SUBJECT AND
CONTENT OF ART
SUBJECT OF ART
This refers to any person, object, scene or
event described or represented in a work of
art.
TWO TYPES OF SUBJECT OF ART
1 Representational or
Objective
Represents objects or events in the
Non-
real world, usually looking easily
recognizable. It uses “form” and is representational 2
concerned with “what” is to be or Non-objective
depicted in the artwork.
Those art without any reference to
anything outside itself (without
representation). It is non-objective
because it has no recognizable
object. It uses “content” and is
concerned with “how” the artwork
is depicted.
EXAMPLES OF OBJECTIVE SUBJECT
LITERATURE THEATER ARTS
SCULPTURE
Balloon by Michael Cacnio
GRAPHIC
ARTS PAINTING
Planting Rice by
Manansala
EXAMPLES OF NON-OBJECTIVE SUBJECT
ABSTRACT ARTS
Sources of
Subject
Primary
Sources
• provide first-hand testimony or direct evidence
concerning a topic under investigation.
• created by witnesses or recorders who
experienced the events or conditions being
documented.
• Often these sources are created at the time of
the event or conditions being documented.
EXAMPLE:
Paul Goldberg’s architectural review of the new Citi Filed
and Yankee Stadium in New York is a primary source
because he is commenting directly on a current event.
Secondary
Sources
• interpret and analyze primary sources
• often written significantly after events by parties
not directly involved but who have special
expertise, they may provide historical context or
critical perspectives.
• routinely include pictures, quotes or graphics of
primary resources.
EXAMPLE:
An article surveying the history of New York
stadiums would be considered a secondary
source.
Some of
these sources01
of Art NATURE
Subjects are: Animals, people,
landscapes are the most
common inspiration and
subject matter of art.
American Tiger in a Tropical
02
Gothic Storm
By Grant by Henri Rousseau
Wood
HISTORY
The dress, the houses, the
manner of living, the
thoughts of a period are
necessarily reflected in the By Fernando
work of the artist. Amorsolo
Some of
these sources03
of Art GREEK & ROMAN
MYTHOLOGY
Subjects are: These are the gods and
goddesses. Its center is on
deities and heroes. The Birth of Venus
By Sandro Botticelli
04
THE JUDAEO
CHRISTIAN
TRADITION
Religion and art, the Bible,
the Apocrypha, the rituals
of the church.
The Creation of
Adam
By Michelangelo
Some of
these sources05
of Art ORIENTAL
SACRED TEXTS
Subjects are: The countries of the Orient, especially
China, Japan, and India, have all
produced sacred texts of one kind or
another and these inspired various
kinds of art
06 These are the subjects that can be
found in those works that take
OTHER WORKS their subject directly from other
OF ART works of art.
Kinds of Subject
Still These are the groups of inanimate objects arranged in an indoor setting.
The arrangement is that like to show particular human interest and
Life activities.
Vanitas with Violin and Glass Ball (1628) –
Pieter Claesz
The Basket of Apples (1895) – Paul Cezanne
Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers
The Ray (1728) – Jean-Baptiste-Simeon (1888) – Vincent Van Gogh
Chardin
Landscapes, Seascapes and Cityscapes
Artists have always been fascinated with physical
environment
Cityscape by Chien Cityscape by Nathan
Chung-Wei Walsh
Hokusai, The Great Wave Off
Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night Albert Bierstadt, Nassau Harbor, Kanagawa
(1889) 1877
Landscape
They have been represented by artists from almost every ages
Animals and places. In fact, the earliest known paintings are
representation of animals on the walls of caves.
The Goldfinch (1654)
Carel Fabritius
The Monarch of the Glen (1851)
Edwin Landseer
Bronze cat from ancient Egypt
By Bree Jonson
Cave painting of woolly mammoth in
Pech Merle
These are realistic likeness of a person in sculpture,
painting, drawing or print but it need to be a
photographic likeness. It doesn’t have to be beautiful, but
Portraits
it has to be truthful.
Self Portrait at the Age of 63,
1669
Rembrandt van Rijn
'Self Portrait', 1940
by Frida Kahlo
Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) –
Bust of Dr. Jose Rizal Johannes Vermeer
Apollo Belvedere – 350-325
The sculptures’ chief subject has traditionally been the human body, nude, or
Figures clothed. The body’s form, structure and flexibility offers the artist a big challenge
to depict it in a variety of ways, ranging from the idealistic as in the classical Greek
sculptures to the most abstract.
Laocoön And His Sons – 2nd Century The Kiss – 1888
BC
Nike Of Samothrace – 190 BC
Artists have always shown a deep concern about life
around them. Many of them have recorded in
paintings their observation of people going about
Everyday
their usual ways and performing their usual tasks.
Genre paintings are usually representation of rice
Life
threshers, cockfighters, candle vendors, street
musicians, and children at play.
Paintings by Fernando
Amorsolo
History and Legends
History consists of verifiable facts, legends, of unverified ones. Although many of
them are often accepted as true because tradition has held them so far. Insofar, as
ancient past in concerned, it is difficult to tell how much of what we know now is
history and how much is a legend.
The Legend of Mt. Makiling
The Legend of Malakas and Maganda
The Battle of Tirad Pass
Religion and Mythology
Most of the world’s religions have used the arts to aid in worship, to instruct, to
inspire feelings of devotion and to impress and convert non believers. The term
myth comes from the Greek word “Mythos” meaning story or legend. Myth tries to
explain the relationship between gods and human. Although the events in myth are
usually impossible they try to send a message that has an important social and
religious meaning.
The First Mass in the Minerva and the Triumph of Jupiter, a depiction of Zeus and Athena in
Philippines by Fernando Olympus, after the Roman names of the gods, painting by Rene Antoine
Amorsolo Houasse
Dreams and Fantasies
A dream may be lifelike situations. Therefore, we would not know if an art is based on a
dream unless the artist explicitly mentions it. But if the picture suggests, the strange, the
irrational and the absurd, we can classify it right away as a fantasy or dream although the
artist may have gotten from the idea of a dream at all, but the workings of the artist’s
imagination. No limits can be imposed on imagination.
“The Persistence Of
Memory”
By Salvador Dali
Fantasy by Leonard Aitkins
Different Levels
Of Meaning
A subject matter has three different levels of
meaning:
1. Factual Meaning
2. Conventional
Meaning
3. Subjective
Meaning
Factual Meaning
The literal meaning or the narrative content in the work
which can be directly apprehended because of the objects
presented are easily recognized.
Stones River
Houses
Conventional Refers to the special meaning that a certain
Meaning object has in a particular culture or group of
people.
Flag as a Symbol of a Nation
Crescent Moon for Islam
Cross for Christianity
Any personal meaning consciously or unconsciously conveyed by the
Subjective artist using a private symbolism which stems from the artist’s own
Meaning association of certain objects, actions or color with past experience.
According to Munch himself, The Scream was a
picture he painted to represent his soul. Rather
than adhering to the art style of the time — that
is, painting pictures meticulously to realistically
represent the subjects in them — he chose to use
an unrealistic style to paint his emotions, rather
than focus on realism and perfectionism in his
art. Munch explained that he painted a moment
of existential crisis. He was walking down a road
similar to the one in the painting, while the sun
was setting, creating a beautiful, vibrant
background. His friends were walking with him,
but, looking out at the sky in front of them, he
stopped, while they continued walking. He then
The Scream, 1893 by Edvard described having what we would now consider
Munch to be a panic attack; he suddenly became tired,
anxious, claustrophobic, and the weight of nature
and of the world hit him all at once.
Thank
you!
SOURCE:
Agnati, Jenny Marsha B. et. Al Art Appreciation for College
Students
The Scream: A Deeper Analysis of Edvard Munch’s Anxiety-Wrought
Piece
https://medium.com/everything-art/the-scream-a-deeper-analysis-of-edvard-munchs-
