Free Essay On How Social Values And Historical Processes Affect Art

How Social Values and Historical Processes affect Art?

Introduction
Social values refer to the belief of the society and shows the difference between good and bad. Social values are important part of society and they play an important role in forming the behavior and attitudes (Inglehart, 2003). On the other hand, Art is important part of culture that show the trust and values of a society. Art helping people expresses what they feel, their desires, values and thoughts. History of any of the society has large influence on the way different forms of arts appear. At the time of the Medieval, Europe was one of the most primitive society and Church played the main role for everything from temporal to spiritual lives. At that time, almost all paintings were about the idea of the Christian faith. This thing completely change when the very deadly plague came to Europe. It changed everything. The biggest change that took place at that time was the way people started to show their lives in arts. Despite the fact that that time was very hard and deadly, this illness starts the main theme in arts. This situation shows us that social values and historical processes are very close connected with the art.

Social Values and Arts

Art simply shows our thoughts and feelings, and they gradually developed through historical processes and social values. Social values are made through a long-term process, which has a great impact how people show themselves. Art takes part in sharing the understanding or things, attitudes and values from generation to generation. For educating any society, art forms are very needed. In the evolution of culture, these art forms are remarkable as they help culture to continue developing and changing through new styles and forms. One of the best examples is the plywood chair done by Charles Emanes in 1940s. Artwork gives a generative understanding of ethos of culture. For example, sculptures that show ancient Greek history. On the other hand, modern art also depicting values that exist in different societies. The modern art is the work done by the modern artist starting from twentieth century. This form of art is a depiction of the modern culture and society. The modern artist work is to combine the methods, materials, subjects and concepts that challenge the regular art forms.
In the Egyptian visual arts, the message of religious unity can be found easily between Christians and Muslims who live in Egypt. The visual arts of Egypt also give a unity message in the Egyptian revolutionary streets art. This visual art was for army and the citizens that they must work together to fight against any evil ruling system. In Germany, the social values and social messages spread all over the world with the help of visual arts. The visual arts showing the symbols of freedom and peace in the form of two hands in chains, one hand giving the peace symbol and the other one holding the prison bar. The visual arts and other forms of art show or communicate values. In the Germany County’s visuals, the visual arts of victory and reunion represented. The other visual arts symbol shows that Germans were strong and brave after they lost the war against other countries.

Social Values and Historical Processes in Hindu Culture

The Hindu culture is one of the oldest cultures in the world that are still living. The social values of Hindus based on Vedas and other Holy scriptures. These social values that are taken from scriptures are now important part of Hindus living around the world. Music is a main form of art that expresses the beliefs of people. In Hindu culture, music taking a central part in the practice of religion. The music based on the historical events their gods went through. For example, Gita, which is one of the most important holy books, is written in a musical form to show the lives of the god Gita. Another holy book called Ramayana, narrate the story of their god Ram and this book tells us about the war that he did against the evil. Although, these historical things happened thousands of years back, but it still has a large impact on the Hindu art. Not only these things are expressed through music, but these things are also shown in painting and sculptures. Hindus create sculptures of the gods to create a spiritual connection and they find the images of the gods in the holy book.
The last-mentioned things are not only part of religions expressions, but it is also an important part of the Indian Cinema today. The social values and artistic expressions are an important part of the dramas and movies in the Hindi Cinema. The social values of Hindus think that a healthy family life to be a main source of success for people. Living individually is not restricted, but a family life is important. This notion of family is always shown in Bollywood. Most films and drams show us family lives and characterization of these roles make it important.

9/11 and Effect on Arts

9/11 attack did not only the changed the security conditions in the world but also it has a great impact on art. Since a lot of people are involved in the act were Muslims, the image of Muslims has drastically changed, 9/11 became one of the most important and painful event history, and the artistic portrayal of people of this faith also changed. It should be noted that in movies around the world, especially American, Muslims are often shown as terrorists. The historical event of 9/11 has completely changed the artistic portrayal of Muslims (Lubin, 1994). There can be a lot of points why such portrayal should not be appreciated, but this is the basic human nature that cannot be ignored. Unlike past, videogames now also play an important role in changing the thinking process of people – especially kids. There is a number of games available, which often represent Muslims as enemies. This has a long-term impact on the image of Muslims. Because of these ideas, there is a visible conflict of civilization in the world. This conflict of civilization is a global threat to the peace all over the world. It must be noted that there is not possible to ignore a religious group that is 1 billion population of the world. Therefore, there is one Muslim out of every six human beings in this planet. A gulf between the one billion populations and five billion population will result in serious problems.
One important social value of Muslims is the idea that how they should be dressed. This is one of the most important social values that affect the look of women in artistic form. This is very common in Iranian cinema. The women is covered from head to toe with almost every part covered expert the face. Not only is the dressing inspired by the social values. The way a woman should act is also a part of the social value (Morgan, 2009). Women are the central figure of family who is responsible for everything at home. In some countries, these artistic representations are practiced by will and in some countries like Saudi Arabia, they are regulated by state.
According to the Islamic values, the God is remembered through 99 names. These 99 names are central to the religion of Islam and it plays an important role in the Islamic culture. As many Muslims believe that make real life like objects is not allowed, therefore they take huge inspiration from the 99 names. During the last few centuries, Muslims have developed a new form of art called Calligraphy. Calligraphy represents the names of God beautifully hand-written in Arabic. Throughout the entire Islamic world, these 99 names written in thousands of forms are central to the Muslim art. Islamic Calligraphy now become a unique field of art with infinite amount of artists in the whole world.

Industrialization and Arts

The era of industrialization began from Europe, and this historical event has a large impact on developing the European culture. After the period of Renaissance, the Europeans were enlightened and this also changed the arts of the Europe. For example, the main art forms were connected with religion, which were changed a lot in the industrialization age. The West is still inspired by the same historical process. There are a number of movies in Hollywood that show these ideas with the help of time machines, spaceships and other fantasies. After the first journey to Moon by Neil Armstrong in 1969, there are hundreds of movies based on this event.

Greek Culture

Art is defined as a big range of human activities that can be made by using technical and imaginative skills. These human activities include production of artwork, the esthetic spread of art and the study of historical art. Art is originated by different ancient cultures like Greek, Roman and Islamic. The ancient Greek culture made a lot of significant achievements in different fields. These areas included government sector, philosophy and science and the arts. Greek culture is still influenced these areas in positive way. Art is simply an expression of thoughts and these thoughts are changed through historical processes and social values. Social values are made through a long-term process, which has a great impact how people express themselves.
In Greek culture, wine is the most commonly used drink. Pots, bowls, cups and jags have been used since ancient Greek times. The Greek art shows this thing in art form as different types of potteries were made in drinking vessels shapes. The Greek art is influenced by the classical Mediterranean civilization. Music and drama are the main parts in Greek culture. The Greek dramas more concentrate on the tragedies unlike the Indian or other Asian writers. Emotions and human life’s different phases are very important and this can easily be seen in Greece culture and arts. Sophocles is the Athenian dramatist draw all the psychological flaws of his hero, which showed a true picture of a simple person, which exists in the society and showed an emotional connection of a man with his mother. The classical Mediterranean architecture and art were connected with the Greek culture and society. Different portrays and sculptures were made, different temples and marketplaces existed in Greek society. On the other hand, classical dramas were based on the cultural elite.

The Islamic Art

The Islamic art started his way in the nineteen century. This art does not show any specific set of religious imaginary unlike Buddhist or Christianity arts. The Islamic art reflect all the arts that produced during the time of Muslim leadership. This shows that the Muslim historical culture affect arts. The Islamic culture formed after ottoman and Safavid Islamic empires. Islamic art is the true reflection of these great two historical empires. The Islamic culture is full of artistic forms like architecture, calligraphy, floral designs and geometric designs. All these arts are inspired by Ottoman and Safavid historical periods.

Calligraphy

The Islamic culture developed from Arabic countries. Arabic culture give value to art and poetry. In Islam, the God’s message was given to Muhammad, the last messenger of God. These messages are preserved in the holy book Quran. The calligraphy originated from these God’s messages. Calligraphy is the art form in which the quranic verses and scripts are written in beautiful writing with decorative effects.

Arabesques

The evolution of Islamic art was because of Abbasids art. This is another form of Islamic art, which is inspired by Islamic culture. This art shows the visual arts like flowers motives and the scrolling patterns. This type of art reflects the images of paradise or heaven that is full of lush green, flowery and aroma. In reality, the Islamic world does not have such scenery and images as most of the countries are dry, infertile and face vegetation deficit.

Geometric Designs

The geometric designs are expressed variety, unity and harmony. This form of art shows the true Islamic principles like mizan (equality) and tawhid (unity).

The Umayyads’ Art

The Islamic art started with Umayyad’s period. As mentioned above, the two great empires originated Islamic art. Byzantine did experiments with designing Islamic architecture. Domes and open arched entryways are also one of the famous Islamic architecture.

Indian Art

Culture plays important role in any national development. A culture is defined as the set of customs, traditions, attitudes and values. Indian culture is known as one of the rich cultures. This country has different art forms, including music, theater, dramas, painting, writing, and folk traditions. Its arts forms show the historical Hindu culture. The historical Gods stories are played in theaters and dramas. These historical stories were written in different scripts. The Hindu temples are one of the best examples of Hindu art (Stewart, 2008). The architect of Hindu religious places is the picture of its culture. This shows a great image of Hindu culture in its arts forms. The art form is music, which include folk, classical, jazz, and pop. Among them, the traditional Hindu culture is presented by classical and folk music. However, the modern Hindu culture is shown in the pop, rap and jazz music. The key Indian art themes started in the early Harappa period that is 2500 BC. The new and modern artistic ideas came up with the indo Europeans arrival. Some of the new artistic themes come up with the change of Buddhism. The temples of Ellora and Ajanta built in the Guptan period about 500 AD (Walker, 2007). In that art form, the Buddha life scenes and statues carved. After the Islamic faith and enemies arrived in 1000 AD, the complex Arabic and Persian art forms are introduced. These art forms made difficulty for the Hindu artists, as they did not have any idea about Islamic art. At that time, the small paintings became famous.

Conclusion

Art is simply the way you show your thoughts and these thoughts are changing step by step through historical processes and social values. Social values are forming for long time and they have a great impact on the way how people express themselves. While expressions are shown through collective values, but it is gets a new view after a change the way people take a look at things. These view on things is a result of main historical processes. Social values are an important part of society and it playing a significant role in defining the way the society acts. Art is a significant part of culture that shows the beliefs and values of a people and society. Art is the way people expresses their feeling, desires, values and thoughts. History of a particular society has large impact on the way different forms of arts appear. The detailed study of various cultures around the world shows the fact that social values and historical process has a large impact on arts. This relation remains the same from the simple societies to the most complicated societies of the world. On one side arts are expression of thoughts and on the other hand, these thoughts are developing through historical processes and social values. The arts and its view of the worlds is going to keep on changing based on the changing social values and history.

Bibliography

Inglehart, R. 2003. Human values and social change findings from the values surveys. Leiden: Brill.
Lubin, D. 1994. Picturing a nation: Art and social change in nineteenth-century America. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Morgan, M. 2009. The impact of 9/11 on the media, arts, and entertainment. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Stewart, P. 2008. The social history of Roman art. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Walker, R. 2007. Music education cultural values, social change and innovation. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas Publisher.