Religious influence on early American art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Religious influence on early American art - Essay Example The Puritan outlook rooted in the medieval times and was deeply religious. The Puritans believed that all human actions should be directed to the main value of glory of God. On the other hand, Puritan medieval outlook combines with the new democratic feature, because Puritanism with its political ideas was close to the most daring democratic and republican theories. In most cases, Holy Bible served as an informal body of law and understanding of the rules of everyday life. In this respect, early American art being a sponge of the public ideas, absorbed the Puritanism with its religiousness. The current paper considers the influence of the religion on early American literature and fine arts. Considering the early American literature, the early writers had Holy Bible as a model. Bible was the most important source of plots, imagery, and inspiration in the conditions unsuitable even for life. Every passage of the Old and New Testament could become a subject of a sermon or a poem (works by Edward Taylor or a poem â€Å"The Day of Doom† by Michael Wigglesworth). In addition to that, every event of the daily life in New England was reinterpreted in accordance to Scriptures and was seen as a fulfilled prophecy and a confirmation of a reality of the Biblical texts. The joys of hearth and home, marital love, and the birth of children were seen as a manifestation of the Lord’s will and became a topic for New Anglican letters, diaries, poems, and reflections. A personal spiritual experience was also very important and worth literary incarnation. The spiritual experience included the moments of enlightenment or penance communication with God as well as the confrontat ion with the spirits of wickedness (Halleck, 2006). The writers of New England left behind mostly spiritual autobiographies and the diaries of the inner spiritual life (â€Å"The Spiritual Travels of Nathan Cole† (1765). Didacticism is another essential feature of the early literature of New