GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE HUMANITIES

The meaning, importance and scope of Humanities

The word humanities comes from the Latin Humanus which means human,
cultured,and refined.Today however weaknows of Humanities as a loosely defined group of
cultural subjects .Thus, the term humanities refers to the arts visual arts such as
architecture,painting, sculpture,music ,dance, the theater drama and literature.The importance of
the human beings and feelings and how he express those feelings have always been the concern
of the humanities.
Art is very important in our lives. It constitutes one of the eldest and most important
meaning of expression developed by man.
Art like a love, is not easy to define. It concerns with the communication of certain ideas
and feelings by means of sensuous medium.It appeals to our minds, arouses our emotions,
kindles our imagination and enchants our senses.
In every age or country, there is always art.Where ever we go,whether it be a city or
province , here or abroad, we surely pass to building of various sorts houses ,schools, churches,
stopes and others.
The art that we perceive through our eyes is called the visual art and architecture is
one part of it.Visual art involved not only paintings and sculpture but include such things as
clothes, household appliances and the furnishings of our homes, schools, churches and other
buildings.
Visual art include much more than paintings, sculpture and architecture.Out of the many
common things use in daily lives we derive real pleasure. A great range of objects can be
included in the visual arts, Aesthetics refers to the forms and psychological forms of art.
Another form of the more important art is music. This is the art of combining and
regulating sounds of varying pitch to produce compositions expressing various ideas and
emotions.Music is one of the great arts of our civilization.

Like the other arts, music deals with emotions. Its being a pure art enables it to convey
emotions with great intensity and can affect people directly.
Dance is another form of art that is common to man even during the earliest times.It is
the most direct of the arts for it make use of the human body as its medium .It springs from
mans love for expressive gestures, his release of tension through rhythmic movement.Dance
heightens the pleasure of being and at the same time mirrors the life of society.
The area of the |theater or dramais another of the important arts.Dramatic activities are
usually part of every school and community program. Going to the theater to see a play play is
wonderful experience . The play maybe a comedy , tragedy, mystery,musical or melodrama . In
any of them, a group of people act out of the plot to get across to the audience the idea the
author is trying to express.
The emotion picture is a popular addition to the various forms of the theater . Through
it, a great number of people are able to see a dramatic performance every day.
The play itself is a form literature. Scenery and costume provide the visual arts and
music may serve as a background to set the mood or the serve as part of the plot.The opera is a
drama set of music.
What the arts have in common
We have identified five areas of art the visual arts,music, dance literature and drama.
The most basic relationship is the arts are concerned with emotions with our feelings about
things.
An Artist
An artist is a person who exhibits exceptional skills in design , drawing, painting and the who
works in one of the performing arts , an actor or musician.
Unlike other p people , he is more sensitive and more creative. He possesses to an unusual
degree the knack for interpreting ideas into artistic form through the use of words pigments,
stone, notes, or any of the other materials used by artists.

There are two kinds of artist creators and performers. A composer writes a song to the sung by
talented singer