"High art" redirects here. For the film, see High Art.
The Creation of Adam, from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling – an example of high culture
In a society, high culture encompasses cultural objects of aesthetic value, which a society collectively esteems as being exemplary works of art,[1] and the intellectual works of literature and music, history and philosophy, which a society considers representative of their culture.[2]
In popular usage, the term high culture identifies the culture either of the upper class (an aristocracy) or of a status class (the intelligentsia); high culture also identifies a society’s common repository of broad-range knowledge and tradition (folk culture) that transcends the social-class system of the society. Sociologically, the term high culture is contrasted with the term low culture, which comprises the forms of popular culture characteristic of the less-educated social classes, such as the barbarians, the Philistines, and hoi polloi (the masses),[3] though very often also enjoyed by the upper classes.
The Acropolis of Athens, Greece
Matthew Arnold introduced the term high culture in the book Culture and Anarchy (1869). The Preface defines culture as "the disinterested endeavour after man’s perfection" pursued, obtained, and achieved by effort to "know the best that has been said and thought in the world".[4] Such a literary definition of high culture also includes philosophy. Moreover, the philosophy of aesthetics proposed in high culture is a force for moral and political good. Critically, the term "high culture" is contrasted with the terms "popular culture" and "mass culture".[5]
In Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), T. S. Eliot said that high culture and popular culture are necessary and complementary parts of the culture of a society. In The Uses of Literacy (1957), Richard Hoggart presents the sociologic experience of the working-class man and woman in acquiring the cultural literacy, at university, which facilitates social upward mobility. In the U.S., Harold Bloom and F. R. Leavis pursued the definition of high culture, by way of the Western canon of literature.
Media theorist Steven Johnson writes that, unlike popular culture, "the classics—and soon to be classics—are in their own right descriptions and explanations of the cultural systems that produced them." He says that "a crucial way in which mass culture differs from high art" is that individual works of mass culture are less interesting than the broader cultural trends which produced them.[6]
^Williams, Raymond. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (1983) Rev. Ed. p. 92.
^Williams, Raymond. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (1983) Rev. Ed. p. 91–92.
^Gaye Tuchman, Nina E. Fortin (1989). "ch. 4 The High-Culture Novel". Edging Women Out: Victorian Novelists, Publishers and Social Change. ISBN 978-0-415-03767-9.
^Arnold, Matthew (1869). Culture and Anarchy. The Cornhill Magazine.
(2003) Culture and Anarchy at Project Gutenberg
^The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1967) Volume 1. p. 167.
^Steven Johnson (6 April 2006). Everything Bad is Good for You: How Popular Culture is Making Us Smarter. Penguin Books Limited. p. 203. ISBN 978-0-14-193312-2.
In a society, highculture encompasses cultural objects of aesthetic value, which a society collectively esteems as being exemplary works of art, and the...
on culture are also found in class-based distinctions between a highculture of the social elite and a low culture, popular culture, or folk culture of...
generally viewed in contrast to other forms of culture such as folk culture, working-class culture, or highculture, and also from different academic perspectives...
Chinese culture (simplified Chinese: 中华文化; traditional Chinese: 中華文化; pinyin: Zhōnghuá wénhuà) is one of the world's oldest cultures, originating thousands...
The CultureHigh is a 2014 feature-length documentary film directed by Brett Harvey. It is about the marijuana prohibition and the war on drugs in United...
highculture that appeal to a smaller, often upper-class proportion of the populace. Culture theory proposes that both highculture and low culture are...
and in particular Paris, has played an important role as a center of highculture since the 17th century and from the 19th century on, worldwide. From...
school. Youth subcultures that show a systematic hostility to the dominant culture are sometimes described as countercultures. Youth music genres are associated...
Material culture is the aspect of culture manifested by the physical objects and architecture of a society. The term is primarily used in archaeology and...
Youth culture refers to the societal norms of children, adolescents, and young adults. Specifically, it comprises the processes and symbolic systems that...
A horse culture is a tribal group or community whose day-to-day life revolves around the herding and breeding of horses. Beginning with the domestication...
Culture change is a term used in public policy making that emphasizes the influence of cultural capital on individual and community behavior. It has been...
United States the culture has also spawned its own celebrities (such as Tommy Chong and Terence McKenna), magazines (Cannabis Culture and High Times), and,...
that in cultures that are collectivist and high in power parents use real shame in their parenting styles. Whereas in individualistic cultures that are...
Culture shock is an experience a person may have when one moves to a cultural environment which is different from one's own; it is also the personal disorientation...
In political science, a culture war is a type of cultural conflict between different social groups who struggle to politically impose their own ideology...
Alternative culture is a type of culture that exists outside or on the fringes of mainstream or popular culture, usually under the domain of one or more...
density, among others. Different aspects of American culture can be thought of as low culture or highculture, or belonging to any of a variety of subcultures...
Depictions of violence in highculture art and in popular culture, such as cinema and theater, have been the subject of considerable controversy and debate...
dominant culture is a cultural practice that is dominant within a particular political, social or economic entity, in which multiple cultures co-exist...
The Culture of Latin America is the formal or informal expression of the people of Latin America and includes both highculture (literature and high art)...
queer), while the term gay culture may be used to mean either "LGBT culture" or homosexual culture specifically. LGBT culture varies widely by geography...
Culture theory is the branch of comparative anthropology and semiotics that seeks to define the heuristic concept of culture in operational and/or scientific...
music), and magazines including High Times and Cannabis Culture. Cannabis culture has also infiltrated chess culture, whereby the "Bongcloud Attack" denotes...
Vietnamese cultures. In the 21st century, ideological and cultural influences of Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism remain visible in highculture and social...
An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute...
cross, Odin's cross or Woden's cross. Although it has been used in various cultures for different purposes, it came to represent the compass points, Earth...
immersed in trivia about celebrity culture. Critics have lamented the "replacement of high art and authentic folk culture by tasteless industrialized artefacts...
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