Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Ain't This America What is distinctive about American art and letters

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Many persons have been mentioned on this thread as paladins of American culture.

Almost all of them are deriviative, or superificial --- or both. [One person even brought up the name of John Wayne! Let me forget that as soon as may be possible!]

Frank Lloyd Wright, Jackson Pollock, the Wyeths, Mark Twain, e e cummings, Robert Frost, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Aaron Copland, Alan Hovaniss --- these few are artists who are worthy of deep respect, but beyond them the pickings become slim indeed.

Moreover, European culture has seen many creative revolutions in art, for example, Impressionism. America has been extremely derivative and uninventive, with the exception of jazz and its satellite, rock-and-roll. A rather shaky case might also be made for motion picture technique.

However, if America had produced many times the number of the artists whom I have mentioned, ranking with them in quality, it would still be as nothing compared to the brilliance which has shone forth into the world from Europe.

Starting no earlier than the era when the ill-begotten American Republic was formed, one might mention Mozart and Beethoven in music, and Goethe in literature, who by themselves outshine the whole pantheon of American practioners of their respective arts.

But many Americans, being ignorant, may not have the knowledge to make a just assessment of Goethe. Let us then, almost at random, throw in Shelley, George Bernard Shaw, Aldous Huxley, W. B. Yeats, and Dylan Thomas. They tip the balance decisively in favor of Europe.

As for painting, no one in their right mind would ever rank America's productions with those of Europe! Picasso alone eclipses everything American!

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