Arts - Human History

Art has transcended trough human history; many cultures have manipulated the elements around them by creating art. The author starts by referring to the fact that from a point in history art started to change its influence and became more popular, art for the masses. The reproduction of art through the use machines not only copied art but exposed it to ordinary people who were able to have it in their own houses. Art has a religious beginning, most art was created to express emotional feelings and to express religiousness through temples and statues that were gifts to the Greek gods or the pyramids that follow the death to the other world. Then new religions appear and changed the panoramic of arts, they created new temples paintings, and sculptures. This process changed the way artists thought and therefore art itself changed.

With the development of new technologies art has changed yet again, the paintings are now easy to reproduce thus integrating normal people into the process and even the as the author referred readers can now participate in the writing of the book because technology allows them to interfere in the writing of the book. This thesis also referrers to photography and movies, that in fact function in way where people can participate actively in the process. Photography allows the artist to express himself trough the people and vice versa. Then the advancement of technology brought movies, which in fact where a step forward from photography. It helped even more to let simple people participate in the making of art.

Although the author demonstrates some apathy for the new arts, such as movies and photography, he explains and judges their ideals and the conflicts between the art of the people and the styles of the past. He brings the point of politics and its expression trough art that go along the same path. Therefore to understand art it is necessary to understand politics. And in the politics of the time when the book was written, politics were extremely volatile and influential. In Germany fascism was growing and communism was rooted in Russia. These political clashes influenced art, in each country and the world, in different ways, one of them being the communistic way where art was public and from the people, while in Germany art as many other things was private but in essence its goal was to magnify people. Architecture as a major part of the artistic realm follows the same lines, from the religious to the political, going of course, through the same technological changes that affect art. Even though architecture is and art of more durability it also can be influenced by multiple factors that influence humans as a part of culture.