Timothy Zahn, perhaps the best of the authors in the Star Wars Cannon, presents us with a very interesting character--Grand Admiral Thrawn. One of the quirks of this character is that his military genius comes from his ability to detect the strengths and weaknesses of a culture by studying and understanding their art. I used to view this hypothesis--the art portrays the cultural soul of the culture--with a sort of admiring skepticism. "Nice idea, plausible enough for fiction, but no one could ever do that in real life." Then, I started reading Paul Johnson's "Art: A New History." In it, he explores the mores of the various cultures as logical extensions of their art. Unfortunately, I am only at the Romans at the moment, so I can't expand the thought too far at this point, but don't worry, more is coming. And his arguments today seem sound. Such as, Egyptian art shows the strong divides between classes as each strata of society had very specific rules as to how they could be portrayed in art. Religion was the center of life--the most rigerous outpourings of artistic endeaver were wrapped around religious iconography. Even dishes of workers were inscribed with the symbols of gods and goddesses. Contrast the Egyptians with the Medes and Persians, who swept through the ancient world assimilating and conquering numerous countries, their art is a collection and incorporation of all the cultures they met. Contrast this to the Babylonian Empire. Their art varies with each king, as kings were replaced quickly by bloody revolution and each new king was anxious to seperate his mark from the previous regime. Similarly, their sculptures and mosaics were all about showing the fierceness and power of the king, no time or motive for grace and gentleness in these kings of Babylon.
It is a fascinating question, "how much can visual art tell about a people?" And, I find myself wondering, what other artistic venues could you use to find the "pulse" of a society? I have also thought that a cultures fairy tales would reveal its soul, but, again this is an ancient venue. Societies have moved from producing fairy tales to endlessly repeating them, whereas visual art still is created. So, question for the reader, do you think American Society is united enough that you could find the "soul" of the American people in our modern art? And do you think there is a specific venue of written literature that could provide this same purpose?
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I don't have anything fully formed to say, but I think it's pretty clear that the major art forms Americans pay attention to these days are movies and music. So America's soul is somewhere in there. Music is splintering, especially since it's hard to tell what people are actually listening to with piracy on one end and headphones on the other. As for movies, our blockbusters indicate we like explosions, special effects, attitude, some kind of heroism, etc.
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