Humanities anthropology Essay

Art and Society, what is their relationship? Does Art encourage the growth of a society or does a society provoke the direction of its Art? What are the influences? How much is being influenced? Art began, one may argue, when civilization was borne. With each civilization, we form a society, a group of people with individual characteristics, philosophies and cultures within which all sorts of ideas, thoughts and opinions are always brought to challenge and evaluation. These may be recorded in literature or in different forms of expression we known as Art. Right from the where culture started, events have been recorded in forms of pictures i.e. historical paintings which inform us about experiences in the past historical periods. History is the record of the development of human society. It can be expressed in forms of architectures, sculptures and paintings. As the topic is vast, I will therefore be focusing on the relationship between painting and society. I will be referring to different periods of Art movement to view its contribution to its society, and how Art and society have counteracted in bringing forth new Arts and new societies for generation to come. Traditionally, Art has been used as a vehicle to illustrate and illuminate history as historians recognize that some Art may help them to identify and explain the nature of a society or a period. Ideas trigger responses.