Does Art Shape Culture of Culture Shape Art?

[SyntaxVorlon]

It depends on how you define culture and art. If you define culture as having art as one of its parameters, then yes art affects culture, in so as it affects its future incarnations. Does it go beyond that?

Art is a method of the formulation and dissemination of social structure and content. That is, it is part of what tells us what it means to live in its culture, or if you're more of an anti-realist our interpretation of art tells us live in said culture. If art interpretation is part of the education of people in a society, then art influences the way in which culture is formed in the minds of a society's individuals.

So, yes sociologically speaking, art affects culture. And its really easy to establish that culture affects art.

You could say that they are mutually parameters in each other's time derivatives.

dA/dt is proportional to C
dC/dt is proportional to A

[wolveraptor]

It's more than that. The Art Community was everything in polite societies then. Being seen at art shows not approved by the art community powers that be were scandalous and could lead to outright osterization. Manet and his mates in the Impressionist movement weren't just considered bad artists, they were considered downright subversive and borderline criminals to many in society. When Manet, for instance, unvieled Olympia in Paris, there was a huge outroar and it triggered a major controversy. Everyone in society was talking about the how fucking daring and rude and scandalous (and exciting and outrageous and shocking) it was for Manet to not only flout painting tradition is his subject but would dare slap France herself in the face by painting a naked prostitute. People speculated for months whether this was Manet's revenge for the Salon (the huge government sponsered annual art show) rejecting his Luncheon on the Grass, which too depicted a naked woman, though in this case was a known associate of his whom people might have recognized. The Salon accepted Olympia for its daring, but the masses of France who attended the Salon were rather nasty. Manet practically had to leave town because so many people were publically insulting him or worse.

You talk about television, but the art world for high society in France at the time it was the equivlent. It very much effected culture even the high reaches of the government. The Salon was a huge big deal that everyone in the middle class of France and above clamoured about. I gave the example of Manet's Olympia to illustrate this point. Art infused everything in French society, it was practically the core of it at the time. it was something everyone talked about and anyone who was anyone was a patron. Art shows could cause riots and duels. Art effected the culture of France as much as anything. Hell, its effects are still felt today, as part of the reason French are so damn stuffy about French arts (be it culinary, cinematic, paintings, et cetera) and close to banning any others.

Wouldn't this rather be the effect of a fickle and quixotic nobility holding such superiority over others, and such effortless riches, that they turned their attention to monopolizing high society to their own whims?

[Darth Wong]

Art infused everything in French society, it was practically the core of it at the time. it was something everyone talked about and anyone who was anyone was a patron.

In other words, if a society happens to be unusually art-obsessed, then art becomes very important to that particular society. Wow, thanks for that incredible insight.

[haas mark]

I think that, possibly, one instance of 'art' affecting culture would be to look at Marquis de Sade. While the idea of sadomasochism was abhorred in its time, it tends to lean toward the idea of S&M being rapidly more widespread due to the writings of de Sade.

I am probably grasping at straws, and if I am, oh, well. But it was just a thought.