Humanities: Roadmap to Uncovering the Values and Mysteries of ART
Life without a sense of art is as good as living, but a life with an understanding of art is as good as dying.
The world has witnessed on its history a vital ingredient in its progress; an ingredient that has served as the basis of global unity and appreciation; an ingredient that guided and directed the flame of nationalism and LOVE; an ingredient that has illuminated the dark sides of the earth; an ingredient that is synonymous to creating everything out of nothing; an ingredient called ART.
Many attempts had been done, but after all of the toils invested, the reward of their sweat isn’t worth it. Man has searched something that shall answer the complexities of art – that shall uncover the secret that it upholds and to understand the perplexities wrapped in every thing of art. To understand what art is up to, we must not only deal with understanding what symbolizes a certain work of art but going through why did they create such a work of art, and appreciating the abstract nature of every intricacy characterized in all pieces.
Traversing through global cultures offers me a wide array of different and divided notions and definitions of art aided by the study of Humanities – it is closely associated to the people’s culture, mood, way of life, attitude, and geographical setting. I have spent almost 5 months in understanding what Humanities really is. In its narrowest sense, Humanities is the expression of man’s feelings and thoughts through various types of medium – Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Literature, Music, Dance, etc. Until now, I cannot create a cohesive and accurate definition of Humanities – it is a mystery.
Embedded in every man’s heart is a sublime desire to express what he feels, and to express this, he uses his optimum potential and maximizes all available resources to come up with a beautiful output out even from an ugly input. In every corner of the world, difference in its physical features determines difference in man’s way of expressing what he feels. Where wood and clay are abundant, artists engage in sculpture, where trees and leisure is frequent, dramatists compose plays, and where secrecy is rampant, journalists write. Basically, inspiration to express oneself is everywhere. Thus, art is everywhere too.
Greeks had regarded art as a triggering medium to create beautiful things. They have surrounded themselves with artistically carved and created vases, from their dresses to military weapons, from artillery to household displays. Evident in their works, mostly seen in their plays, was a spirit of genuine expression of LOVE and AFFECTION. Even when they had been conquered by the Romans, Greeks have not been disappointed to stop creating objects of marvelous artistic value that stunned the whole world. This is one aspect in the effective discovery of the concealed value of art – surfing through their culture. Yes, I am into the classics – basically Greek and Roman classics. They started it all. They are the foundations of the emerging forms of arts. Without them, cultures will never be as aesthetically inclined as they are today.
Since Greeks and Romans have been very much affectionate, Humanities has provided me the framework of their real build-up as individuals. With a little background of their culture, I have come across to a secret of art – ART as a medium to express their intense affection and burning passion.
As Art expands its horizon, people from other parts of the world have generated unique instruments of expressing themselves, for instance, Music and Dance. Music in its premiere has been a great expression of people’s suppressed emotions. Now, contemporary music has still the same influence as it was before. I myself listen to music to sooth my mind and sing songs to implicitly voice out what I keep inside. With dance, as the active expression of what music wants to convey, body movements have been tagged to be one of the greatest art instruments for its instantaneous deliverance of emotion to audience. Whenever I see people dance, I witness feelings engulf bodies, creating a harmonic manifestation of an active art form.
Worth mentioning in my attempt of discovering the value and mystery of art are the high regarded forms of arts – Painting, Architecture, and Sculpture. When Painting has come to be known, it was mostly associated with vanity and royalty. But as emerging artists adopted this art form, it became an instrument of expressing the realities of life such as poverty, inequalities, and political movements to name a few. With Architecture coming into the artistic scene, it became more of a status symbol for people outshining its original purpose of establishing unique identities of various cultures. Moreover, Sculpture has become a commemorative form of art to rulers, heroes, saints, and other religious and cultural iconographies. Even though man has given these art forms their own purposes, but no one can ever really explain how these art forms came about and for what reasons they are made for.
