Title Creator Date Era City Country Emotional Sum (Sense of Life or emotional World View) Theme
Vitus Director: Murer, Fredi 2006 If you have the will, you can find the way to live the way you want.

Living your life your own way is the only right way.
Romeo + Juliet Director: Luhrmann, Baz 1996 1991-2010 Tragedy is central to life.

Romantic Love is doomed and we don't control our own lives.
Staircase Group (aka Portrait of Raphaelle Peale and Titian Ramsay Peale) Painter: Peale, Charles Wilson 1795 Perceiving accurately is important and playing with the artistic medium is fun.
Rose Window - La Sainte-Chapelle (aka The Holy Chapel Designer: Unknown 1248 The world is open and bright and colorful and gay.
Sainte-Chapelle Architect: Anonymous 1248 The world is brilliant, light, colorful, orderly.

The world is brilliant, light, colorful, orderly.
Chocolat Director: Hallstrom, Lasse 2000 Pleasure is good; religion and conventional thinking is bad.

Follow your dream and disregard convention.
Niobe Sculptor: unknown c. 200 BC Human action is beautiful.

Life is movement.
Blue Phoenix Painter: Koyo Omura 1921 1900s A pleasing and lush, possibly claustrophobic, world.
Day at the Beach Painter: Leyendecker, J.C. 1932 1900s Fun and cuteness.
Real Adventure, The Author: Webster, Henry Kitchell 1915 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.
Tell No One (aka Ne le dis à personne) Director: Canet, Guillaume 2006 1991-2010 Life is sad, and controlled by mysterious corruption.
Burgos Cathedral Crossing Architect: Unknown 1569 circa 1500s God is order and reason and light.

The spirit of god is rational, uplifting and rich in detail
Atlas Shrugged Author: Rand, Ayn 1957 1951 - 2000 Life can be good; Men are competent to live happily; The world can be a shining, happy place to exist, if one is free. But novel also presents a dark, dystopian world to help make real that positive view.

The crucial value of the human mind.
Blue Steps of Naumkeag Landscape Designer: Steele, Fletcher 1937-39 1900 - 1950 elegance and grace

The man-made enhances nature -- it is what makes nature beautiful
Camelot Composer: Lerner and Loewe 1960 1951-2000 One must attempt to live by values, even though virtue is powerless and hopeless.

Camelot: a medieval place of goodness and justice, and its inevitable failure.
I'll See You Again Composer: Coward, Noel 1929 Life is bittersweet

Sweet memories of love last forever
Boulevard of Broken Dreams Composer: Warren and Dubin 1933-34 1900s Weariness & Sadness

Life is loss of dreams and sadness
King in Khaki, A Author: Webster, Henry Kitchell 1909 1900 - 1950 Honesty is a noble and practical way of life.

Business acumen produces both material wealth and moral right.

The success of the entrepreneur in this story, along with his relation to all his staff and secondary and tertiary folks on the island who work for him -- makes him into a "king" based on important human relations and the rightness of his decisions that result in a successful business enterprise.

A subsidiary theme might be termed the power of morality over physical power or economic "power".
Attila (live performance) Composer: Verdi, Giuseppe 2010 03 03 1851-1900 Life is a mix of strength, heroism, romantic passion.

The work is a long complex opera, so it has many other lyrical emotions as part of it, but this covers the basic sense of life.

Loving a heroic woman leads to death
Pieta Sculptor: Buonarotti, Michelangelo 1500 1500s United States Resignation in the face of tragedy.

Recognition and acceptance of a great personal loss.
Are You Lonesome Tonight? Composer: Handman, Lou 1926 1900s United States Sensuality and bitterness

The remembrance of past love.
East of Eden Author: Steinbeck, John 1952 1951 - 2000 Life is filled with great and important choices.

The battle between good and evil, guilt and innocence. Takes the position that we are influenced by many things, but ultimately we have free will.
Wisdom and Strength Painter: Veronese, Paolo 1580c 1500s Sumptuousness is good, and the human form is good.
Sports March Singing Group: Soviet Army Chorus and Band unknown mid-20th century 1900s Russia Happiness triumphs.

The power of joy to motivate action.
Design for Living Writer: Coward, Noel 1932 1900s 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.