The Ascendency of Modern American Art and Culture - Coursework Example

The Ascendency of Modern American Art and CultureThe American society is a transcending one, made up of several components and sectors. When some of these components and sectors of society that are similar and related are put together, there is a visual depiction of the culture of the American people. This is because culture has been explained to be the ideas, social behavior and customs that are shared among a group of people (Ashton, 2013). The culture of a group of people is so important that it gives a unique identity to the people and set them apart from other people.

It is for this reason that cultural heritage has become an important topic and socio-academic discourse of late. Quite related to culture is art, which also gives the same level of identity to a group of people.Different scholars have defined art in a lot of ways, depending on the perspective from which they approached to topic. From a more generic viewpoint however, art can be referred to as the expression of a person’s mental imagery in a very realistic and tangible form. This means therefore that art is a finished product of a person’s imagination.

For this reason, art could take several forms and could come as either a planned way of life or an unplanned way of life. Examples of art therefore include poetry, music, painting, carving, pottery, dance, sculpture, literature and acting. Art can be described as being socio-academic because it could be used as a part of social expression or may be advanced as an academic area of study (Bazin, 2009).Art and culture are virtually inseparable phenomena. This is because it was stated in the opening paragraph that culture is the composition of people’s ideas and social behavior.

Meanwhile, art has been explained to be the expression of people’s creative imagination, which certainly includes their ideas and social perception to life. With this noted, art can be said to be the visual expression of culture. As such, art will be different from one group of people to the other, depending on their culture. In American culture for example, mention can be made of the relationship between art form such as Avant-Grand and Dadaism. Born out of the negative image of the First World War, Dadaism was developed as a culture that sought to highlight on the positivism of looking at the brighter way of life (Zukin, 2002).

To consolidate this, Avant-Grand was borrowed to counter pop culture and subsequently became a permanent part of the American people. Another example to illustrate the relationship between art and American culture is the birth of the renaissance art, which was directly linked to Renaissance cultural movement which spanned from the 14th to the 17th century (Ashton, 2013).To conclude, it can be reiterated that art and culture have always had a relationship and that the art of a group of people, including Americans continues to become diversified depending on prevailing status of the culture of the people.

Modern art in America has currently been on the ascendency due to the instrumental role that art plays in giving the American culture a global identity.ReferencesAshton, D. (2013). The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning. New York: Viking.Bazin, G. (2009). The Avant-garde in Painting. New York: Simon and Schuster.Zukin, S. (2002). Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change. New York: Johns Hopkins University Press.