Art, including paintings, sculptures, music and literature is integral to society and preserves its collective memory. Art captures what fact-based historical records cannot: how it felt to be alive during specific eras.
Art and religion studies employ various methodologies and vocabularies, from exploring their relationship to culture to investigating religious art in terms of its historical context.
Cultural Values
Many cultures rely on art as an expressive means. Visual forms include painting and sculpture while verbal forms include poetry and writing. Each culture’s art can reflect their values, beliefs and historical context as it affects how people view and respond to works from other cultures.
Cultural values are the core beliefs that shape society’s behavior and define its ideals, often the result of environmental adaptations, historical factors and social/economic evolution. People develop cultural perceptual patterns which determine which stimuli reach them and impact their judgments of individuals, things and events.
Value in art can vary widely based on aesthetic appeal, cultural significance or personal significance. Over time its worth may fluctuate according to economy trends or other considerations. “Fine” art tends to command higher perceived values due to being driven more by aesthetic value and intellectual merit rather than practical applications or economic gain.
Artists throughout history have used their art form to shed light on key social issues of the time, from war and disease outbreaks, famine, poverty and homelessness to depictions that induce feelings of empathy towards those depicted.
Art is also an invaluable form of therapy, used by many artists to cope with personal or family difficulties or work through trauma from past experiences. Art can allow the artist to express emotions and feelings while giving a sense of accomplishment and achievement.
Cross-cultural researchers have studied patterns in the creative output of different societies. One such finding suggests that variations in stratification or subsistence activity levels of various societies is linked to certain characteristics in their art production. For instance, art created in less complex societies tends to feature wider melodic intervals than art created in more stratified ones – likely because egalitarian societies lack significant differences in status and thus value sameness over differentiation.
Social Values
Art is an integral component of society worldwide and throughout human history, providing people a way to share experiences that help them better comprehend their surroundings, while simultaneously expressing emotions through various art forms. Furthermore, networking between artists is integral part of any industry just like networking between gamers on sites found on YoakimBridge.com is an integral part of the gaming ecosystem; art should therefore play an integral part in society.
Art has long been used as a forum to address social issues, from plague and war, to civil rights struggles and economic disparity. Modern artists continue this legacy by using their creative outlets to bring awareness of crucial topics such as gun violence, climate change and economic disparity that plague modern society.
Culture’s values reflect what its people believe to be true; these beliefs may change over time, as is often the case. For instance, in America these may include moving away from proslavery towards abolition, segregation toward civil rights and male physical intimacy towards female sexuality – these changes being an expression of social and cultural shifts within its society.
Societies can put their values into action by enforcing group rules and norms. For instance, when helping an elderly woman board the bus may receive praise from his parents; company managers who increase profit margins could earn quarterly bonuses; these sanctions help shape society by encouraging conformity with ideas about what constitutes good and right conduct.
Art has the ability to influence society by shifting opinions and instilling values, translating experiences across space and time, and changing people’s fundamental sense of themselves. Research suggests visual art may even impact brain activity – possibly through emotional connections generated between viewer and art piece; one study by Newcastle University revealed this phenomenon with nursing home residents viewing contemporary visual art having positive results on their mental wellbeing.
Religious Values
Art is a mirror to both society and religious values, with art reflecting religious beliefs more directly than ever before. Many scholars in the field of religion and art have explored specific religious motifs found within works created, using them as tools to understand their cultural context in which the work was created. Art and religion studies has evolved into a multifaceted discipline with many approaches being taken such as comparative analysis of symbols and images created. Philosophers such as Titus Burckhardt as well as artists such as Coomaraswamy have all had significant influences upon this field as have philosophers such as Titus Burckhardt fore their influence upon art studies within it.
Art and religion studies encompass an expansive set of methodologies and vocabularies, including art history, iconology/symbolism/theology/culture studies/philosophy/anthropology/sociology etc. Furthermore, this field often crosses disciplines through collaboration among scholars of diverse fields.
At the core of this field of scholarship lies recognition that art and religion scholarship encompasses at least three intertwined subjects – social, cultural, and historical studies – in its analysis. Sociological investigations began during the 19th century with Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx who laid the groundwork for modern sociology.
Art and religion studies are typically taught at schools that specialize in multiple disciplines simultaneously, including history, architecture or philosophy departments. This arrangement enables students to expand their skill set across multiple subject areas while still having access to more technical aspects of art and religion studies.
Globalization and religious pluralism has presented art and religion scholars with a new challenge. With so much art from different traditions coming together in an ever-evolving global cultural scene, dominant Western artistic and religious heritages are increasingly merging into an environment replete with shared visual symbols and codes that have previously only existed between people who shared similar ideologies or backgrounds. This new reality demands a more inclusive approach to studying both aspects of life, artistic as well as religious activities being part of human existence.
Political Values
Art is a cultural and social phenomenon, often reflecting political values of its time period. Art can act as an indicator of political values; when proslavery was abolished, segregation ended, civil rights improved, patriarchy faded away to equality for women and men all had an impactful artistic response – Picasso and Braque’s Cubism was a revolutionary movement during early 1900s that broke with traditional art techniques by creating new visual languages with abstract shapes; later considered one of the most influential art movements ever.
Art is also seen as the storehouse of society’s collective memory. Painting, sculpture, music, literature and other fine arts preserve something fact-based historical records cannot: the emotional experience of being alive during certain periods. Cave paintings at Bhimbhetka, Venus of Berekhat Ram and other locations around the world demonstrate life for centuries past as both beautiful and tragic realities.
Studies conducted over recent decades have demonstrated the power of core political values to shape individual attitudes, attachments and behaviors. These values have been termed “value orientations”, and can range from egalitarian moral progressiveness to anti-egalitarian conservativeness on a continuum.
Research shows that core values play a pivotal role in shaping an individual’s political beliefs and voting behavior; however, education does not seem to impact this relationship between political values and voting behaviors.
Studies on the relationship between education and voter preferences has explored the influence of values; some researchers argue it to be an essential one. Other scholars, however, have countered that education is an insufficient proxy for voters’ values, and it may be misleading to study its effect on voter preferences under the assumption that education is required for them to translate into action. Other factors appear more influential, including people’s internalization and perceptions about their core values and responses to simple social cues. Other issues could also influence people’s vote decisions such as environmentalism beliefs, government size/taxation issues and personality of political leaders.