New each Tuesday. It's interesting to think of a nation's history in terms of some of the images portrayed by various methods, both overt and subliminal. With the advent of mass media, art history will undoubtedly take on a new twist. I don't envy future art history teachers.
All cultures have their own myriad of dichotomies.
The macabre and brutal side by side with the beautiful and innocent. Images of finely prepared meals in restaurants alongside those of bloody slaughter houses. Images of the rich and famous alongside those of festering ghettos or the homeless. The United States hasn't been around all that long. Many of the more idyllic images from the past are those Norman Rockwell paintings that seem deeply ingrained on the American psyche.