| Title | Creator | Date |
Era |
City | Country | Emotional Sum (Sense of Life or emotional World View) | Theme | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Landfall | Shute, Nevil: | 1940 | 1900 - 1950 | United Kingdom |
Heroes and Heroines are self-made, by anyone at any level of intelligence who seriously pursues what is important in their lives. |
Truth will triumph -- with perseverance. |
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| Anthem | Rand, Ayn: | 1938, revised 1946 | 1900 - 1950 |
The book starts out psychologically dark and disorienting because of the protagonist struggling with the radically collectivist world he was born into. But what shows even in the early pages, and grows to the climax is the triumphant struggle of a rare few who break free of the yoke of total mind control and become free to live a life as a conceptual human and rediscover what it means to be an individual. Thrilling and emotionally satisfying (unless the reader is a committed determinist.) |
Ego and using one's individual mind is the core of being human. |
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| Of Human Bondage | Maugham, W. Somerset: | 1915 | 1900 - 1950 | United Kingdom |
Life is a fearful gray spread of actions and in-actions without genuine values. We are all deformed in mind or spirit and should accept convention as demanded by those around us. |
Man's life is outside his control. Conventionality is the final ideal. |
||
| Spider Web Narcissi Table Lamp | Designer: Louis Comfort Tiffany | circa 1902 | 1900-1950 | United States |
Richness of form, sumptuous shapes. |
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| The Samovar | Painter: Emil Carlsen | 1920c. | 1900s |
The world is full of textural richness worth looking at. |
The richness of light and the objects it caresses. This is a paean to the richness of visual experience, but with the simplest of materials -- just a light source and two kinds of simple unadorned objects. |
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| Merry Widow (Die Lustige Witwe) | Composer: Franz Lehar | 1905 | 1900s | Vienna | Austria |
Love brings gaiety and joy to life. |
Love can be gay and tender, solemn and lighthearted, painful and joyous. |
|
| Diana | Sculptor: Auguste Saint-Gaudens | 1892 | 1900s | New York | United States |
Serenity in action. But not a strong world view in any case, quite placid. |
||
| Blue Phoenix | Painter: Koyo Omura | 1921 | 1900s | Chicago | United States |
A pleasing and lush, possibly claustrophobic, world. |
||
| Day at the Beach | Painter: J.C. Leyendecker | 1932 | 1900s | United States |
Fun and cuteness. |
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| I'll See You Again | Composer: Noel Coward | 1929 | 1900s | Manchester | United Kingdom |
Life is bittersweet |
Sweet memories of love last forever |
|
| Boulevard of Broken Dreams | Composer: Warren and Dubin | 1933-34 | 1900s | United States |
Weariness & Sadness |
Life is loss of dreams and sadness |
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| Are You Lonesome Tonight? | Composer: Lou Handman | 1926 | 1900s |
Sensuality and bitterness |
The remembrance of past love. |
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| Sports March | Singing Group: Soviet Army Chorus and Band | unknown mid-20th century | 1900s | Russia |
Happiness triumphs. |
The power of joy to motivate action. |
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| Design for Living | Writer: Noel Coward | 1932 | 1900s | United Kingdom |
Life can be giddy and bright. Facing up to one's anti-conventional values is important. Conventional morality must be questioned if it causes suffering and conflict. |
You should follow your deepest values and accept them no matter how unconventional the outcome. A rare combination of the wittiest, lightest of Noel Coward's style, along with deeper themes of romantic love, proper morality and how should one live. |
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| Crane Under the Rain | Ohara, Shoson: | 1928 | 1900s | Japan |
Life is difficult. |
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| Tzena Tzena Tzena | Miron - Parish: | 1941 | 1900s | Israel |
Joyous celebration |
Joyous celebration |
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| System of Architectural Ornament, A | Designer: Louis Henri Sullivan | 1922 | 1900s | Chicago | United States |
The world is a place of infinite, ordered, geometric, fluid possibilities. |
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| Hyacinths to feed thy soul | White, James Terry: | 1911c | 1900s | United States |
Hopeful. Even in poverty one can have beauty. |
Beauty is a form of sustenance |
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| Trees | Alexander, John: | 1899 | 1900s | Olathe | United States |
A sense of the world as dynamic and strong. |
Nature is wild and dynamic. |
|
| Repose | Painter: John White Alexander | 1895 | 1900s | New York | United States |
Life is extravagant and lush and sensual. |
Feminine Sensuality is a main theme, though one can argue that a related (equal theme or sub-theme) is: The Lushness of the Material World. The dramatic draped womanly figure pressing against a divan, whose figure is clearly oulined, shares the visual dominance of the painting along with the magnificent sweeps of her dress and the giant pillows, the massive backrest, and even the strong elements of the floor material and the golden back wall. All together a remarkable composition. |
|
| Cyrano de Bergerac | Playwright: Edmond Rostand | 1897 | 1900s | France |
Life can be exciting. Life can be grand, literally. There is also some great sadness about consummated love, since it is portrayed as unreachable. |
The importance of independence and independent thought. Compromise is deadly to one's soul. Sub-themes: a) Doubt of one's goodness because of an incidental fact (physical feature) is terribly damaging and tragic. b) Helping someone by faking reality is damaging and can come to no good. |
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| La Gomena (Towing a Boat) | Painter: Ettore Tito | 1909 | 1900s | Italy |
There is great effort in life, and a woman can be the master of it. This painting is a curious combination of romantic heroism and 19th century genre naturalism. It has a visual dynamism and dramatic content that is strongly romantic, yet the subject is the prosaic task of pulling a boat out of the water. |
The will and the power of a woman. Implacable determination. |
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| Shade, The | Rodin, Auguste: | 1880-1904 | 1900s | Paris | France |
Life is a gruesome trial. There is no hope. |
The world destroys man. (Some unknown evil force is destroying this young strong man.) Given that the sculpture is titled as a "Shade" and is related to the Group sculpture "Gates of Hell", one can presume the evil is some unnamed condition that can overpower life and cause destruction of the good. |
|
| Helene Arpels Dress | Designer: Maggy Rouff | 1937 | 1901-1950 | Paris | France |
Elegance and richness of detail |
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| Covered Box | Designer: John Otar | 1930 | 1901-2000 | Santa Cruz, CA | United States |
Fun; complexity made from simplicity |
