from the book Contemporary Philippine Arts from the Regions

1. Lesson 8:
ELEMENTS OF ART
AND PRINCIPLES
OF COMPOSITION
Prepared by: Group 7
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2. At the end of the lesson, you are expected to:
Understand how contemporary artist use the elements of
art to convey ideas, values, and feelings through diligent
observation and attention to the works;
Explain the close connection and dynamic interaction
between the elements of art and the cultural, social,
historical, and personal factors within particular societies
through a written and oral report; and
Create and integrative artwork, that will demonstrate the
interrelationship between the arts and their elements
LEARNING
OBJECTIVES
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3. Arrange the jumbled letters to form word/s and tell
something about it the class.
(1) M V O E M N E T
(2) V A L E A U
(3) T E X U R E T
(5) L N I E
(6) S A H P E
(7) C O M O P S I T O I N
I N
S P C E A
INTRODUCTORY
ACTIVITY
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4. ELEMENTS OF ARTS
(1)Line
(2) Color
(3) Value
(4) Texture
(5) Shape
(6) Composition in Space
(7) Movement 4

5. (1) LINE
in VISUAL ARTS, it refers to the quality of the
line (e.g. thin, broken, thick, blended, or among
others)
associated with the body’s axis as it moves
toward different directions and adjusts to a point
of reference through various positions and
actions, such as walking, standing, sitting, etc.
TEXTURE
created when several lines come together
can be very thin, washed or very thick, rough or
fine 5

6. 2. COLOR
is associated with our experiences of cold and warmth, and the quality
of light in our tropical environmental, the cycles of night and day, of
darkness and light
ASPECTS OF COLOR:
(a) HUE
has to do with how light waves of various lengths and rapidity of
vibrations bounce off objects and enter our eyes
• WARM HUE- it has longer wavelengths and is more distinct
and easily discernible (ex. red, orange, yellow)
- WARM COLORS seem to advance towards us
• COOL HUE- it has shorter wavelengths and seem to merge into
each other
- COOL COLORS appear to recede
Vary in SATURATION, INTENSITY, or BRILLIANCE 6

7. ASPECTS OF COLOR:
(b) BRILLIANCE
example: ● brilliant blue + neutral hue (i.e. gray) = its hue or blueness
does not change, it just becomes less intense or duller
(c) VALUE OR TONE
 Refers to hue’s brightness or darkness
example: ● a hue + black = becomes more dim or heavy
● a hue + white (or gray) = it lightens
Artists make use of these aspects of color and combine theme into different color
scheme, these includes:
 POLYCHROMATIC SCHEME- means it is made of many colors
 MONOCHROMATIC SCHEME- using only one color
example: ● blue + white (or gray) = many colors
 ACHROMATIC SCHEME- no color
-it uses black that absorbs all colors; or white
that reflects all colors 7

8. example of ACHROMATIC:
School of Design and Art (SDA)
 building of the La Salle College of St. Benilde on Vito Cruz, Manila built
by Architect Lor Calma
has white concrete walls interspersed with glass.
 combined with its unique floor pan and structure, the color scheme
(achromatic scheme) gives the building a futuristic look, reflecting its
cutting edge, industry-driven curricular programs 8

9. Visual artists use colors in different ways, depending on their
styles and preferences. Some artists use color as a
REPRESENTATIONAL element intending to depict the world as
accurately as possible. Portraits approximate skin tone and color;
landscape and still life depict actual conditions of the environment
through shading, and CHIAROSCURO or play of light and dark.
example: ● Fernando Amorsolo’s use of color in his portrait,
hewing as closely as possible to skin tone and color of dress and
surroundings. His landscapes are said to capture the colors of the
earth, sky and sea, and that of the Philippine sunlight.
Most contemporary and Modern artists are more personal
and expressionist in their use of color, taking liberties with color
schemes to convey mood, atmosphere and symbolic potential, as
opposed to conveying literal, meaning.
(examples on the next page) 9

10. Galo Ocampo
Modern artist
Colored the bodies, tress,
and the earth very
differently and intensely,
creating a desolate,
nightmarish landscapes
that conveys his idea of
extreme suffering in a
depleted world
RIVER OF LIFE (1954) by
Galo Ocampo 10

11. LEEROY NEW
 born in General Santos
 graduate of the Philippine High School for the Arts in Makiling, Los Baños
 creates fantasy landscapes with an intense, often polychromatic color
scheme in his painting, costume, set design, sculpture, installation often
paired with performance arts means expressing a personal cosmology
Some of the INSTALLATIONS of LEEROY NEW
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12. by RAMEER TAWASIL
 he is a Tausug artist
 echoes the color scheme of
Mindanao’s material culture,
such as vinta, which he renders
in abstract and stylized shapes
by NESTOR VINLUAN
 his abstract paintings are mostly
muted, making as focus on the form
and elements of the painting itself,
in aid of quiet, inward-looking
reflection, rather than emphasizing
an exterior world
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13. 3. VALUE
Refers to gradations of tone from light to dark, which
can be an aspect of color as discussed above, but could
also specifically refer to the play of light on an object or
a scene
In representational painting, it is shading, blending, and
chiaroscuro or the play of light and dark that lend the flat
surface an illusion of depth and perspective
non-representational use of value is also useful in
documentations, as in black and white I.D photos or in
reportage practices like photojournalism
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14. 4. TEXTURE
 Refers to how objects and surfaces feel, and is most associated with the
sense of touch or tactility.
 It is created when several lines are combined. The combination maybe
described as smooth, translucent, fine, silky, satiny, velvety, sandy, furry,
feathery, slimy, gritty, rough, rugged, coarse, porous, irregular, jagged,
thick, thin, and so on.
example: ● barong and saya fabrics are translucent and delicate.
● Dresses of Aze Ong are soft, yet thick; and as Filipino
formal dresses, these are appropriate for important occasions usually
done in air-conditioned spaces, and are not for everyday wear
 In REPRESENTATIONAL WORKS, it can be stimulated or imitated.
However, it can also be actual, as can be found in college, where actual
objects are glued on a surface
example: ● Imelda Cajipe-Endaya integrates sawali panes, crocheted
lace, fabrics and rope to make more concrete and more immediate her work’s
social and political themes such as feminism, export labor, and anti-
imperialism
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15. 5. SHAPE
 Refers to forms that are two-dimensional which exist as planes having length
and width; or three-dimensional which possess length, width and volume.
 It can either be geometric (rectilinear or curvilinear), biomorphic, or free
inventions.
STYLIZED AND ABSTRACT SHAPES - can be seen in local textiles.
GEOMETRIC SHAPES
example: ● binakol by the Tinggians of Abra, Northern Philippines
are executed with such mathematical precision they
achieve an illusionistic effect
● T‘nalak of the T’bolis of Southern Mindanao are abstracted
from frogs and other animals that appear in creation stories
BIOMORPHIC AND GEOMETRIC SHAPES
example: ● pis siyabit of the Tausugs remind us of leaves, flowers,
and shapes woven together in precise repetitive patterns15

16. Other things that apply shapes…
In WOODCARING, the Maranao okir features the sarimanok or the
legendary fowl shown holding a fish with its beak or talons. Other motifs include the
naga, pako-rabong, consisting of plant forms, such as the dapal or raon (leaf),
pako (fern spiral), todi (katuray flower), and potiok (bud).
BUILDINGS AND HOUSINGS from the geometric upward orientation of
skyscrapers to the squat low forms of the nipa hut or bahay kubo. There are also
unusual shapes such as:
Domed Church of the Holy
Sacrifice in UP Campus
School of Design and Art
building of De La Salle College
of Saint Benilde in Vito Cruz,
Manila
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17. PAINTINGS IN CUBIST STYLE have intersecting and overlapping shapes,
some flat and in the case of collage, jutting out of the picture plane.
Other painters are expressionist in their style.
example: ● Ang Kiukok’s works are example of expressive use of
shapes in the context of struggle against poverty and other
social issues.
Example:
STATIONS OF THE
CROSS by VICENTE
MANANSALA at the
UP Church of the Holy
Sacrifice which
features transparent
planes
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18. Other painters choose not to use figures at all.
example: ● Arturo Luz whose early works were figurative,
became later known for non-figurative works
featuring hard-edged geometric shapes with sharp
precision.
● National artist HR Ocampo who rendered free and
organic colorful shapes across his canvases in his
later period.
Most painters strive to give illusions of three-dimensionality in their
paintings, making them appear as if the figures have volume, and spaces
possessing depth and distance.
example: ● paintings by Alfredo Esquillo and Antipas
Delotavo create such illusions through skillful
modeling, contouring, and deft use of light and
shadow.
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19. 6. COMPOSITION IN SPACE
 Involves the relationship between figures and elements
 Refers to how this elements are organized and composed according to
principles of organization (which are balance, proportion, rhythm, unity in variety,
dominance and subordination.
example: ● National Artist Guillermo Tolentino’s Bonifacio Monument
(1933) in Caloocan has circular composition; and his Oblation
(1958) a bronze cast which together with other buildings which
follow the “town and gown” composition.
Composition in space can also be discerned in dance.
example: ● The soaring movements of classical ballet defy gravity, while
the earth-bound staccatto and sculptural poses, and flowing,
fluid hand an feet gestures of dances like the pangalay in
Mindanao harmonize with the rhythms of nature.
In architecture, massive cantilevered block of the Cultural Center of the
Philippines dominates and overwhelms the human scale and juts out of the
reclaimed land on which it stands. 19

20. The bahay kubo of the lowlands and the traditional houses of the
Cordillera in the North derive their materials from the immediate surroundings. The
Northern houses are compact and adjust to the mountainous terrain, built to
withstand cold an rain. The bahay kubo on stilts is shaped to withstand flood and to
let the air and light circulate, especially in dry and hot weather in the lowlands.
The native dwellings’ harmony with human scale is seen in the way houses
are built to correspond with the human body.
example:● In the system of belief of Tausugs, the different posts of the
house represents the various parts of the body, the head, the
shoulders,the limbs, with the navel-post taking central position.
● In other Asian societies, the central post of the house is the
vertical axis which links the three levels of being which are the
underworld, the world of people, and the world of heavenly
spirits.
Folk beliefs also surround the timing of the season. The best time for
building a house coincides with the tides of the moon, or the position of the mythical
sky serpent called the bakunawa. Conventions also figure in deciding the direction
of the stairway, and the number of steps, the best time for moving into a new house,
and many more.
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21. 7. MOVEMENT
May occur in two-dimensional design as rhythm or through the recurrence
of motifs, their alternation or progression unfolding in a series.
example: ● Carlos Francsico’s Filipino Struggles Through
History (1964) which was hung at the Bulwagang
Katipunan of the Manila City Hall shows a sense of forward movement
that captures the fervor and energy of the Revolution.
In three-dimensional expressions, the sense of movement can be implied;
example: ● National Artists Napoleon Abueva’s Nine Muses
(1994) adorning the Faculty Center building at UP Diliman
Or it can be actual
example: ● David Cortez Medalla’s biokinetic constructions from
the sixties (the bubble machine series that spew quantities of foam and a
monumental sand machine).
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22. As discussed earlier, dance creates compositions in
space through movement. While Western dances like classical
ballet strives toward lightness, Asian dances are in continuous
contact with the ground. Some dances, like those from Sulu in
Mindanao are linear and asymmetrical, punctuated by sculptural
or static positions. Traditional Asian dances are also largely
ceremonial and cannot be separated from other artforms such as
textiles, sculpture, and music.
Movement in the cinema partakes the movements of
camera such it pans, scans the height of a building, and dwell in
the contents of the room. It is tracked when it follows an object in
locomotive. It zooms when a camera makes a sudden movement.
A camera can also be shaky or handheld.
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23. Another set of movements comes from film editing in which the shot,
the basic unit, is arranged along with other shots into a meaningful unit. The
result is a narrative flow that can be linear, arranged with flashbacks, back
and forth, and so on. The camera can linger on a particular scene, object or
room, or it can to different scenes in rapid succession, such as the montage
of the execution scene (at the embassy, in San Pablo, or in Changi prison,
etc.) in the Flor Contemplacion (1995) film by Joel Lamangan. Less
traditional camera work is seen in the long takes of Lav Diaz who is know for
“defying film conventions with the length of his critically-acclaimed
films” according to Hernandez.
Diaz’s films are Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino (2004)
which is almost 11 hours long; Heremias: Unang Aklat- Ang alamat ng
prinsesang bayawak (2006) which is nine hours; and the documentary
Death in the Land of Encantos (Ka-gadanan sa Banwaan ning mga
Engkanto) (2007) which is almost ten hours.
Another example is the long take in Jon Red’s full length feature film
which is Still Lives (1999) where the camera never move throughout the film.
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24. Lav Diaz and Jon Red are examples of “indie” or
independent filmmakers; they produce their own films with
little, if at all, funding from mainstream studios. According to
Hernandez, such self-productions are made possible with
the advent of digital technology.
With camcorder, or a tablet or even a cellphone, one
can be director, screenplay writer, cinematographer and
actor all rolled into one. And with the aid of computer, one
can record, edit, engineer sound, among other post-
production work, in our own home.
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