The Rising Of American Culture

In this dissertation, it describes the development and characters of American culture from the painting perspective. During the period from1820’s to1950’s, the American school painting did not appear till the1820’s and it cost American another100years or more to build its own culture identity which will be widely accepted by the Europeans. During this period, it witnessed American struggling between the modernity and tradition, nationalism and Europeanism. In the end, American has become a great nation of culture when it transcended its narrowness and conservatism, bought the ideas of modernity and took modern European heritages.It has seven parts.In preface, I explained the relations between culture and power, the origins of cultural power as an obvious phenomenon, and the effects of American culture on globe. I also reviewed the research history and results about American culture both in and out China, and stated the point why panting can be used as history evidence and completely fulfill this job.Chapter I was about the theories and methods of how to explain a painting. Basically, I used Heinrich Wolfflin’s formal analysis and Panofsky’s iconography to analyze the content and ideas of a particular work. However, it is necessary to go further to get its symbolic meaning and corrective explanation nearer to the original one. We then need to consider the outer limited conditions about the process of producing and selling a painting, for example, its patronage, exhibition history, art critical responses, popularity, and so on. So I suggest a model to analyze a particular painting. This model is based on formal analysis and iconography, and borrowed the theory of semiotics to conclude its symbolic meaning, but limited by its outer producing and selling conditions.Chapter II described the first American painting school during the1920’s. The appearance of Hudson River School coincided with the expansion of American lands and the growing tide of nationalism. The most common themes in the works by the painters of Hudson River School are American landscapes, which range from the eastern valley of Hudson River to the western Great Plains, mountains and the Pacific coastal areas, even includes the South America. These landscape paintings totally discarded the limitation of European themes and classical tastes and greatly inspired American patriotism. During this period, American landscape paintings were highly praised by most Americans and sold very well with extremely high price. So we can treat the appearance of Hudson River School as the beginning of American culture.Chapter Ⅲ dealt with the characteristics of American panting during the end of the19th century and the beginning of the20th century. The tastes for painting art in this period were multivariate and dominated by European one. Since the second half of the19th century, the varied tastes for art are determined according to their social identities. Generally, the most upper class inclined to buy the classical masterpieces by European traditional masters, and their tastes dominated the American art market and promoted the foundation of the earliest public American art museums and private art galleries. On the contrary, the new rising upper middle class liked both American contemporary works and the latest paintings by European avant-gardes. The lower middles were then more interested in American traditional painters, especially the one from the eye-foiling school. Obviously, the tastes of most wealthy class couldn’t be widely accepted by most Americans. However, at this point, the wealth of the most promising upper middles wasn’t enough to support a national modern art school. While there were varied art schools which competed with each other to explore the road to modern American art, the total acceptance of modernism had to be delayed till the next century.Chapter Ⅳ analyzed the features of American painting during the two World Wars. The Armory Show in1913had ever excited the Americans to know more about the modern European ideas. Unfortunately, although America has become the most powerful nation of the world in this period, it coincided with the rising of American nationalism and the isolationism. The popularity of nationalism tide led most Americans prefer to keep their own traditions rather than learn from modern European culture. Moreover, this conservative and narrow mind made Americans viewed modernism as a new cultural invasion by Europeans other than a natural and necessary advanced stage in America. Since the end of1910s, the American abstract paintings have been overlooked, mocked and resisted by most Americans. The characteristics of American culture during this period were rather conservative, dull, static, and even backward.Chapter V featured the rising and popularity of American contemporary modernist art both in America and Europe. At the end of the World War II, we witnessed the birth of the first modernist American painting school--the New York school or the abstract expressionism. The abstract expressionism has become the symbol of American culture since the1950’s and was highly commended and modeled after by European art critics and artists by the end of1950’s. Since then, the abstract expressionism became one of the canons of western arts. The abstract expressionism has its roots in European modernism, however, the American artists created a new style by merging other non-European themes and ideas into their creations, for example, the North American Indian tribe tales, and the widely circulated prehistory myths. To some extent, it has created an art school both America and worldwide. Certainly, the United States at this time became a great cultural power in the world.The epilogue was a supplement and conclusion. In this part, the author went further in the methodology of the art of painting, explained the role of paintings as qualified sources is as important as written documents. In addition, the author stated the key role about the elite class helping shaping American identity. Further, the author also explained how the European modern culture helps molding the American culture. In the end, the author concluded that the importance of elite class to the culture in a state, and how important a country should always keep its mind open.