Religious influence on early American art - Essay Example

Religious Influences on the Early American Art High School Religious Influences on the Early American Art The United s has become a unique example of the country that was originally built in the religious canons of Christianity. The merit of the formation of this new outlook of the country belonged to the first European settlers. Most of them often belonged to the prosecuted religious communities of Europe. Their idea of the world that was based on the religious canons laid the basis of the creation of the new American culture.

The most important component of early American culture is Puritanism, one of the most radical trends of Protestantism in 16th and 17th centuries. The Puritan outlook rooted in the medieval times and was deeply religious. The Puritans believed that all human actions should be directed to the main value of glory of God. On the other hand, Puritan medieval outlook combines with the new democratic feature, because Puritanism with its political ideas was close to the most daring democratic and republican theories.

In most cases, Holy Bible served as an informal body of law and understanding of the rules of everyday life. In this respect, early American art being a sponge of the public ideas, absorbed the Puritanism with its religiousness. The current paper considers the influence of the religion on early American literature and fine arts. Considering the early American literature, the early writers had Holy Bible as a model. Bible was the most important source of plots, imagery, and inspiration in the conditions unsuitable even for life.

Every passage of the Old and New Testament could become a subject of a sermon or a poem (works by Edward Taylor or a poem “The Day of Doom” by Michael Wigglesworth). In addition to that, every event of the daily life in New England was reinterpreted in accordance to Scriptures and was seen as a fulfilled prophecy and a confirmation of a reality of the Biblical texts. The joys of hearth and home, marital love, and the birth of children were seen as a manifestation of the Lord’s will and became a topic for New Anglican letters, diaries, poems, and reflections.

A personal spiritual experience was also very important and worth literary incarnation. The spiritual experience included the moments of enlightenment or penance communication with God as well as the confrontation with the spirits of wickedness (Halleck, 2006). The writers of New England left behind mostly spiritual autobiographies and the diaries of the inner spiritual life (“The Spiritual Travels of Nathan Cole” (1765). Didacticism is another essential feature of the early literature of New England.

The latter will be inherited by the descendants of the writers, especially by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Puritan writers were convinced that the art that only entertains and gives aesthetic pleasure, but does not strengthen the spirit cannot help the person and thus, it cannot be trusted. The Puritan approach to literature was mostly clearly embodied in the incredibly widespread The New England Primer (1683) that learned to read several generations of colonizers (Halleck, 2006). Early American fine arts became a more or less of a full value after two centuries the first colony was founded.

The reason is that the first Protestant colonists viewed paintings and sculptures as idolatrous (Queen, Prothero, & Shattuck, 2009). The forms that constituted fine art during the nineteenth century took their roots in religious tradition and methods: the didactic imagery was aimed to teach the viewer or to provide the possible religious convention; and devotional imagery had to educate and help to form the viewers character (Schwain, 6). It is worth mentioning that these religious tasks pierced all fields of early fine art and where prevalent during the country’s history (Schwain, 7).

The first phenomenon with common own stylistic features in painting was Hudson River School (1820-1850). The latter was brought together around artist Thomas Cole. The group of artists was inspired by the beauty of the Hudson Valley landscapes. Their works where painted in the strong romantic colors often taking the religious themes.To conclude with, all branches of early American art were influenced by religion. The latter was stipulated by the fact that the founders of the new American culture were adherents of the very religious Protestant movement, the Puritanism.

The ideas of Puritanism pierced almost every part of early American worldview as well as art. ReferencesHalleck, R. (2006). History of American literature. Echo Library. Queen, E., Prothero, S., & Shattuck, G. (2009). Encyclopedia of American religious history. New York: Facts On File. Schwain, K. (2008). Signs of grace: religion and American art in the gilded age. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.