High culture
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In a society, high culture encompasses cultural objects of aesthetic value that a society collectively highly esteems. It can include works of art, history, and philosophy that a society considers res
The Creation of Adam, from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling – an example of high culture
The Acropolis of Athens, Greece
T. S. Eliot
A painting by Ming Dynasty artist Chen Hongshou showing a scholar-gentleman (literai) with a guqin, a Chinese musical instrument
Western canon
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The Western canon is the body of high-culture literature, philosophy, art, music and architecture from the Western world, with works classified within it considered to be—and celebrated—as classics in
High culture
…literacy that facilitates upward social mobility. In the U.S., Harold Bloom and F. R. Leavis pursued the definition of high culture by way of the Western canon of literature. Media theorist Steven Johnson writes that, unlike popular culture, "the classics—and soon to be classics—are in their own right descriptions…
Dante, Homer and Virgil in Raphael's Parnassus fresco (1511), key figures in the Western canon
Detail of Sappho from Raphael's Parnassus (1510–11), shown alongside other poets. In her left hand, she holds a scroll with her name written on it.
Picasso, Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier) (1910), oil on canvas, 100.3 × 73.6 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Chandos portrait of the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare