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What is Art?

Art is vibrant because through it, Man fulfils his needs to express and to
communicate. Man in his long history has always tried to understand his
world and to express his sentiments. He developed ways of expressing and,
through time, these expressions became finer. Art originated from these
expressions. Art results from the cultivation of the finer manners of these
expressions that Man has mastered. The Arts evolved to possess a value of
their own which became the measure of beauty. These expressions become the
instruments Man uses to answer the fundamental questions about Life and
to make sense out of living. With Art comes the experience of beauty. The
experience of beauty is equated with the feelings of delight and pleasure, as
with the deeper spiritual joy that overcomes one in the encounter between art
and perceiver. The study of Beauty is called Aesthetics. Chapter 2 explains
Art, its principles and its functions, and its focal position in the experience
of beauty.
Nature produces the sources of Art. The source can be an incident in
the bucolic Katayaghan hills with the flaming clouds in La Union, setting of the
Manuel Arguilla classic How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife. It can
be the face of woman with the enigmatic smile in Leonardo da Vincis portrait,
Mona Lisa, or the sweet night captured in the melodious Moonlight Sonata by
Ludwig van Beethoven.
Man articulates what he sees, hears, feels, smells, tastes, and thinks about
nature and the world around him. Around him are objects and conditions which
may seem incomprehensible to him. He may want to understand phenomena
which he could not explain like war, famine, and drought. These conditions make
him anxious. Man tries to make sense of this world. He attempts to answer these
inquiries about how and why these conditions should happen. He articulates
his thoughts and feelings in palpable forms (like language and writing) so that
his fellow man may share in what he wishes to say. He does not only share his
thoughts but shares experiences that delight, enlighten, or even confuse.
Certainly, his inquisitiveness will bring him to realize that he lives in a
world far bigger than he can imagine. He realizes that other people think and
behave differently. Other people, too, certainly have different experiences. But
most of all, he realizes that a world exists far beyond the boundaries he knows of.
This realization stimulates him to ask further questions. His answers will
not be sufficient. He will seek other answers from other men. While seeking for
answers, his confusions are compounded. He explores all possibilities to learn
more and in the process, he documents his knowledge. He tells stories, writes,
draws, and sings. He will not only want to be more graphic but to be engrossing
as well so he acts out in actions what he wants to show. Many times, he combines

all of these actions to be better understood. He wants others to feel what he feels
and, at the same time, to experience some pleasure in how he expresses his
thoughts.
These acts of communication are then refined. In achieving higher levels
of expression where the meanings in his thoughts become clearer to others, Man
has created Art.
Art, therefore, grew as Mans response to and his interactions with nature
also grew. Nature produces the conditions that prod Man to chant his longings,
narrate his adventures, dance his passion, sing his loves, and paint his world.
These chants, narrations, dances, songs, and paintings become the means where
Man is able to make sense of his existence. Making sense of his existence allows
him to survive. Art, this vast archive of meaning and knowledge, documents
Mans eternal links with nature, keeping Humanity in harmony with its world. It
is a world which embraces the physical, metaphysical, and supernatural spheres
with Man situated in the center.
Humankind produces endless thoughts and feelings, but not all these
articulations can be Art. Art involves higher levels of articulations where thoughts
and feelings move, delight, and enlighten. Expressing in the highest levels
requires craft and talent nurtured through years and years of application.
The notion of Art, therefore, assumes two aspects: a skilful as well as an
imaginative rendering of a meaningful insight.
WHAT IS ART?
Art will never have a single satisfactory definition. What may be Art in
one community may not be Art in another. But their roots are common.
Art, or ars in Latin means skill which suggests some competence in
performing and completing some activity. It also implies that there are similar
qualities in the expression and application of creative skill when material or idea
is transformed to produce another idea or object.
The following principles should explain the features of Art.
Man creates Art.
Although it takes its source from nature, Art is not nature, but is mans
articulation about an aspect of nature. The Pasig River was once a beautiful river and
this inspired National Artist Nicanor Abelardo to compose the Mutya ng Pasig.
The beautiful Pasig, therefore, is not Art, but Abelardos expression about the Pasig in
his music is. A female model who poses nude will never be art but the painting that
depicts her will be.
Art exists with Man
Where there is Man in any time and in any place, there will be Art. Art will
live with Man because it serves Mans need to express. Art will always be a part of
our lives. Look or listen anywhere and you will see or hear Art in everyday life: the
carvings in the cabinet, music on the radio, the building styles of our churches, the
statues inside these churches, the relief designs in our coconut graters, stringed beads
around our arms, a woven skirt, brass wares in salas, and the paintings in the jeepneys
we ride. We can go on and on.
Art can also be found in more formally produced events like painting exhibits
in the neigborhood gallery, a play in the university, or a concert of a choral group in
the plaza.

Art imitates.
The ancient Greeks called this mimesis as they held the principle that Art
represents (or copies) nature. Art mirrored a reality. Acting was the mimicking of
real actions. When Oedipus blinded himself after realizing that he had married his
mother Iocasta, the actor playing Oedipus was only playing a role, representing the
act of blinding. Movements interpreting passion in dance mimicked real passions. Da
Vincis The Last Supper was a visual representation of the supper that took place in
Jerusalem before Christ was convicted.
In Poetics which summarized all that he thought about Art from the creative
practices of his day in the 5th century B.C., Aristotle discoursed on the dramatic
tradition of tragedy. Tragedy, as a complete form that represents reality, represented
the acts of heroes in their battles with fate and the cosmic order. Because it copies
nature, Art should stay consistent with the real. For instance, a plays time duration is
consistent with the real when its actions run only from the time the sun rises until the
sun sets to mark a complete cycle from dawn to dusk. Tragedy, depicting complete
time, should have action set only within this one-day limit.
Art interprets.
We cannot and should not find exact replicas of nature in works of art. We
cannot also see the same things in nature the way an artist can see things. In depicting
reality, the artist puts in some amount of what he thinks and feels should be placed
in it. A landscape rendition may have a darker color than what it really has in nature.
Vincent Van Gogh painted his cypresses (Landscape with Cypresses, 1889) with bold
flowing outlines that did not look exactly like real cypresses in a field. His famous
Starry Night appears like as dreamy web of lines that do not look at all like any serene
night. It is strewn with unnatural stars unlike any we have seen or ever see at any
night. Pablo Picasso cut up his human figures into cubes. Botong Francisco collaged
multiple rural images in a two-dimensional plane in his murals. This manner gave to
us the feeling of multiple focuses and concerns in Philippine rural life.
Interpretation is the artists prerogative. His interpretative powers allow art to
take separate dimensions from what is in the usual. Interpretation is not an arbitrary
decision. It is consciously conceived as the artist adds feelings and insights to the
subject akin to his attitude towards it. In distorting the human figure in his paintings,
for example, Picasso arouses our curiosity, or even anger, but he does so to represent
his depiction of man as a fragmented social being.
In fact, art is better appreciated through the artists interpretation of a subject
rather than through his exact copying of it.
Many art forms interpret rather than depict their subjects because these
arts have abstract natures. This is true for music and dance which express subjects
through their tones and movements, respectively. Many paintings, too, interpret
subjects in manners that do not faithfully copy reality. These interpretative creations
we often lump together under the label Abstract Art.
Art expresses and communicates.
Expressing is in Mans inherent character. He was created that way. Not
only are quests for answers written down or painted, but also Mans outbursts of joy
or laments of sadness. Babies cry whenever they are hungry. They giggle at amusing
moments. We shout in joy during moments of extreme happiness. Expressing is
Mans greatest articulation that celebrates the highest spirits of humankind.
But artists are special men. They feel and see what ordinary men fail to feel

and see. We get our insights about the world we live in from artists. The works of
artists provide us with the deeper meanings about life. Philosophers, poets, and
playwrights produce their thoughts in their works with deeper insights than bakers
who invent cake recipes.
Not only do artists pierce deeper into unravelling the inner recesses of
humankind (which may include Mans psychology, his inner conflicts, or his hidden
desires, for instance), they also use their craft to express their thoughts in compelling
ways.
Art provides Man the venue to express, and in expressing, Man
communicates. Expressing can be completed in many forms. But Art, of a higher
level than most common ways of expressing, does not merely communicate thought
and emotions. It expresses these with an accompanying impact that evokes a
powerful reaction in the listener or viewer. This impact differentiates ordinary
communication from artistic expression; artistic expression evokes feeling combined
with the viewers/listeners discovery of an insight.
Art affects, delights, and evokes a reaction.
Artists works evoke strong reactions because of the skill artists employ.
They master ways to use the mediums to organize their ideas (words for poetry,
tones for music, and movements for dance) so that the viewers-listeners respond
with strong feelings. Strong feelings accompany the powerful subjects that major art
works depict.
Many opine that the sexiest music ever produced was Maurice Ravels
Bolero, so that listening to the musics produces some steamy reactions in the listener.
Similarly, one feels the celebratory power of the Catholic Church when one listens
live to Handels Messiah (1741) remember the popular Hallelujah Chorus?
performed with a full symphony orchestra including a full complement of voices of
a large chorus.
Rizals Noli and Fili catalyzed Filipinos to rise in arms in the last years of the
Spanish colonial period.
Reactions to works of art have not been merely limited to personal
pleasures. Art has been used to effectively move communities to action.
In Venezuela, musician-conductor Jose Abreu set up his El Sistema (The
System) to transform the lives of 250,000 poor kids. His system of teaching music
and expanding the opportunities to the thousands of youth across his country
to learn classical music proves the power of art to transform lives. El Sistema
helps poor kids achieve their full potential by learning values which they imbibe
while exposed to music. Abreus concept is simple: playing in an orchestra is an
experience about bonding, where children work together, listen to each other and
respect one another. Through work in the orchestra, these kids absorb the highest
values that music can teach, like solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion, and
sublimation.2
This remarkable experiment is documented in another moving film Tocar
y Luchar (To Play and Fight).
The insights these models present make us discover so many new things
about ourselves and about the world, and about how art in our midst can truly
reshape lives. Consequently, realizing the power that art wields in transforming
lives, the Cultural Center of the Philippines has set on redesigning its mandate

with plans and initiatives for Arts to transform people, lives and our nation.
Art processes an experience.
Art as Experience indicates some encounter with time that instils
knowledge, skill, and an impression. In Art, both the artist and the perceiver
separately experience the creative process from two different points.
On one hand, the artist the initiator of the work - incites the
experience. The artist himself goes through an experience creating Art. Using
a process developing through time, he musters all the skills he has learned
while allowing the free flow of feelings to merge with his working. Upon the
completion of his work, the artist feels a gratifying sense of accomplishment. This
is the artists experience.
On the other hand, the viewer-listener, while perceiving a completed
artwork, senses an experience of discovery and delight. The feelings the perceiver
experiences may approximate the same exhilaration of the artist; the emotions the
artist felt is vicariously transmitted to the perceiver.
The theatre director collaborating with his team to produce a musical
play undergoes a satisfying experience of creation. His intention is to put on stage
the play for performance. The performed play will bring out a separate kind of
experience from an audience.
Art processes an order.
We cultivate a psychological and philosophical connection to the order in
our world. Order is the natural arrangement of things around us and this order
extends to the way we think and arrange our ideas. Our logic how we view and
explain things - is influenced by the order around us. For instance, Western men
would imbibe the idea of growth as a natural occurrence that moves in a linear
manner, that is, from seed to tree or from infancy to adulthood to old age and
death. The Hindus, however, view growth in a cyclical way because death simply
signals the rebirth into another life.
Embracing life are objects and events arranged in such an orderly
manner: the eternal shifts of day and night, the lunar cycles, the rise and fall of
tides, and the harvest seasons.
Our perceptions of order are nurtured by the natural order that
surrounds us. The order in the forest differs from that order in large cities
where lines and symmetrical arrangements of roads and buildings influence the
rigid and precise logic (and lifestyles) of city dwellers.
The arrangements in space take different relationships in various
orders. To the businesspersons in urban Makati reared in the ethics of Western
corporate culture, space is a private area that boxes them in boundaries separate
from that of the other private spaces of other persons. No one can intrude into
the impersonal space of this businessman even in a cramped elevator.
Contrastingly in the rural areas, the spaces of provincials are shared.
Intrusions into each others lives are common and this describe the personal
and communal relationships rural communities share. Take the jeepney ride,
for example. Stories and thoughts are shared whenever persons sit and wait for
passengers to fill up a jeepney trip in a rural terminal.
Perceptions of order, therefore, vary according to cultures. This order

is well reflected in the art works that cultures produce so that the principle that
Artstyle equals Lifestyle may be a truism.
The creation of art involves an innate longing for order. Artists strive
for this order. It is the order these artists are well aware of nurtured by the
environment where they have been bred.
In an ironic sense, artists intentionally create disorder in their works to
show to us the need for order. In depicting disorder through ordered means,
the artist transmits a feeling of ill-ease in the perceiver. It is a feeling difficult to
explain but which one experiences when one lives, for instance, through war.
Tension, anxiety, and insecurity overcome a persons sense of balance. It may be
akin to a feeling in a disharmonized home where parents regularly quarrel, and
children are malnourished and sick.
Consider Picassos Guernica (1937). The large mural-sized oil painting
(3.5 meters tall and 7.8 meters wide) brought the worlds attention to the
widespread death by the bombing of the Basque town Guernica during
the Spanish civil war of 1937. Suffering is captured in the disorder and
fragmented rendering of people, animals, and buildings. The painting presents
to us a nightmarish collage of dismembered bodies, telling symbols, and awful
images.
The disorder in Guernica is the paintings order. Order in its various
forms evokes beauty. Order demands that the elements achieve some harmony,
and this harmonious merging of elements in Art suggests completion.
Completion implies wholeness. Wholeness establishes stability.
The whole process of order, therefore, points to Arts function of
bringing a sense of stability to Humankind. In a world of confusion and chaos,
beauty in Art gives us a sense of well-being. Sensing order links Man with the
order of the cosmos. It is harmony that Man aspires for. Harmony is Mans
craving, and so is order. And as there is order in nature, so is there order in
society.
Planning accompanies order. An art work is never an accident but a What is Art?
consciously mapped out activity where the end creation - a complete painting, a story
with an ending, a full oratorio, or a finished monument - is what an artist strives for.
Order results when existing materials are merged in new combinations to
form a new object. This is creation, an innate function of Man. Art is the expression of
this order.
Art embodies values and the most important of these is beauty.
Because Art reflects culture, whatever Man creates will invariably embody
parts of this culture he comes from. His culture collects a matrix of values about what
it deems positive, good, natural, and the opposites of these. These social values are
reflected in the Art that Man creates.
One value is Beauty, and this will be expressed by what the culture deems
good. Beauty suggests balance, order, and harmony in the eyes of the culture.
Harmony, as an organic sense of order, reflects a view of reality that embraces all
things. Harmony lies in the manner a family is run, in the way a landscape is planned,
in the direction the sun sets it light on a glass window, in the method of thinking, in
governing a tribe, or in the relationships between two ethno linguistic groups. The
artist who aspires for order and harmony in his artwork, therefore, uses the very

qualities that a particular culture measures harmony with. Connecting with that
cultures view, in most cases, spontaneously evoke a pleasurable reaction from the
perceivers that also come from this same culture.
The delightful and pleasurable experience that a perceiver goes through is
called the aesthetic experience, from the Greek aisthesthai (to perceive). One perceives
with the senses. In a practical sense, a perfumed smell harmonizes with our senses. A
rotten smell disgusts and may even be dangerous (because large amounts of bacteria
trigger a foul smell).
Reactions to Art are culture-bound. Yet, each personality in the same culture
may react differently to art. Values that change by time and place (or milieu) affect
largely the aesthetic experience. Aesthetics develops through long periods in the
interactions among the Art work, the artists, and their perceivers. Aesthetics is the
way a community deals with the creative expressions its artists produce.
But one can go through an aesthetic experience even if one views an ugly
subject. Note that the value ugly may be given to a subject, a content, or Arts matter,
which we should distinguish from the manner Art is presented. The idea of ugliness
is shared by many of us: a deformed man, war, inhuman treatment of prisoners,
a row of dilapidated shanties wallowing in appalling poverty, or a mass grave of
civilians. The matter may be ugly but the manner this matter is presented can evoke
that pleasurable feeling in the perceiver. Sensing beauty is not related to looking at
ugly things in art. Beauty is achieved in the way ugly subjects are presented. Even the
ugliest subjects can elicit sympathy in us and, thus, move us in many ways.
A beautiful experience is when one connects both intellectually and
emotionally to Art.

Charlotte Higgins, Land of hope and glory, The Guardian, Nov. 24, 2006 <http://www.guardian.
co.uk/music/2006/nov/24/classicalmusicandopera>. Visited Nov. 9, 2009.
The El Sistemawas one of the models discussed at the CCP Arts Forum, a conference of Philippine
cultural workers and artists, that focused on the theme of Art for Transformation, May 8-10, 2009,
at the National Arts Center in Makiling, Laguna.
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