| Creator | Title | Emotional Sum (Sense of Life or emotional World View) | Theme |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rand, Ayn | Anthem | 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. |
| Painter: Leyendecker, J.C. | Day at the Beach | Fun and cuteness. | |
| Composer: Lehar, Franz | Merry Widow (Die Lustige Witwe) | Love brings gaiety and joy to life. |
Love can be gay and tender, solemn and lighthearted, painful and joyous. |
| Painter: Alexander, John White | Repose | 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. |
| Miron - Parish | Tzena Tzena Tzena | Joyous celebration | Joyous celebration |
| Painter: Ghirlandaio, Domenico | Old Man with a Young Boy | Human companionship or family closeness is real. | Quiet familial love. (A grandfather (perhaps) gazing upon a grandson, and vice versa, in a clear moment of happy communion.) |
| Director/Writer: Elliott, Stephan | Easy Virtue | Love isn't easy, but it is glorious. |
|
| Blum, Robert Frederick | Moods to Music | Life is colorful and glorious. |
Pure joy of movement and femininity. |
| Director: Reiner, Rob | American President | Romance is fun, funny and important. | |
| Classical Persian School | Ardabil Carpet | sumptuous eye candy. | |
| Director: McTiernan, John | Die Hard | The way to beat evil is to give no quarter, no compromise. Life is hard, but fighting for the right is rewarded. | Giving up in life is not an option. |
| Author: Webster, Henry Kitchell | Real Adventure, The | Life is wonderful as long as you realize that life has to be earned the hard way. | Creating your *self* is the only way to live. |
| Designer: Eiffel, Gustave | Eiffel Tower | The works of Man are thrilling. | |
| Director: Canet, Guillaume | Tell No One (aka Ne le dis à personne) | Life is sad, and controlled by mysterious corruption. | |
| Composer: Handman, Lou | Are You Lonesome Tonight? | Sensuality and bitterness | The remembrance of past love. |
| Painter: Dewing, Thomas Wilmer | Comedia | Life is sumptuous and beautiful and alive. | Feminine vivacity and gaiety |
| Director: Zinnemann, Fred | High Noon | There is palpable evil in the world. There is heroism in the face of evil in the world. The movie is full of fear and foreboding and betrayal. | Civil Society is the ideal, and worth fighting for. Doing what is right is the right way to live. Don't let the evil bastards win. The theme is expressed repeatedly in the movie via the contrast of the Marshall who grimly faces the need to do what he lives for, despite the death facing him, vs. the mealy mouthed town folk, many of which who won't fight for their civil society, and vs. the deputy marshall who portrays the sellout who will give into evil force in order to "get along". |
| Designer: Sullivan, Louis Henri | System of Architectural Ornament, A | The world is a place of infinite, ordered, geometric, fluid possibilities. | |
| Designer: Esherick, Wharton | Fireplace and Door | Very orderly exuberance, via "explosive" geometry | |
| Director: Herskovitz, Marshall | Dangerous Beauty | The world is a horrible split of conventional marital morality vs. honest but promiscuous morality. The way to live requires one sacrifice one's body for one's soul. | 1. The importance of accepting your own rules for living, your own morality. |
| Sculptor: Agesander | Laocoon (Laocoön and His Sons) | Life is a desperate, agonizing struggle. | The heroic but agonizing defeat of Men. This sculpture certainly represents at the same time the heroic nature of men but cast into an impossible situation that can only be tragic. |
| Shute, Nevil | Landfall | 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. |
| Author: Young, Phyllis Brett | Psyche | Optimistic, Hopeful, even under terrible circumstances. |
We are beings of self-made soul<br> |
| Vase Painter: Euphronios | Euphronios Krater aka Sarpedon Krater | Exquisitely beautiful hardship. | |
| Rudyard Kipling | The Ballad of East and West | When two sworn opponents recognize each other’s heroic qualities, their enmity dissolves. We feel inspired to see that intelligent and courageous men can recognize what is truly fundamental in the character of each individual. |
Though different cultures may be fundamentally opposed, two individuals from such opposites may fully transcend those differences and respect each other for their virtues. |