美国艺术的发展 – 音乐，舞蹈，建筑，视觉艺术和文学 -具有这样的特点：在欧洲的成熟与本土的独创性两大灵感的来源之间互相碰撞。 通常，最优秀的美国艺术家们都有办法同时驾驭两个来源。（蓝色为原中文翻译中没有的部分）
20世纪，美国艺术家摆脱了旧大陆先辈的影响，采纳了各种新潮的文化流派，取得了重大而富有创新的成果。
21世纪，音乐、电影、戏剧、舞蹈、建筑和其他艺术表现形式不断变革。音乐的复兴，现代舞蹈的新方向，由美国核心地带发展而来的戏剧，全国各地的独立制片业，视觉艺术的全球化——所有这一切组成了当代美国的一部分。
美国的艺术和文化不断从社会获得大量关注、能量和资源，但这一切都主要是在政府指令以外发生的。美国政府中没有制定国家艺术政策的“文化部”，这反映了一种信念，即在一些国民生活的重要领域中，政府所起到的作用是微乎其微的。两个国家捐赠基金 – 国家艺术基金会（NEA）和国家人文基金会（NEH） – 为个人艺术家和学者以及艺术和人文机构提供小额赠款支持。
在线阅读（英文）：
American Canvas (National Endowment for the Arts)(PDF file 1.36MB)
The Arts in America: New Directions (Electronic Journal, Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, April 2003)(PDF file 667KB)
How the United States Fund the Arts (National Endowment for the Arts) (PDF 446 KB)
Portrait of the USA: Distinctively American Arts (published by Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, Sept 1997) (PDF 70 KB)
Portrait of the USA: Exporting Popular Culture (published by Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, Sept 1997) (PDF 67 KB)
美国对建筑的明确贡献是摩天大楼，那些大胆、引人注目的线条使摩天大楼成为资本主义能量的象征。由于新的建筑技术和电梯的发明，第一个摩天大楼在1884年在芝加哥建起。
许多最优雅的早期高楼是由路易斯·沙利文（Louis Sullivan）（1856 -1924）设计的，他是美国第一位伟大的现代建筑师。 他最有才华的学生是弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特（Frank Lloyd Wright）（1869-1959），他花了职业生涯大量的时间设计私人住宅，搭配配套的家具和并大量使用开放空间。 然而，他最著名的建筑之一却是一座公共建筑：纽约市的古根海姆博物馆。
在第二次世界大战之前移民到美国的欧洲建筑师们发起了建筑界占主导地位的一个运动，国际风格。 这些移民中最有影响力的有路德维希·米斯·范德罗赫（Ludwig Mies van der Rohe）（1886-1969）和瓦尔特·格罗皮乌斯（Walter Gropius）（1883-1969），他们都是德国著名设计学院包豪斯的前院长。 他们的风格基于几何形状，使用他们风格的建筑有的被誉为美国企业生活的纪念碑，有的则被说成“玻璃盒”而没有采纳。带来的反应是，如迈克尔·格雷夫斯（Michael Graves）（1945-）那样更年轻一代的美国建筑师们已经拒绝支撑“后现代”风格的无装饰、四四方方的样子，转向暗含建筑历史风格的引人注目的轮廓和大胆的装饰。
在线阅读
美国国会大厦的历史 (PDF 448 KB)
电影并不是美国人的发明；然而却是美国对世界娱乐业作出的卓越贡献。
20世纪初，当这种传媒尚属新生事物之时，许多移民就在美国的电影业找到了工作。
他们能够在一个全新的行业中声名鹊起：沿街电影院展播的电影短片，这种电影院被称作5分钱影院，因为入场券是一个硬币(5分钱)一张。
在几年时间内，一些雄心勃勃的人，如塞缪尔·戈尔德温（Samuel Goldwyn）、卡尔·莱默尔（Carl Laemmle）、阿道夫·朱科尔（Adolph Zukor）、刘易斯·B·迈耶（Louis B. Mayer），以及华纳兄弟（Warner Brothers）则转向了这个行业的制片方面。很快，他们便成为一种新兴企业——电影制片厂的领军人物。主要的制片厂都集中在加州洛杉矶的好莱坞。
在所谓的好莱坞的黄金时代，即20世纪30和40年代，电影制片厂每年能够快速生产总计约400部电影，供每周9000万美国观众观看。
电影生产是一种商业活动，电影公司通过运作所谓的制片厂体制来赚钱。
大制片厂雇用成千上万名拿工资的人，并在全国的大小城镇中拥有数百家电影院 —— 这些电影院放映它们的影片，总是需要新片。
值得注意的是，在如此严格而统一的管理下居然生产出了如此之多的高质量娱乐产品。其中的一个原因是，有如此之多的影片在生产之中，不可能每一部都要产生轰动效应。
在20世纪40年代末，制片厂屈从于两股力量：一是联邦政府的反托拉斯行动将电影的生产与放映分离开来； 二是电视的出现。
电影的产量急剧下跌，同时平均预算激增，因为好莱坞想给观众提供的是他们无法在电视上看到的壮观场面。
这种大片综合症继续影响着好莱坞。加上薪酬飞涨的演员、制片厂负责人和片商，这就是说，如今发行的影片要么大获成功，要么一败涂地，一切全依赖于其巨额的开支与公众口味相投合的程度。
美国文学起源于口头流传的神话、传说、故事以及印第安文化的抒情诗（通常是歌曲）。在印第安文化中不存在任何书面文学。最早期的美国作品与对新世界的梦想直接相关，并且绝大多数出版物都是描述拓荒者的动机和定居情况。
地区文学在美国一直很重要。直至19世纪末期，美国文学都是以新英格兰人的作品为主，如科顿·马瑟（Cotton Mather）。这些作品的绝大部分都是布道和宗教宣传小册子。清教徒对好作品的定义就是能够让人清楚地认识到信仰上帝的重要性以及灵魂所面临的精神危险。清教主义风格千差万别——从复杂的玄学派诗歌到家庭杂志和宗教历史。
18世纪美国启蒙运动的特点是突出理性而非传统，以科学探索取代不问是非的宗教教义，以及以代议制政府来代替君主制。启蒙运动思想家和作家们献身于他们的理想，即实现公正、自由和平等这些天赋人权。本杰明·富兰克林（Benjamin Franklin）被苏格兰哲学家大卫·休谟（David Hume）称作美国 “文学第一人”， 他清晰地诠释了人类理性的启蒙运动思想。
浪漫主义运动在1820年左右传入美国。在美国和在欧洲一样，全新的视角令艺术界和知识界兴奋不已。不过仍然存在重大的差异：美国的浪漫主义恰逢全国拓荒以及发现美国鲜明个性的时期。国家特色感、迅速上升的理想主义和浪漫主义激情相互交融，这种氛围成就了一些大师之作，如拉尔夫·瓦尔多·爱默生（Ralph Waldo Emerson）和享利·大卫·梭罗（Henry David Thoreau）的作品。
在19世纪下半叶，美国转变成一个现代化的工业国家。随着工业化的增长，异化现象也不断上升。带有那个时代特色的美国小说，如斯蒂芬·克莱恩（Stephen Crane）和杰克·伦敦（Jack London）的作品，描述了经济力量和异化对弱小个人的伤害。像马克·吐温笔下的哈克·费恩（Huck Finn）这样的幸存者， 就经历了包括仁慈、变通在内的内在力量的考验，而最首要的是对个性的考验。
尽管两次世界大战之间的美国散文还处在对视角和形式进行试验的阶段，但是象欧内斯特·海明威（Ernest Hemingway）这样的美国人的作品在总体上比欧洲人更具现实主义。威廉·福克纳（William Faulkner） 则是在密西西比的酷热与尘土中创作了其影响深远的南方小说。直面现实的重要性成为20世纪20-30年代的时代主题：如F·科特·菲兹杰拉德（F. Scott Fitzgerald）这样的作家反复描写着悲剧即将降临到那些活在脆弱的梦想中的人身上。
自二战之后，叙事性作品拒绝一般性：特别具有多样化和多面性的特点。它受到国际潮流如欧洲存在主义和拉丁美洲魔幻现实主义的激发。
有9名美国人荣获诺贝尔文学奖：辛克莱·刘易斯（Sinclair Lewis）、尤金·奥尼尔（Eugene O’Neill）、赛珍珠（Pearl Buck）、 威廉·福克纳（William Faulkner）、欧内斯特·海明威（Ernest Hemingway）、约翰·斯坦贝克（John Steinbeck）、索尔·贝娄（Saul Bellow）、艾萨克·巴舍斯·辛格（Isaac Bashevis Singer）和托尼·莫里森（Toni Morrison）。
其它链接：
在美国的音乐舞台上流派纷呈，这里将集中介绍爵士乐和摇滚乐/乡村音乐和古典音乐。更多链接参见下文。
音乐博览 ——史密斯索尼亚协会提供
美国作曲家、作家与出版商协会
爵士乐起源于20世纪初的新奥尔良，它将来自于拉格泰姆、黑奴歌曲和铜管乐队的各种元素汇聚在一起。爵士乐最显着的元素是其流畅性：在现场演出中，乐手们几乎从不会用同样的方式演奏一首歌曲，而是会在其音符和歌词上即兴演绎。爵士乐从20到40年代一直在美国流行音乐中独占鳌头。30和40年代最为流行的爵士乐形式是”大乐队摇摆”，主要是根据格伦·米勒(Glenn Miller)和威廉·”伯爵”·巴锡(William “Count” Basie)之类的音乐家指挥的大型乐队来命名的。40年代末，一种更加理性、以器乐为主、名为“be-bop ”的爵士乐新形式开始吸引观众。在60年代，爵士乐手如迈尔斯·戴维斯(Miles Davis)和约翰·柯川所进行的实验产生了广泛的音乐影响。年青的爵士乐手开始将摇滚乐的节奏融入其中。后来在70年代，许多爵士乐手尝试电声乐器，并创造了一种爵士与摇滚相互交融的混合音乐形式。
然而，到了50年代初，爵士乐对大部分观众来说已经丧失某些魅力，摇滚乐这种新形式的流行音乐源于名叫节奏和布鲁斯的黑人风格音乐，节奏和布鲁斯是一种带有强烈节奏感的歌曲，其歌词则常常带有煽动意味。为了使这种新型音乐更能为主流观众所接受，白人演奏者和改编者开始”翻唱”节奏和布鲁斯歌曲领域——演唱时使节奏柔和一些，并对歌词进行修改。埃尔维斯·普雷斯利(Elvis Presley)在其歌唱职业生涯的初期也翻唱黑人歌手的作品。他首批走红的曲目之一《猎狗》（Hound Dog），就曾由布鲁斯歌唱家胖妈妈桑顿（Thornton）演唱过。不过，没过多久，普雷斯利就演唱起原创作品来，这些作品的提供者则是新一代摇滚乐的歌曲作者。
对摇滚乐的一个挑战以民间音乐的形式出现，民间音乐主要基于来自苏格兰、英格兰和爱尔兰的民谣；它保存于美国北卡罗莱纳和西弗吉尼亚的群山之中。
鲍伯·迪伦(Bob Dylan)通过创作引人注目的新歌，拓宽了民间音乐的领域，这些歌曲涉及当代的各种社会问题，尤其是拒绝给美国黑人以公民权的问题。在1965年的纽波特民间艺术节上，当迪伦“因过电”(用电声吉他为自己伴奏)而导致观众喝倒采时，摇滚乐的发烧友和民间音乐的纯粹主义者这两大阵营间的分歧达到了顶点。迪伦没有被吓倒，他最终将整个民间音乐运动带入一种摇滚乐与民间音乐的混合体。这一结合是一次分水岭式的事件，它所设定的模式至今依然有效。摇滚乐依然是风靡美国(以及世界其它大部分地方)的流行音乐，主要原因就在于它能将几乎任何种类的音乐以及各种新颖别致的表演技巧吸收进自身的强大节奏框架之中。
像民间音乐一样，乡村音乐也来自于从英格兰、苏格兰和爱尔兰传入美国的歌曲。乡村音乐的最初形式叫做”老时光”，由弦乐队伴奏，每年依然可在南方许多州的艺术节上听到。现代的乡村音乐是在20年代发展起来的，时间大致与大批农村人去大城市找工作吻合。同其它许多形式的美国流行音乐一样，乡村音乐很容易适应摇滚乐的节奏，而乡村摇滚乐则成为又一种成功的音乐混合体。
美国艺术的发展具有这样的特点：在欧洲的成熟与本土的独创性这两大灵感的源泉之间存在着某种紧张的关系。真正具有美国特色的古典音乐，直到乔治·格什温(George Gershwin)和艾伦·科普兰(Aaron Copland)这些作曲家将土生土长的旋律和节奏融入到借自欧洲的形式之际，才得以形成。
美国各类艺术从政府得到的支持相当少。交响乐团为了生存，大多得依靠慈善机构和门票收入。某些乐团团长找到了某种既能使主流观众高兴，又能为公众引入一些新音乐的方式。他们不是将新作品孤立起来，而是将它们和传统节目放在同一台音乐会中。与此同时，歌剧——老歌剧与新歌剧——相当活跃；但由于上演费用过高，歌剧在很大程度上得依赖于公司和私人捐助者的慷慨解囊。
美国戏剧传说是从刘易斯·哈莱姆（Lewis Hallam）的英国剧团于1752年抵达威廉斯堡开始出现。在革命战争结束之后，共和国目睹了戏剧艺术的缓慢扩张期。剧院在查尔斯顿、费城、新港、纽约和波士顿纷纷建成。
在19世纪初期，戏剧成为美国人生活中更加普遍的一个组成部分，并且在世纪之交的前后20年也是戏剧的黄金时期。在19世纪下半叶，戏剧则变得更加多样化和专业化。观众可以在正统剧、芭蕾舞、歌舞杂耍、滑稽表演和歌剧之间作出选择。歌舞杂耍在19世纪下半叶出现。从19世纪80年代一直到20世纪30年代，歌舞杂耍将音乐、喜剧、舞蹈、新奇把戏和幽默故事拼接在一起，节奏欢快，吸引了大批观众。
电影的发展改变了戏剧舞台。到20世纪20年代，戏剧已经失去国内大批观众。虽然好莱坞使现场的戏剧演出失去了大量观众，但是也使戏剧能够发挥独特的魅力，戏剧在20世纪初期开始向严肃戏剧和创新舞台艺术发展。在大萧条期，社会和政治意识在舞台上得到了空前的展现。对工人和移民的镇压受到了公开的批判。60和70年代，外百老汇和外外百老汇剧场都在上演政治评论剧(如：1967年的《麦克白》)。
20世纪的音乐剧证明是美国最受欢迎的戏剧输出品。自殖民时期起，音乐就伴随着戏剧，但是直到18世纪80年代才出现了本土作品。1866年，随着《黑骗子》的上演，也就诞生了美国音乐剧。歌曲、舞蹈和壮观的场面被嫁接到一部现成的情节剧中。到19世纪末期，美国的音乐剧则包含多种类型：轻歌剧、主题音乐剧和源于黑人杂剧的讽刺时事的滑稽剧。第一次世纪大战之后，百老汇进入黄金时期。尽管舞蹈一直是音乐剧的一部分，但直到20世纪30年代它才与故事情节有了更加紧密的联系。自《西区故事》于1957年上演以来，舞蹈就成为故事情节不可或缺的一部分。现在表演者必须唱歌、跳舞和表演——在后来绝大多数的演出中都要求这三种才能。摇滚乐最终取代了百老汇戏剧的位置，成为美国流行音乐的潮流引领者。
现今的美国戏剧可分为三类。第一、百老汇作品经久不衰，新作品层出不穷，每一季通常有50部作品，首先在纽约市的剧院区上演。经过这么多年，纽约的剧院也发展到了被称为“外百老汇”和“外外百老汇”的新区域，戏剧在这里的一些小剧场里上演，但有一些表演在专业技艺方面可以与一流的百老汇表演相媲美。第二、许多杰出的地区剧院也上演一些顶级的新戏剧。得益于公司、基金会和政府的资助，在某些评论家看来，地区剧院代表了美国戏剧的最大希望。最后，学院和大学也支持戏剧表演节目。
美国第一个著名的绘画流派 — 哈德逊河派 — 出现于1820年。与音乐和文学一样，绘画迟迟得不到发展，直到艺术家们认识到这个新世界有它独特的一面; 在这种情况下，居住地向西的扩张使画家们注意到了边疆地区卓越的风景。
哈德逊河派画家直接和简洁的视觉影响了后来的艺术家们，如温斯洛·荷马（Winslow Homer）（1836-1910），他为美国农村作画—大海、山峦和居住在附近的人们。 托马斯·伊金斯（Thomas Eakins）（1844—1916）则为中产阶级城市生活作画，他是一个不妥协的现实主义者，坚定不移的诚实削弱了上流社会对浪漫情感主义的偏好。
争论很快成为美国艺术家们的生活方式。事实上，自1900年以来，美国的许多绘画和雕塑都是一系列对传统的反抗。 “让那些艺术价值下地狱吧，”罗伯特·亨利（Robert Henri）（1865—1929）说。他是批评家们称为“垃圾箱画派”的带头人物，这一画派在描绘城市生活的肮脏一面之后获此称号。很快垃圾箱画家们让位于来自欧洲的现代主义画家 — 由摄影师阿尔弗雷德·斯蒂格利茨（Alfred Stieglitz）（1864-1946）在纽约他的291画廊推广的立体派画家和抽象画家。
在第二次世界大战后的几年里，一群年轻的纽约艺术家们发起了第一个美国本土运动，这一运动对外国艺术家产生重大影响：抽象表现主义。该运动的领导人有杰克逊·波洛克（Jackson Pollock）（1912-1956），威廉·德·库宁（Willem de Kooning）（1904-1997）和马克·罗斯科（Mark Rothko）（1903—1970）。抽象表现主义者放弃了对真实对象的正规构成和表现，而聚焦于对空间和颜色的直觉布置，并在画布上展示绘画的肢体动作的效果。
下一代的艺术家们喜欢有别于抽象的形式：混合媒介作品。代表人物有罗伯特·劳森伯格（Robert Rauschenberg）（1925-2008）和贾思培·琼斯（Jasper Johns）（1930-），他们在作品中使用照片、报纸和废弃物品。如安迪·沃霍尔（1930-1987），拉里·里弗斯（Larry Rivers）（1923-2002）和罗伊·利希滕斯坦（Roy Lichtenstein）（1923-1997）的流行艺术家们，以讽刺的关怀再现了美国流行文化的日常物品和图像 —可口可乐瓶，汤罐，漫画。
今天，美国的艺术家们往往不将自己局限于流派、风格或单一媒介。艺术作品可能是舞台上的表演或手写的宣言；可能是在西部沙漠中刻出的一个巨大的图案或是刻有在越南死亡的美国士兵的姓名、设计朴素的大理石镶板。也许20世纪美国对世界艺术最具影响力的贡献是一种嘲弄的嬉闹，一种感觉，即一件新作品的中心目的是加入到关于如何定义艺术本身的持续的辩论中。

The development of the arts in America — music, dance, architecture, the visual arts, and literature — has been marked by a tension between two strong sources of inspiration: European sophistication and domestic originality. Frequently, the best American artists have managed to harness both sources.
In the 20th century artists in the United States broke free from Old World antecedents, taking the various cultural disciplines in new directions with impressive, innovative results.
In the 21st century, Music, film, theater, dance, architecture and other artistic expressions continue to transform. A rejuvenation in music, new directions in modern dance, drama drawn from the U.S. heartland, independent filmmaking across the landscape, the globalization of the visual arts — all of these are part of the contemporary scene in the United States.
While the arts and culture in the United States continue to engage substantial attention, energy and resources of society, this happens largely outside the direction of government. The United States has no “ministry of culture” that sets national policy for the arts in the United States government, thus reflecting the conviction that there are important areas of national life where government should have little or no role. The two national endowments — the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) — provide grant support for individual artists and scholars and for arts and humanities institutions.
Online Reading
American Canvas (National Endowment for the Arts)(PDF file 1.36MB)
The Arts in America: New Directions (Electronic Journal, Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, April 2003)(PDF file 667KB)
How the United States Fund the Arts (National Endowment for the Arts) (PDF 446 KB)
Portrait of the USA: Distinctively American Arts (published by Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, Sept 1997) (PDF 70 KB)
Portrait of the USA: Exporting Popular Culture (published by Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, Sept 1997) (PDF 67 KB)
America’s unmistakable contribution to architecture has been the skyscraper, whose bold, thrusting lines have made it the symbol of capitalist energy. Made possible by new construction techniques and the invention of the elevator, the first skyscraper went up in Chicago in 1884.
Many of the most graceful early towers were designed by Louis Sullivan (1856-1924), America’s first great modern architect. His most talented student was Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959), who spent much of his career designing private residences with matching furniture and generous use of open space. One of his best-known buildings, however, is a public one: the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
European architects who emigrated to the United States before World War II launched what became a dominant movement in architecture, the International Style. Perhaps the most influential of these immigrants were Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) and Walter Gropius (1883-1969), both former directors of Germany’s famous design school, the Bauhaus. Based on geometric form, buildings in their style have been both praised as monuments to American corporate life and dismissed as “glass boxes.” In reaction, younger American architects such as Michael Graves (1945- ) have rejected the austere, boxy look in favor of “postmodern” buildings with striking contours and bold decoration that alludes to historical styles of architecture.
Online Reading
History of the United States Capitol (PDF 359 KB)
Closely related to the development of American music in the early 20th century was the emergence of a new, and distinctively American, art form — modern dance. Among the early innovators was Isadora Duncan (1878-1927), who stressed pure, unstructured movement in lieu of the positions of classical ballet.
Closely related to the development of American music in the early 20th century was the emergence of a new, and distinctively American, art form — modern dance. Among the early innovators was Isadora Duncan (1878-1927), who stressed pure, unstructured movement in lieu of the positions of classical ballet.
The main line of development, however, runs from the dance company of Ruth St. Denis (1878-1968) and her husband-partner, Ted Shawn (1891-1972). Her pupil Doris Humphrey (1895-1958) looked outward for inspiration, to society and human conflict. Another pupil of St. Denis, Martha Graham (1893-1991), whose New York-based company became perhaps the best known in modern dance, sought to express an inward-based passion. Many of Graham’s most popular works were produced in collaboration with leading American composers — “Appalachian Spring” with Aaron Copland, for example.
Later choreographers searched for new methods of expression. Merce Cunningham (1919- ) introduced improvisation and random movement into performances. Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) incorporated African dance elements and black music into his works. Recently such choreographers as Mark Morris (1956- ) and Liz Lerman (1947-) have defied the convention that dancers must be thin and young. Their belief, put into action in their hiring practices and performances, is that graceful, exciting movement is not restricted by age or body type.
In the early 20th century U.S. audiences also were introduced to classical ballet by touring companies of European dancers. The first American ballet troupes were founded in the 1930s, when dancers and choreographers teamed up with visionary lovers of ballet such as Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996). Kirstein invited Russian choreographer George Balanchine (1904-1983) to the United States in 1933, and the two established the School of American Ballet, which became the New York City Ballet in 1948. Ballet manager and publicity agent Richard Pleasant (1909-1961) founded America’s second leading ballet organization, American Ballet Theatre, with dancer and patron Lucia Chase (1907-1986) in 1940.
Paradoxically, native-born directors like Pleasant included Russian classics in their repertoires, while Balanchine announced that his new American company was predicated on distinguished music and new works in the classical idiom, not the standard repertory of the past. Since then, the American ballet scene has been a mix of classic revivals and original works, choreographed by such talented former dancers as Jerome Robbins (1918-1998), Robert Joffrey (1930-1988), Eliot Feld (1942- ), Arthur Mitchell (1934- ), and Mikhail Baryshnikov (1948- ).
Online Reading 
Dance: A Constantly Evolving Tradition (The Arts in America, Electronic Journal, Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, April 2003) (PDF 81 KB)
Moving pictures were not an American invention; however, they have nonetheless been the preeminent American contribution to world entertainment.
In the early 1900s, when the medium was new, many immigrants, found employment in the U.S. film industry.
They were able to make their mark in a brand-new business: the exhibition of short films in storefront theaters called nickelodeons, after their admission price of a nickel (five cents).
Within a few years, ambitious men like Samuel Goldwyn, Carl Laemmle, Adolph Zukor, Louis B. Mayer, and the Warner Brothers had switched to the production side of the business. Soon they were the heads of a new kind of enterprise – the movie studio.
The major studios were located in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles, California.
During the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s, the studios were cranking out a total of about 400 movies a year, seen by an audience of 90 million Americans per week.
Movie-making was a business and motion picture companies made money by operating under the so-called studio system.
The major studios kept thousands of people on salary and they owned hundreds of theaters in cities and towns across the nation – theaters that showed their films and that were always in need of fresh material.
What is remarkable is how much quality entertainment emerged from such a regimented process. One reason this was possible is that, with so many movies being made, not every one had to be a big hit.
The studio system succumbed to two forces in the late 1940s:A federal antitrust action that separated the production of films from their exhibition; and the advent of television.
The number of movies being made dropped sharply, even as the average budget soared, because Hollywood wanted to offer audiences the kind of spectacle they couldn’t see on television.
This blockbuster syndrome has continued to affect Hollywood. Added to the skyrocketing salaries paid actors, studio heads, and deal-making agents, it means that movies released today tend to be either huge successes or huge failures, depending on how well their enormous costs match up with the public taste.
Online Reading
Film: Movies and Modern America (The Arts in America, Electronic Journal, Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, April 2003) (PDF 85 KB)
The Movie Business Today (Electronic Journal, Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, June 2007) (PDF 2.80 MB)
American literature begins with the orally transmitted myths, legends, tales, and lyrics (always songs) of Indian cultures. There was no written literature among the Indian cultures.The earliest American writings were concerned directly with the dream of a new world, and mostly accounts of pioneering motives and settlements were published.
Regional literature has always been important in the United States. Until the end of the 19th century, American literature was dominated by the works of New Englanders, such as Cotton Mather. Sermons and religious tracts provided the greatest part of the writing. The Puritan definition of good writing was that which brought home a full awareness of the importance of worshipping God and of the spiritual dangers that the soul faced. Puritan style varied enormously — from complex metaphysical poetry to homely journals and religious history.
The 18th-century American Enlightenment was a movement marked by an emphasis on rationality rather than tradition, scientific inquiry instead of unquestioning religious dogma, and representative government in place of monarchy. Enlightenment thinkers and writers were devoted to the ideals of justice, liberty, and equality as the natural rights of man. Benjamin Franklin, whom the Scottish philosopher David Hume called America’s “first great man of letters,” embodied the Enlightenment ideal of humane rationality.
The Romantic movement reached America around the year 1820. In America as in Europe, fresh new vision electrified artistic and intellectual circles. Yet there was an important difference: Romanticism in America coincided with the period of national expansion and the discovery of a distinctive American voice. The solidification of a national identity and the surging idealism and passion of Romanticism nurtured masterpieces by authors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
In the second half of the 19th century, the United States was transformed into a modern, industrial nation. As industrialization grew, so did alienation. Characteristic American novels of the period, for example by Stephen Crane and Jack London, depict the damage of economic forces and alienation on the weak or vulnerable individual. Survivors, like Mark Twain ‘s Huck Finn, endure through inner strength involving kindness, flexibility, and, above all, individuality.
Although American prose between the two World Wars experimented with viewpoint and form, Americans such as Ernest Hemingway, wrote more realistically, on the whole, than did Europeans. William Faulkner set his powerful southern novels firmly in Mississippi heat and dust. The importance of facing reality became a dominant theme in the 1920s and 1930s: Writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald repeatedly portrayed the tragedy awaiting those who live in flimsy dreams.
Narrative since World War II resists generalization: It is extremely various and multifaceted. It has been vitalized by international currents such as European existentialism and Latin American magical realism.
The Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to nine Americans:
Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O’Neill, Pearl Buck, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Toni Morrison.
Online Reading
U.S. Literature In Brief (published by Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, May 2007) (PDF 475 KB)  Outline of American Literature (published by Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, posted Dec 2006) (PDF 1.17 MB)
Writers on America (published by Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, posted Dec 2002) (PDF 635 KB)
All musical genres are represented on the American music scene, but the resource collection here will focus on jazz and rock/country and classical music.
Jazz originated in New Orleans early in the 20th century, bringing together elements from ragtime, slave songs, and brass bands. One of the distinguishing elements of jazz was its fluidity: in live performances, the musicians would almost never play a song the same way twice but would improvise variations on its notes and words. Jazz was the reigning popular American music from the 1920s through the 1940s. In the 1930s and 1940s, the most popular form of jazz was “big band swing,” so called after large ensembles conducted by the likes of Glenn Miller and William “Count” Basie. In the late 1940s, a new, more cerebral form of mostly instrumental jazz, called be-bop, began to attract audiences. In the 1960s, jazz musicians such as Miles Davis and John Coltrane experimented with a wide range of musical influences. Younger jazz musicians began to include the rhythms of rock and roll. Later, in the 1970s, many jazz musicians experimented with electronic instruments and created a blend of rock and jazz called fusion.
By the early 1950s, however, jazz had lost some of its appeal to a mass audience. A new form of pop music, rock and roll, evolved from a black style known as rhythm and blues: songs with strong beats and provocative lyrics. To make the new music more acceptable to a mainstream audience, white performers and arrangers began to “cover” rhythm and blues songs – singing them with toned down beat and revised lyrics. At the beginning of his career, Elvis Presley covered black singers. One of his first big hits was Hound Dog, which had been sung by blues artist Big Mama Thornton. Soon, however, Presley was singing original material, supplied by a new breed of rock and roll songwriters.
A challenge to rock appeared in the form of folk music. Folk music was based largely on ballads brought over from Scotland, England, and Ireland; it had been preserved in such enclaves as the mountains of North Carolina and West Virginia.
Bob Dylan extended the reach of folk music by writing striking new songs that addressed contemporary social problems, especially the denial of civil rights to black Americans. The division between the two camps – rock enthusiasts and folk purists – came to a head when Dylan was booed for “going electric” (accompanying himself on electric guitar) at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Far from being deterred, Dylan led virtually the entire folk movement into a blend of rock and folk. This merger was a watershed event, setting a pattern that holds true to this day. Rock remains the prevalent pop music of America – and much of the rest of the world – largely because it can assimilate almost any other kind of music, along with new varieties of showmanship, into its strong rhythmical framework.
Like folk, country music descends from the songs brought to the United States from England, Scotland, and Ireland. The original form of country music, called “old-time” and played by string bands, can still be heard at festivals held each year in many southern states. Modern country music developed in the 1920s, roughly coinciding with a mass migration of rural people to big cities in search of work. Like many other forms of American pop music, country lends itself easily to a rock-and-roll beat, and country rock has been yet another successful music merger.
The development of the arts in America has been marked by a tension between two strong sources of inspiration – European sophistication and domestic originality. A distinctively American classical music came to fruition when such composers as George Gershwin and Aaron Copland incorporated homegrown melodies and rhythms into forms borrowed from Europe.
The arts in America get relatively little government support. To survive, symphony orchestras depend largely on philanthropy and paid admissions. Some orchestra directors have found a way to keep mainstream audiences happy while introducing new music to the public. Rather than segregate the new pieces, these directors program them side-by-side with traditional fare. Meanwhile, opera – old and new – has been flourishing; because it is so expensive to stage, however, opera depends heavily on the generosity of corporate and private donors.
Online Reading
American Popular Music (PDF 7.70 MB)  Music: The Quintessential American Sound (The Arts in America, Electronic Journal, Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, April 2003) (PDF 98 KB)
U.S. Pop Music:  A Conversation with Gary Burton (PDF 24 KB)
American theater is traditionally dated from the arrival of Lewis Hallam’s English troupe in Williamsburg in 1752. After the end of the Revolutionary War, the Republic witnessed a slow expansion of the dramatic arts. Theaters were built in Charleston, Philadelphia, Newport, New York, and Boston.
Theater became a more pervasive part of American life during the early nineteenth century and the two decades before and after the turn of the century were golden years for theater. In the second half of the nineteenth century, theater became both more diverse and more specialized. Audiences could choose between legitimate theater, ballet, vaudeville, burlesque, and opera. In the second half of the 19th century, vaudeville emerged. From the 1880s through the 1930s, vaudeville’s fast-paced collage of music, comedy, dance, novelty numbers, and skits appealed to a large audience.
The development of motion pictures changed the theatre scene. By the 1920s, theater had lost its national mass audience. Even though Hollywood deprived live theater of a mass public, it enabled it to play to its unique strengths and the early twentieth century witnessed a turn to serious drama and innovative stagecraft. During the depression, an unprecedented social and political consciousness was displayed on the stage. The oppression of workers and immigrants was publicly castigated. During the 1960s and 1970s, off- and off-off-Broadway groups served up political commentary (e.g., MacBird, 1967).
The musical stage of the twentieth entury proved to be the country’s most popular theatrical export. Music had accompanied theatricals since colonial days, but no native works appeared until the 1780s. In 1866, the “The Black Crook” was produced and the American musical was born. Song, dance, and spectacle were grafted onto an existing melodrama. By the end of the nineteenth century the American musical stage encompassed a number of genres: Operettas, topical musicals and revues with roots in minstrel shows. After World War I, Broadway entered a golden period. Although dancing had always been a part of the musical, only in the 1930s did it became more closely linked to the story. Ever since the production of “West Side Story” in 1957, dance has been integral to the story. Perfomers now had to sing, dance, and act – the triple-threat talent required for most subsequent shows. Rock ‘n’ roll pushed Broadway out of its place as the trendsetter of American popular music.
Today’s American theater might be divided into three categories. First, Broadway productions persist and many new plays, usually about 50 producations a season, are presented first in the theater district of New York City. Over the years, New York theater has developed new avenues known as “off-Broadway” and “off-off Broadway” where plays are staged in small playhouses, but some rank with the best Broadway performances in professional skill. Second, many fine regional theaters produce some of the best new drama. Subsidized by corporations, foundations and the government, regional theater for some critics represents the best hope of American drama. Finally, colleges and universities support active theater programs.
Online Reading  
Theater: Playwrights New and Old (The Arts in America, Electronic Journal, Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, April 2003) (PDF 87 KB)
U.S. Theater in the Nineties:  A Heartland Perspective (an article describing the decentralization of American theater) (PDF 49 KB)
America’s first well-known school of painting — the Hudson River school — appeared in 1820. As with music and literature, this development was delayed until artists perceived that the New World offered subjects unique to itself; in this case the westward expansion of settlement brought the transcendent beauty of frontier landscapes to painters’ attention.
The Hudson River painters’ directness and simplicity of vision influenced such later artists as Winslow Homer (1836-1910), who depicted rural America — the sea, the mountains, and the people who lived near them. Middle-class city life found its painter in Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), an uncompromising realist whose unflinching honesty undercut the genteel preference for romantic sentimentalism.
Controversy soon became a way of life for American artists. In fact, much of American painting and sculpture since 1900 has been a series of revolts against tradition. “To hell with the artistic values,” announced Robert Henri (1865-1929). He was the leader of what critics called the “ash-can” school of painting, after the group’s portrayals of the squalid aspects of city life. Soon the ash-can artists gave way to modernists arriving from Europe — the cubists and abstract painters promoted by the photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) at his Gallery 291 in New York City.
In the years after World War II, a group of young New York artists formed the first native American movement to exert major influence on foreign artists: abstract expressionism. Among the movement’s leaders were Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), Willem de Kooning (1904-1997), and Mark Rothko (1903-1970). The abstract expressionists abandoned formal composition and representation of real objects to concentrate on instinctual arrangements of space and color and to demonstrate the effects of the physical action of painting on the canvas.
Members of the next artistic generation favored a different form of abstraction: works of mixed media. Among them were Robert Rauschenberg (1925- ) and Jasper Johns (1930- ), who used photos, newsprint, and discarded objects in their compositions. Pop artists, such as Andy Warhol (1930-1987), Larry Rivers (1923- ), and Roy Lichtenstein (1923- ), reproduced, with satiric care, everyday objects and images of American popular culture — Coca-Cola bottles, soup cans, comic strips.
Today artists in America tend not to restrict themselves to schools, styles, or a single medium. A work of art might be a performance on stage or a hand-written manifesto; it might be a massive design cut into a Western desert or a severe arrangement of marble panels inscribed with the names of American soldiers who died in Vietnam. Perhaps the most influential 20th-century American contribution to world art has been a mocking playfulness, a sense that a central purpose of a new work is to join the ongoing debate over the definition of art itself.
Online Reading 
Art on the Edge: 17 Contemporary American Artists (jointly published by ART in Embassies Program and Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State) (PDF 4.10 MB)
The Visual Arts: Blurring the Boundaries (The Arts in America, Electronic Journal, Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, April 2003) (PDF 76 KB)