culture.
It can do many things.
For example:
• Art glorifies the power
of the state and its
rulers.
• glo•ri•fy (v) describe
someone or
something as
admirable or worthy of
worship

15. Four major cultural areas of
art: Function
Art has a job in culture.
It can do many things.
For example:
• Art celebrates war and
conquest, and
sometimes peace.

16. Four major cultural areas of
art: Function
Art has a job in culture.
It can do many things.
For example:
• Art is a means for
protesting political and
social injustice.
• in•jus•tice (n) lack of
fairness or justice

17. Four major cultural areas of
art: Function
Art has a job in culture.
It can do many things.
For example:
• Art promotes cohesion
within a social group.
• co•he•sion (n) the
action of becoming a
united whole

18. Four major cultural areas of
art: Function
Art has a job in culture.
It can do many things.
For example:
• Art records the
likeness of individuals
and their environment.

19. Four major cultural areas of
art: Function
Art has a job in culture.
It can do many things.
For example:
• Art educates us about
ourselves and the
world around us.

20. Four major cultural areas of
art: Function
Art has a job in culture.
It can do many things.
For example:
• Art entertains.

21. GROUP ACTIVITY: 12 Cultural
Functions
In your teams, discuss your thoughts about
3 cultural functions of art:
• Team A: Art assists…, Art reflects…, Art communicates…
• Team B: Art gives…, Art serves…, Art glorifies…
• Team C: Art celebrates…, Art is a means for…, Art
promotes…
• Team D: Art records…, Art educates…, Art entertains…
Brainstorm examples of these cultural functions of art in the
Vietnamese culture. If you can’t think of anything in the
Vietnamese culture, think of examples you know from around
the world.
Use 1 sheet of paper to draw a simple sketch or write the

22. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
• Art has visual form so
we can see it, or touch
it, and so its ideas
can be
communicated.
• The following are
examples•of visual
Formal Elements
form…
• Overall Composition
• Materials

23. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Line

24. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Line

25. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Line

26. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Line
• What kind of line(s)
did you draw?
• Draw several more
lines.
• Try to create at least 7
different kinds of lines.

27. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Shape
HENRI
MATISSE.
Sorrows of
the King,
1952.

28. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Shape
• Regular shapes:
• Irregular shapes:

29. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Color
• Hue (the pure color’s
name)

30. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Color
• Value (lightness and
darkness, or tints and
shades):
• Hue + White = Tint
• Hue + Black = Shade

31. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Color
• Intensity (brightness
and dullness):
• Neutral colors are
very low-intensity
colors.
• Ex: Cream, tan, or
beige

32. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal
Elements
• Color
• The
subtractive
color system
• The additive
color system

33. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form

34. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
MARCEL DUCHAMP, Nude
Descending a Staircase (No.2),
Formal Elements
1912
• Time and Motion

35. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Texture
• Tactile Texture
• Visual Texture

36. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Pattern
• Natural Patterns
• Geometric Patterns

37. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Volume

38. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements • Draw parallel diagonal
lines through the
• Volume graph on the edges of
• Using BLOCK your letters.
LETTERS, write your • Close the 3D letters
name in the center of by drawing the outer
the paper. line of the letter.
• Leave space between
the edge of the paper
and your name.

39. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Mass

40. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Mass
• Colors also have
weight.

41. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Space
• 2D art has planar space (height
and width).
• Perspective creates complex
illusions on a 2D canvas:
• Atmospheric (or areal)
perspective
• Linear perspective
(1-Point, 2-Point, 3-Point,
etc.)

42. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Space
• What kind of perspective is
this picture? Linear or
Atmospheric?
• If Linear perspective, how
many vanishing points
does this picture have?

43. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Space
• What kind of perspective is
this picture? Linear or
Atmospheric?
• If Linear perspective, how
many vanishing points
does this picture have?

44. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Space
• What kind of perspective is
this picture? Linear or
Atmospheric?
• If Linear perspective, how
many vanishing points
does this picture have?

45. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal Elements
• Space
• What kind of perspective is
this picture? Linear or
Atmospheric?
• If Linear perspective, how
many vanishing points
does this picture have?

46. Four major cultural areas of art:
Visual Form
Formal
Elements
• Space:
Linear
Perspectiv
e

47. PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITION
• Balance
• Rhythm
• Proportion and Scale
• Emphasis
• Unity and Variety

48. COMPOSITION: Balance
• Symmetrical Balance
• Asymmetrical Balance
• Radial Balance

49. COMPOSITION: Rhythm
• Regular Rhythm
• Alternating Rhythm
• Eccentric Rhythm

50. COMPOSITION: Proportion & Scale
• Proportion: the size of one part in relation to the
whole.
• Scale: the size of something in relation to what we
assume to be normal.

51. COMPOSITION: Emphasis

52. COMPOSITION: Unity and Variety
• Unity: the quality of cohesion in an artwork.
• Variety: the elements of difference in an artwork.
WAYNE THIEBAUD,
Cakes, 1963.

53. FOUR MAJOR CULTURAL
AREAS OF ART: CONTENT
Art has content, which communicates
through:
• The art’s imagery
• Its symbolic meaning
• Its surroundings
• The customs, beliefs, and values of the
culture
• Writings that help explain the work

54. FOUR MAJOR CULTURAL
AREAS OF ART: CONTENT
• Imagery?
• Symbolism?
• Surroundings?
• Culture?
• Writings?

55. FOUR MAJOR CULTURAL
AREAS OF ART: CONTENT
• SALVADOR
DALI.
Geopoliticus
Child
Watching the
Birth of the
New Man,
1943.

56. FOUR MAJOR CULTURAL
AREAS OF ART:
AESTHETICS
• Art is an aesthetic experience.
• Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy
that deals with art, its sources, its forms,
and its effects on individuals and
cultures.

57. FOUR MAJOR CULTURAL
AREAS OF ART:
AESTHETICS
• 18th and 19th
centuries in the
West
• standard =
ancient Greek
sculpture.

58. FOUR MAJOR CULTURAL
AREAS OF ART:
AESTHETICS
• aesthetics was
only about beauty
• beauty =
universally
defined for all
times and places

59. FOUR MAJOR CULTURAL
AREAS OF ART:
AESTHETICS
• universalist position = discredited
• no worldwide agreement
• many qualities other than beauty as
significant attributes of art.
• DESCRIBE AN IDEALLY BEAUTIFUL
VIETNAMESE WOMAN…

60. FOUR MAJOR CULTURAL
AREAS OF ART:
AESTHETICS
• An ideally beautiful American woman?
• Compare the two standards of beautiful
women.

61. FOUR MAJOR CULTURAL
AREAS OF ART:
AESTHETICS
• Look at other places around the world:
• Mauritania, Africa

62. FOUR MAJOR CULTURAL
AREAS OF ART:
AESTHETICS
• Look at other places around the world:
• India

63. FOUR MAJOR CULTURAL
AREAS OF ART:
AESTHETICS
• Look at other places around the world:
• Karo Tribe, Ethiopia

64. FOUR MAJOR CULTURAL
AREAS OF ART:
AESTHETICS
• Look at other places around the world:
• Maori Tribe, New Zealand

65. FOUR MAJOR CULTURAL
AREAS OF ART:
AESTHETICS
• Look at other places around the world:
• Kayan Tribe, Burma and Thailand

66. FOUR MAJOR CULTURAL
AREAS OF ART:
AESTHETICS
• Look at other places around the world:
• Saudi Arabia

67. FOUR MAJOR CULTURAL
AREAS OF ART:
AESTHETICS
• Compare and contrast the two:

68. LET’S WRAP UP
READING ASSIGNMENT: Entire Course Syllabus
TEAM ASSINGMENT: Assign Tasks