Some forms of artistic expression predate even Homo sapiens sapiens. Cave art, carvings, bone flutes, and “crayons” of mineral pigments have been found as far back as half a million years old. Even when making utilitarian objects, people have the impulse to make them aesthetically pleasing. We add colors, textures, inscriptions to cooking pots and garments and hunting weapons. Some of these serve as cultural identifiers, or have religious or superstitious meanings, but some seem to be simply for beauty. Dance and music also have deep biological roots, some even in animals.
What is the role of the arts in the society of your WIP? Essential, such as bards or cave painters being charged with keeping history? Do actors and comics serve as the conscience of the rulers? If you were writing about a society of bird-like beings, would you make song the primary form of communication?
Or have the fine arts become incidental, mostly for entertainment?
Is enjoyment of some arts mostly upperclass? Do they have very distinct forms by class? Compare what hangs in galleries
with what gets painted on building walls.
or folk dance with ballet
or the many, many varieties of music and their differing audiences. What you listen to may be a crucial part of your identity, as evidenced by the dissonance evoked in red areas when one of their musical idols comes out in favor of something they now disapprove of.
Deep background of poetry and song is one of the things that makes JRR Tolkien such a pleasure to read. His various cultures show themselves in their songs as much as in their speech, their architecture, and so on.
Challenge: write a vignette about your characters, or any of our stock ones, encountering some form of art in their adventures, and their reaction to it, good or bad.
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