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
prehistoricalperiod.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