Vanneza Mae Villegas BSBM

Meanings of Art
Art comes from the Aryan root word "AR" which means to
join or to put together.From "AR", we can derive two Greek
verbs "artizein" which means to prepare, and "arkiskeins"
which means to put together.The Latin term "ARS" means
everything that is artificially made or composed by
man.Art - very vital in our daily existence considering that
man learned to draw before he could even start to talk as
attested by the early paintings shown in prehistorical
period.the arts are the concrete pieces of eveidence in the
study of the humanities ranging from the prehistoric stone
tools of the primitive men to the more advanced and more
complex implements and machinery of the modern man.
Nature of Art
1. Art is not nature; art is made by man.
- It is man's interpretation of objects perceived by him as
art has been created by all people at all times.
2. Art's greatest achievement is that it creates a
permanent impression of the passing scene, unlike a fresh
flower which will not stay fresh - somehow it withers.
But the freshness of the flower as captured in a simple
painting will always stay fresh. Therefore, art never grows
old as recorde by the artist's vision. The main purpose of
art is to entertain the audience in many techniques like
using colors or lines and making you really ponder over
what you see.
3. Art imitates life and one can tell the values, traditions,
feelings and dreams as well as aspirations of the artist

which are clearly manifested in his own use of colors,

lines, forms and symbols.
The artist's own style and approaches give achance to
preserve life with the use of particular media.
There are other meanings which have been stated by
prominent geniuses.
1. Leo Tolstoy - Russian novelist, "art is a means of union
among all men, a means of communication."
2. Beneditto Croce - Italian philosopher and profound
thinker in the field of aesthetics.
- "Art is vision. The artist creates a picture of phantasm."A
3. St. Thomas Aquinas - art is the direct opposite of the
practical. The merits of the work of art do not depend on
the taste or wish of the artist; they are the outcome of the
work itself. Thus, an artist may be immoral, and yet his
work may be good.
4. Aristotle - art has no other end but itself. All arts are
patterned on nature. Art is also the right reason for
making things.
5. Aldous Huxley - art springs from an urge to order and
this is so in the sense that the artist selects from and
arranges the rpofusion of nature.
6. Henry James - life is all inclusion and confusion, while
art is discrimination and selection.
7. Herbert Read - art is a pattern informed by sensibility,
emotion which cultivates good form, both leading to
haqrmony, which is the satisfaction of our sense of beauty.

8. Emile Zola - art is a corner of nature seen through a

temperament.
9. John Dewey - art is experience...the refined and
intensified forms of experience are works of art.AA