Changing Styles in Art and Entertainment

Abstract

Styles in art change; for art is not a search for abstract beauty but bears a relation to the times of which it is born. Unlike science, it does not embody the idea of progress, contenting itself with giving coherence and form to a particular epoch. Our own epoch is marked by complexity, discontinuity, movement. And our art is what it is through an expression of these qualities. Contemporary art is particularly responsive to the values and influences of the day. For it is essentially a public art. It may be obscure or vulgar, but it reflects, and it in turn shapes, a vital social order.