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English art and architecture.

The United Kingdom has a long history of excellence in the arts. For many centuries art and music were the domain of the nobility, who patronized the arts and set the tone and style from early modern times to the Victorian era. During the Victorian era Britain became the world’s first urban, industrialized society, and a vast middle class developed. More people had the time, education, and inclination to appreciate the arts. The time and money spent on the arts continued to increase in the 20th century, particularly after World War II. Popular music and film have had the widest audiences, although classical music and literature still attract significant numbers of people. Britain provides substantial public funding for the arts. Opera, dance, drama companies, experimental groups, touring theaters, festivals, and orchestras all count on public financial assistance. Public funds also help train writers, choreographers, composers, artists, and photographers.

Decorative arts were particularly notable in early Christian Ireland, especially from the 6th to the 9th century. Irish missionaries, who were preaching Catholicism in Europe during this time period, brought Celtic metalworking techniques and stone carvings to Britain. Huge stone crosses, exquisitely decorated, still stand in northern Britain and Ireland. Painting was confined to illuminated manuscripts — bright and detailed miniature paintings in prayer books that were produced by monks. This art continued through the Middle Ages because books were still illustrated by hand, even after printing was invented in the mid-15th century. During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church was the chief patron of artists and sculptors, who were hired to decorate the massive cathedrals as well as local churches.

In early modern times portrait painting became important, particularly for monarchs interested in marriage opportunities abroad, and paintings of prospective spouses were often sent before making marital arrangements. Noted artists who produced paintings in early modern England were foreigners, such as German artist Hans Holbein the Younger in the 16th century and Flemish painter Sir Anthony van Dyck in the 17th century. English artists came to excel at miniature painting in the 17th century.

By the 18th century a distinctive British style began to emerge that tended to be brighter and livelier than the darker European canvases. British art exhibited the values of order, logic, and proportion. The etchings and paintings of William Hogarth show satirical scenes from ordinary life and were enormously popular. Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, and George Romney became famous for their polished and elegant portraits. Gainsborough and others painted natural landscapes and seascapes. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries romantic painters appeared who emphasized the beauties and forces of nature. This is seen in the landscapes of John Constable and J.M.W.Turner, whose paintings directly influenced French impressionism. Noted poet William Blake was also a painter, and he illustrated his poems and stories with imaginative drawings.

Scores of artists in the Victorian era painted specifically for middle-class tastes. Sir Edwin Henry Landseer was noted for paintings that often feature animals, such as dogs or wildlife. Frederick Leighton painted mythological and historical subjects and illustrated popular magazines. William Powell Frith painted large, busy canvases in the popular style known as genre painting, which realistically depicted scenes from everyday life. Sophie Anderson painted sweet children.

In reaction to Victorian art styles and middle-class materialism, with its concern for worldly objects, several painters came together in 1848 and founded a movement called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. They sought to return to an earlier, simpler time, and their works exhibited the brightness, colour, and purity of medieval and Renaissance painting done before the time of Italian artist Raphael. These painters included William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, and Sir John Everett Millais. This return to earlier traditions affected other aspects of the arts as well. Artist and poet William Morris sought to return to medieval traditions in craftsmanship. He is credited with founding the Arts and Crafts movement, which became influential in furniture, decorative items, and textile designs.

Toward the end of the Victorian era, art nouveau (literally, “new art”) developed out of the Arts and Crafts movement. Art nouveau is a decorative style with strong elements of fantasy. It borrowed motifs from sources as varied as Japanese prints, Gothic architecture, and the symbolic paintings of William Blake. This style, which became popular in Europe, influenced many art forms as well as architecture and interior design. The art nouveau illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley, in particular, are still popular. Artists and architects from the Glasgow School were noted for their work in both the Arts and Crafts and art nouveau styles.

Britain has produced many artists in the 20th century. They include sculptors Jacob Epstein and Dame Elisabeth Frink, who both produced monumental figures, as well as abstract sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. Painters include Paul Nash, a war artist who painted scenes of landscapes and battles during both world wars; Sir Stanley Spencer, whose works often used biblical themes; and Graham Sutherland, who developed a unique style of landscape painting. After World War II such artists as Francis Bacon, whose paintings are steeped in the horrific, and David Hockney, who also designed opera sets, became noted for their unique achievements.

Some of the oldest examples of British architecture include a few small, squarish Anglo-Saxon buildings. After the Norman Conquest in 1066, Norman architecture became prevalent in the British Isles. The Normans built monumental castles and churches with enormous arches and huge columns. Their style was called Romanesque on the Continent. The greatest structures built by the Normans are the White Tower, which is part of the Tower of London, and the castle, cathedral, and monastery complex at Durham. From the 12^th to the 15^th century gracefully soaring spires and arches marked the development of the great Gothic cathedrals, two of these, Westminster Abbey in London and Lincoln Cathedral, still dominate the skyline in their cities. Between 1485 and 1625, the English started to incorporate some classic Roman and ornate elements of the Italian Renaissance into Tudor, Elizabethan, and Jacobean styles. During the Tudor era, brick became a popular building material for English country houses.

The architecture of the late Italian Renaissance was introduced in England by Inigo Jones in the 17th century. Jones was the first of the great British architects to be influenced by the ideas of Italian architects. Jones in turn influenced Sir Christopher Wren, Britain’s greatest architect, who studied the baroque style popular in Europe in the mid-17th century. After the devastating Great Fire of London in 1666, Wren helped in the rebuilding of the city. As the premier architect of the time, he designed 52 new churches in London. Many of his churches still stand. The grandest of them, Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London, is an example of Wren’s distinctively graceful and monumental British style.

In the 18th century a more restrained, neoclassical style was introduced in Britain by Scottish architect Robert Adam. This style was based on the ancient ruins of Greece and Rome and incorporated such elements as colonnades and stone domes. English furniture and ceramics also became renowned in the 18th century. Thomas Chippendale and Thomas Sheraton were noted for their elegant furniture styles, and the ceramic designs produced by Josiah Wedgwood are still made.

Victorian architecture borrowed from a variety of styles, including classical, Gothic, and Renaissance, and was characterized by ornate decoration. The most famous Victorian neo-Gothic building is Parliament, built between 1840 and 1870. The only truly original building of the Victorian era was the Crystal Palace, which housed the Great Exhibition of 1851. It was made of metal and glass, materials architects would come to use in constructing office buildings in the 20th century.

In the early 20th century, Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh rejected elaborate Victorian architecture styles for a more modern, functional design. His work influenced 20th-century architects and interior designers. After World War II many new buildings were needed to replace the ones destroyed during the war. Because London’s subsoil is not suitable as a foundation for tall skyscrapers, many of the new buildings erected were big and boxy with geometric designs. One of the largest examples of this style is the National Theatre in London. These cold and impersonal buildings have been criticized because they clash with the graceful London architecture that survived the war.

2. Museums, libraries and art galleries in the UK.

Britain is world famous for its outstanding libraries and museums, most of which are located in London. The British Museum, one of the most spectacular museums in the world, is renowned for its extensive and diverse collections, from Egyptian mummies to important historical documents. The Museum of Mankind, part of the British Museum, has fascinating displays of anthropological artifacts. The National Gallery houses a vast collection of British and European paintings dating from the 13th century to modern times. Next door to the National Gallery is the National Portrait Gallery with about 10,000 portraits of famous figures from British history, some dating from the 14th century. The Tate Gallery houses a vast collection of British art, as well as European works from the past two centuries. The Victoria and Albert Museum features one of the world’s largest collections of fine and applied arts, from jewelry, clocks, and pottery to fabrics, furniture, and musical instruments. The National Museum of Science and Industry contains five floors of exhibits on medicine, photography, engineering, transportation, and communications. Plant, animal, and mineral specimens from all over the world are part of the collection at the Natural History Museum, London. The Imperial War Museum features exhibits on the wars of the 20th century, and the modern Museum of London illustrates the history of the capital from its earliest times. Particularly popular with tourists is Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks, a unique collection of lifelike wax figures of famous people, both living and dead.

Several museums and galleries of note are located outside London. The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology at Oxford University contains a diverse collection of rare art and relics, as does the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University. One of the world’s finest collections of Pre-Raphaelite art is at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. The National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh houses a collection of fine European paintings dating from the Renaissance, including many Scottish paintings. The Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum has an excellent collection that ranges from ancient weapons and objects to 17th-century Dutch paintings and works by French masters. The National Museum of Wales in Cardiff focuses on Welsh life, history, and culture. The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in Holywood, Northern Ireland, concentrates on the traditional life of Northern Ireland’s people.

Britain has several specialized museums, including the National Railway Museum in York, with its large collection of locomotives, many from the 19th century. In recent years some museums have taken on the lively aspects of theme parks. Examples are the Jorvik Viking Centre in York, which recreates a Viking village, and the exhibits at Warwick Castle, which include wax figures, collections of weapons and torture devices, and jousting reenactments.

Britain’s premier library, the British Library in London, contains a copy of nearly all significant works published in English. It was housed in the British Museum until 1997, when it moved to a new building. The famous Bodleian Library at Oxford University also contains one of the most extensive collections of English publications in the country.

3. Theatre and cinema in Britain.

Throughout the world the name “Shakespeare” is associated with the greatest achievements of England in the performing arts. William Shakespeare emerged in the colorful Elizabethan era of the 16th century, and his works are still played and quoted throughout the world. The 16th century was a time of immense creativity. It was during this era that commercial theater began. The most famous was the Globe Theatre in London. Destroyed by Puritans in the mid-17th century, the Globe was replaced in the 1990s with an authentic replica. Dozens of other playwrights, including Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson, had their works staged at the Globe and at other theaters built during this time. Marlowe was noted for writing tragedies in a period when comedies were more common, and his most famous work is The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus (1604?). Jonson was a gifted satirist who wrote for both the royal court and commercial theaters.

The foundations of choral music, which became an important musical tradition in England, were laid during the Elizabethan era. Its development was encouraged at this time by the Protestant Reformation in England, which changed the language used in church services and music from Latin to English. Thomas Tallis and his student William Byrd are noted composers who worked in the royal chapel of Queen Elizabeth I. There were also many secular composers in Britain. The English madrigal, a song for two or more voices, developed during the Elizabethan era as well.

The Puritans banned theater as immoral when they controlled England in the mid-17th century. Theater was revived, along with the monarchy, in the Restoration of 1660. Restoration theatre featured witty and often acerbic comedies about social manners, a contrast to the great dramatic themes of Shakespeare’s era. William Wycherley and William Congreve were noted Restoration dramatists. England’s first operas were written in the late 17th century, and Henry Purcell is a noted British composer of the era.

George Frederic Handel, a German who settled in London, wrote many operas and oratorios in the early 18th century. He is most famous for his Messiah oratorio, first sung in 1742. During the 18th century the number of theaters grew and the plays performed became more satirical. Oliver Goldsmith, born in Ireland, wrote comedies as well as novels, poems, and essays. Another noted comic playwright was Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

The 19th century saw the development of a uniquely British form of amusement, the music hall, which is related to early-20th-century vaudeville. Music halls provided variety shows with comic acts and songs, many of them risqué. The pantomime also emerged in the Victorian era as elaborately costumed retellings of fairy tales, staged during the Christmas season. Pantomime performances involved song, dance, slapstick comedy, and audience participation. The comic operas of Sir William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan were also an important part of Victorian music; the works of Gilbert and Sullivan are still produced around the world.

In the 20th century Britain remained one of the world’s greatest centers for drama. Britain’s many theaters attract crowds from all over the world. This is due in large measure to the high caliber of 20th-century British actors, including Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir Michael Redgrave, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Alec Guinness, Sir Rex Harrison, Richard Burton, Glenda Jackson, Vanessa Redgrave, Kenneth Branagh, and Emma Thompson. The quality of the plays is another important factor. In the early 20th century, noted playwrights included John Galsworthy and Noel Coward. Post-World War II Britain saw a renaissance of drama with the avant-garde works of Irish-born Samuel Beckett and the plays and screenplays of Harold Pinter. Playwright and screenwriter John Osborne presented stark social realism in his play Look Back in Anger (1956), which was made into a film in 1959.

Britain has more than 300 professional theaters successfully producing plays, about 100 of which are in London, half of those in the West End district. There are approximately 300 professional theater companies; some are associated with specific theaters and some are touring companies. The world-famous Royal Shakespeare Company performs in London at the Barbican Centre and at theaters in Stratford-upon-Avon. Famous theaters in London also include the Royal National Theatre, the Old Vic Theatre, and the Royal Court Theatre. Countless amateur theatrical groups also perform throughout Britain.

Music was enormously important in Britain in the 20th century, and London is regarded as one of the great music capitals of the world. Appreciation of music is extremely widespread, and the kinds of music regularly performed are diverse, ranging from early music to modern. Britain boasts thousands of amateur opera societies, choirs, and musical groups, including orchestras; dance, brass, and steel bands; and rock and jazz groups.

Important composers in the early 20th century included Sir Edward Elgar, who wrote choral and orchestral music, and Frederick Delius, who composed the opera A Village Romeo and Juliet (1900-1901). Late in the century, Ralph Vaughn Williams established himself as Britain’s foremost composer, and Sir William Walton composed many important classical works, including the opera Troilus and Cressida (1954). In opera, Benjamin Britten and Sir Michael Tippett created several important works. Britten adapted Henry James’s story “The Turn of the Screw” and Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream into operas. Tippett combined classical music with popular music—his Fourth Symphony (1977) contained elements of jazz. Andrew Lloyd Webber has composed musicals for the theater since the 1970s, producing such smash hits as Jesus Christ Superstar (1971) and Phantom of the Opera (1986).

Britain has many professional orchestras, the most famous of which are the London Philharmonic and the London Symphony. The BBC maintains six orchestras and sponsors the popular annual Promenade Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. Britain has several major opera companies, the best known of which are the Royal Opera and the English National Opera in London, and the Glyndebourne Opera in southeastern England. Glyndebourne presents an annual summer opera season that later tours the country.

Britain’s worldwide impact in music in the second half of the 20th century, especially in the realm of popular music, was enormous. The Beatles appeared in the 1960s and were followed by other successful rock groups and singers, including names such as the Rolling Stones, the Who, Elton John, and Sting. Famous rock-and-roll icons such as the Beatles have had their music played by the Royal Philharmonic with members of the royal family in attendance. Pop and rock music remain the most popular kinds of music in Britain, although jazz also has a large following.

Britain also has famous dance companies that rank among the world’s leading troupes. These include the Royal Ballet and the English National Ballet, located in London; the Birmingham Royal Ballet, a division of the Royal Ballet; and the Northern Ballet Theatre, a touring company based in Leeds. London hosts two contemporary dance festivals every year. Also popular are traditional dances of the British Isles, including English morris dancing, the Scottish Highland fling, and social gatherings featuring Celtic music and dancing that are known as céilidhs (pronounced kay-lees).

Britain hosts more than 600 professional arts festivals each year, attracting more than 4 million visitors. The two largest arts festivals in Britain are held in Scotland: The Edinburgh International Festival is a mixture of six arts festivals that takes place every August and September, and the Mayfest is held every May in Glasgow. Festivals focusing on music include the Three Choirs Festival, so-called because it takes place in three separate English cities; the Cheltenham Festival; and the Aldeburgh Festival, founded in the 1940s by composer Benjamin Britten and English tenor Sir Peter Pears.

The British film industry has a long history and is noted for many critically acclaimed productions and actors. In recent decades it has become largely international. The great pull of the American box office has always lured British actors, directors, and producers to Hollywood, and conversely, British studios and locations have been used in international productions.

The film industry in Britain developed during the 1930s after the government established a quota requiring that a certain percentage of films shown in British cinemas be made in Britain. Hungarian-born director and producer Alexander Korda came to Britain during this time and produced many British films. The industry received another boost from the influx of German writers, producers, and directors escaping the Nazi government in the 1930s. During World War II, many people working in the British film industry immigrated to the United States. One of these was London-born director Alfred Hitchcock, who moved to the United States in 1939.

British film output after World War II tended to be literary, drawing upon classics from Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare. A number of witty comedies that appealed to the more educated and culturally conservative segment of society appeared in the late 1940s and early 1950s. By the mid-1950s the Free Cinema Movement had begun, shooting low-budget films that illuminated the problems of contemporary life. Simultaneously, so-called new cinema films began to present antiestablishment and anti-middle class views with social realism using working-class themes and characters. Notable examples of new cinema films include Look Back in Anger (1959), based on the John Osborne play; Karel Reisz’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960); and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962). Director David Lean became noted for big, lavish epics during the 1950s, particularly The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1959), both of which won Academy Awards.

For a brief time London became the film production capital of the world when a number of important films were made there. These included Tom Jones (1963), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971), directed by Stanley Kubrick. Richard Attenborough gained fame not only for his acting but also for directing such biographical films as Gandhi (1982), which won multiple Academy Awards; Chaplin (1992), about English actor and director Charlie Chaplin; and Shadowlands (1993), about British author C.S.Lewis.

4. American art and architecture. Museums in the USA.

The earliest buildings are the dwellings, meetinghouses, and churches that made up the nuclei of the first colonial settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts. The dwellings, simple in plan and elevation, resembled English houses of the late medieval or Tudor style.

After the Revolutionary War, the first attempt to create a style expressive of the new republic was made by Thomas Jefferson. He based the design of the new capitol building at Richmond, Va., on that of a Roman temple. In so doing he laid down an American precedent of modifying an ancient building style for modern use. Monumental neoclassicism came to represent the new political and social entity that was the United States of America. Architects committed to neoclassicism designed not only the new Capitol of the United States in Washington and other government buildings, but also factories, schools, banks, railroad stations, and hospitals, modernized by the frequent use of materials such as iron, concrete, and glass. The English-born Benjamin Latrobe brought American neoclassicism to maturity.

An important development was the proliferation of industrial and commercial structures requiring extensive use of iron. Because cast- and wrought-iron columns replaced heavier masonry construction, it became possible to construct a lighter skeleton, use prefabricated modules, and introduce more glass into the facade. James Bogardus is generally credited with the development of cast-iron architecture, as demonstrated in his “Cast Iron Building” (1848) in New York.

Henry Hobson Richardson, the most independent and imaginative architect since Latrobe, attained prominence when he gave a new Romanesque form to Boston’s Trinity Church (1872-77). Besides churches, Richardson designed numerous residences, libraries, railroad stations, civic and commercial buildings, and even a prison, achieving models of their kind for each type. He favored the Romanesque because he believed it expressed the pervasive energy and dynamism of the American scene.

The skyscraper, defined here as a tall commercial structure, is America’s original contribution to the history of architecture. Commercial buildings of several stories, constructed during the 1850s in Philadelphia, anticipated the skyscraper. But before it could become a reality, architects had to incorporate the elevator into the structure. This was done, beginning in the 1850s in New York. Chicago, however, was the city where skyscraper design soon attained a kind of canonical perfection.

Since many of the city’s commercial buildings needed to be replaced after the great fire of 1871, Chicago served as an excellent testing ground for architects. Preeminent among them was Louis Sullivan. He and others working in teams evolved the glass cage that became the hallmark of the Chicago school of architecture.

Very significant to modern architecture was the unfolding of the brilliant indigenous talent of Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright, who early in his career worked for Sullivan in Chicago, believed that the West and Midwest embodied the “real American spirit.” Acting on this belief, he designed the houses that were to win him international renown. His “prairie houses” were horizontal, often of one story, with rooms merging in a continuous open space. Wright was a man of fertile imagination; before his long career ended, he designed buildings as various as the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo; the Johnson Wax Company Building in Racine, Wis.; and New York’s Guggenheim Museum.

In the building boom following World War II of special importance was the use of glass curtain-wall construction for the design of large skyscrapers and other buildings, as in the United Nations complex, erected in 1947-53 under the supervision of Le Corbusier and Wallace K. Harrison. By the mid-1970s, however, the reaction against the plain, unadorned “glass box” of the International Style was well under way. Architects returned once again to the use of color and decoration and revived such architectural devices as the column.

The first major native talent of the 18^th century American painting was John Singleton Copley. His portraits, stressing surface detail and the solidity of forms, are a vivid record of such important Revolutionary figures as Paul Revere and other prominent Boston citizens. In 1774, Copley travelled to London for further academic training. His fellow American Benjamin West, who had made the pilgrimage 14 years earlier, took Copley into his studio. West became painter to King George III, president of the Royal Academy, and host to American artists seeking training and sympathetic support in a foreign city. West’s portraits and his historical and religious paintings do not rank with the best of his English contemporaries, but as a catalyst among personalities West was outstanding, and his success enhanced the role of the artist in the eyes of Americans.

The third artist to achieve distinction before the 19th century was Charles Willson Peale. A moving force among artists, he helped launch America’s first official painting exhibition in 1795 and was one of the founders of the nation’s oldest museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1805) in Philadelphia.

After the turn of the century, a greater range of painting types was produced. Two significant trends were just beginning, one in landscape painting and the other in genre painting. Landscape emerged as the subject for expressing themes of symbolic importance. Genre painting began to grow in popularity and importance by the 1830s. Scenes of Long Island and New England life were portrayed by William Sidney Mount and Eastman Johnson. The folkways of the Midwest river towns, to which Mark Twain would later give literary form, were charmingly preserved in the paintings of George Caleb Bingham. Painting at midcentury reflected the life of the people and received broad-based support. Genre and landscape paintings captured the rural, optimistic, and essentially innocent spirit of the times. Still lifes gave evidence of nature’s bounty. Well-to-do businessmen felt it their patriotic duty to patronize the arts, and the American Art Union distributed paintings by lottery to a wide public.

The Civil War, in art as in so many other areas of American life, constituted a watershed. At war’s end the earlier vision of America as the new Eden had faded. From the vulgarity of post-Civil War America, artists chose different avenues of escape.

Winslow Homer favored genre scenes of a rural life that was fast becoming an anachronism, as in his The Country School (1871). In the 1880s, Homer turned to painting scenes of the sea, and until the end of his life he took as his leitmotiv the survival of humans against the elements, as in The Wreck (1896; Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pa.).

Impressionism also was taken up by Americans. In 1866, Mary Cassatt arrived in Paris and was invited by Edgar Degas to exhibit with the impressionist circle in 1877. She formed a close friendship with Degas, and although she never became his equal as an artist, in her chosen subjects - the mother and child, or women together - she managed subtle observations.

In reaction to an art of and for the middle and upper middle classes, a group of Philadelphia artists arose who chronicled the activities of the masses. Robert Henri, George Luks, John Sloan, and William Glackens began as artists trained to provide illustrations for newspapers and magazines. Henri was their leader, and his loosely brushed, dark realist style, as in Laughing Child, was emulated by the others. These artists, who became known as the Ashcan school, were the first group in America to make social comments in their work.

In the 1940s abstract impressionism appeared in America. The group included the painters Willem de Kooning, Adolf Gottlieb, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still and the sculptor David Smith. But coming to maturity in the Depression, these artists had a sense that their survival as artists was always in doubt. Having nothing to lose, they felt free to make radical departures from previous art. “The situation was so bad that I know I felt free to try anything no matter how absurd it seemed,” Gottlieb remembered. The abstract expressionists painted for one another. Some experimented with pure color, and others needed the promptings of their subconscious. Some of their nonobjective, abstract paintings were large enough to become actual environments.

In the 1980s and 1990s a wide-ranging eclecticism, and a mixing of the idioms and materials of painting and sculpture, characterized the work of American painting.

In addition to the numerous public libraries and university collections, the United States boasts two major libraries with worldwide stature: the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the New York Public Library. In 1800 Congress passed legislation founding the Library of Congress, which was initially established to serve the needs of the members of Congress. Since then, this extraordinary collection has become one of the world’s great libraries and a depository for every work copyrighted in the United States. Housed in three monumental buildings named after Presidents John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, the library is open to the public and maintains major collections of papers, photographs, films, maps, and music in addition to more than 17 million books.

The New York Public Library was founded in 1895. The spectacular and enormous building that today houses the library in the heart of the city opened in 1911 with more than a million volumes. The library is guarded by a famous set of lion statues, features a world-famous reading room, and contains more than 40 million catalogued items.

The earliest museums in the United States grew out of private collections, and throughout the 19th century they reflected the tastes and interests of a small group. Often these groups included individuals who cultivated a taste for the arts and for natural history, so that art museums and natural history museums often grew up side by side. American artist Charles Willson Peale established the first museum of this kind in Philadelphia in the late 18th century.

The largest and most varied collection in the United States is contained in the separate branches of the Smithsonian Institution, which has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. The Smithsonian, founded in 1846 as a research institution, developed its first museums in the 1880s. It now encompasses 16 museums devoted to various aspects of American history, as well as to artifacts of everyday life and technology, aeronautics and space, gems and geology, and natural history.

The serious public display of art began when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, founded in 1870, moved to its present location in Central Park in 1880. At its installation, the keynote speaker announced that the museum’s goal was education, connecting the museum to other institutions with a public mission. The civic leaders, industrialists, and artists who supported the Metropolitan Museum, and their counterparts who established the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, were also collectors of fine art. Their collections featured mainly works by European masters, but also Asian and American art. They often bequeathed their collections to these museums, thus shaping the museum’s policies and holdings. Their taste in art helped define and develop the great collections of art in major metropolitan centers such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston. In several museums, such as the Metropolitan and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., collectors created institutions whose holdings challenged the cultural treasures of the great museums of Europe.

5. Theatre and cinema in the USA. American music.

The performing arts in the United States in the 20th century increasingly blended traditional and popular art forms. The classical performing arts — music, opera, dance, and theater — were not a widespread feature of American culture in the first half of the 20th century. These arts were generally imported from or strongly influenced by Europe and were mainly appreciated by the wealthy and well educated. During the 20th century, the American performing arts began to incorporate wider groups of people. The African American community produced great musicians who became widely known around the country. Jazz and blues singers such as Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday spread their sounds to black and white audiences. In the 1930s and 1940s, the swing music of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller adapted jazz to make a unique American music that was popular around the country. The American performing arts also blended Latin American influences beginning in the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1940, Latin American dances, such as the tango from Argentina and the rumba from Cuba, were introduced into the United States. In the 1940s a fusion of Latin and jazz elements was stimulated first by the Afro-Cuban mambo and later on by the Brazilian bossa nova.

Throughout the 20th century, dynamic classical institutions in the United States attracted international talent. Noted Russian-born choreographer George Balanchine established the short-lived American Ballet Company in the 1930s; later he founded the company that in the 1940s would become the New York City Ballet. The American Ballet Theatre, also established during the 1940s, brought in non-American dancers as well. By the 1970s this company had attracted Soviet defector Mikhail Baryshnikov, an internationally acclaimed dancer who served as the company’s artistic director during the 1980s.

In classical music, influential Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, who composed symphonies using innovative musical styles, moved to the United States in 1939. Another Soviet, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, became conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., in 1977.

Some of the most innovative artists in the first half of the 20th century successfully incorporated new forms into classical traditions. Composers George Gershwin and Aaron Copland, and dancer Isadora Duncan were notable examples. Gershwin combined jazz and spiritual music with classical in popular works such as Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935). Copland developed a unique style that was influenced by jazz and American folk music. Early in the century, Duncan redefined dance along more expressive and free-form lines.

Perhaps the greatest, and certainly the most popular, American innovation was the Broadway musical, which also became a movie staple. Beginning in the 1920s, the Broadway musical combined music, dance, and dramatic performance in ways that surpassed the older vaudeville shows and musical revues but without being as complex as European grand opera. By the 1960s, this American musical tradition was well established and had produced extraordinary works by important musicians and lyricists such as George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Jerome Kern, and Oscar Hammerstein II. These productions required an immense effort to coordinate music, drama, and dance. Because of this, the musical became the incubator of an American modern dance tradition that produced some of America's greatest choreographers, among them Jerome Robbins, Gene Kelly, and Bob Fosse.

In the 1940s and 1950s the American musical tradition was so dynamic that it attracted outstanding classically trained musicians such as Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein composed the music for West Side Story, an updated version of Romeo and Juliet set in New York that became an instant classic in 1957. The following year, Bernstein became the first American-born conductor to lead a major American orchestra, the New York Philharmonic. He was an international sensation who traveled the world as an ambassador of the American style of conducting. He brought the art of classical music to the public, especially through his “Young People’s Concerts,” television shows that were seen around the world. Bernstein used the many facets of the musical tradition as a force for change in the music world and as a way of bringing attention to American innovation.

In many ways, Bernstein embodied a transformation of American music that began in the 1960s. The changes that took place during the 1960s and 1970s resulted from a significant increase in funding for the arts and their increased availability to larger audiences. New York City, the American center for art performances, experienced an artistic explosion in the 1960s and 1970s. Experimental off-Broadway theaters opened, new ballet companies were established that often emphasized modern forms or blended modern with classical, and an experimental music scene developed that included composers such as Philip Glass and performance groups such as the Guarneri String Quartet.

As the variety of performances expanded, so did the serious crossover between traditional and popular music forms. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, an expanded repertoire of traditional arts was being conveyed to new audiences. Popular music and jazz could be heard in formal settings such as Carnegie Hall, which had once been restricted to classical music, while the Brooklyn Academy of Music became a venue for experimental music, exotic and ethnic dance presentations, and traditional productions of grand opera. Innovative producer Joseph Papp had been staging Shakespeare in Central Park since the 1950s. Boston conductor Arthur Fiedler was playing a mixed repertoire of classical and popular favorites to large audiences, often outdoors, with the Boston Pops Orchestra. By the mid-1970s the United States had several world-class symphony orchestras, including those in Chicago; New York; Cleveland, Ohio; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Even grand opera was affected. Once a specialized taste that often required extensive knowledge, opera in the United States increased in popularity as the roster of respected institutions grew to include companies in Seattle, Washington; Houston, Texas; and Santa Fe, New Mexico. American composers such as John Adams and Philip Glass began composing modern operas in a new minimalist style during the 1970s and 1980s.

The crossover in tastes also influenced the Broadway musical, probably America's most durable music form. Starting in the 1960s, rock music became an ingredient in musical productions such as Hair (1967). By the 1990s, it had become an even stronger presence in musicals such as Bring in The Noise, Bring in The Funk (1996), which used African American music and dance traditions, and Rent (1996) a modern, rock version of the classic opera La Bohème. This updating of the musical opened the theater to new ethnic audiences who had not previously attended Broadway shows, as well as to young audiences who had been raised on rock music.

Performances of all kinds have become more available across the country. This is due to both the sheer increase in the number of performance groups as well as to advances in transportation. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the number of major American symphonies doubled, the number of resident theaters increased fourfold, and the number of dance companies increased tenfold. At the same time, planes made it easier for artists to travel. Artists and companies regularly tour, and they expand the audiences for individual artists such as performance artist Laurie Anderson and opera singer Jessye Norman, for musical groups such as the Juilliard Quartet, and for dance troupes such as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Full-scale theater productions and musicals first presented on Broadway now reach cities across the country. The United States, once a provincial outpost with a limited European tradition in performance, has become a flourishing center for the performing arts.

The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African-American music have deeply influenced American music at large, distinguishing it from European traditions. Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and what is now known as old-time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres with global audiences. Jazz was developed by innovators such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington early in the 20th century. Country music developed in the 1920s, and rhythm and blues in the 1940s. Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were among the mid-1950s pioneers of rock and roll. In the 1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of America’s most celebrated songwriters and James Brown led the development of funk. More recent American creations include hip hop and house music. American pop stars such as Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna have become global celebrities.

7. Highlights of English and American literature.

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	\|	A) English Literature

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