Humanities Is: Essay, Research Paper

Webster s Dictionary defines humanities as the branches of learning concerned with human thought and relations. Products of human invention and genius that express human emotions are shown through literature, visual arts, and performing arts. Studying humanities has a value, it is a necessity of life, and it serves mankind.

Literature has allowed writers to achieve realism in which they would reflect on day-to-day events of real life rather than describing the imaginary world. Writer s discovered that they could do justice to the problems society was facing by using a more naturalistic style and using realistic terms. There were a number of themes that were touched by writers during the age in which they belonged to.

Novelist Charles Dickens used his books to explore the social injustices and its effects that they have incurred on individuals. In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens has the readers experience the reconstruction of the French Revolution and in Oliver Twist he discussed the treatment of the poor in workhouses. On the other side of society, poet William Wordsworth explored the theme of relationships between human beings and the world of nature. In Wordsworth poem, Tintern and Abbey, he writes about how important nature is to him and how it has allowed him to have other relationships with other human beings.

Art is all around us, but we still seem to fail by recognizing how much society is constructed from it. Art can be used to make a statement about who we are and what we value without even saying a word. Art can be quite difficult to interpret because it is complex, can be viewed by different cultures, and/or within a different age. The history of art is shown by how artists used their minds and imaginations.

Leonardo da Vinci constantly searched his mind looking for answers about the world and its crucial parts. He became concerned with mathematics, a deep respect for the natural world, and a love for beauty all intertwined with the feeling of emotional power, which was found in his painting The Last Supper. The skepticism of da Vinci was also found in the mind of Michelangelo. The sculpture David, by Michelangelo, is photographically realistic and has a clear statement of idealized beauty. David was a symbolic emblem with civic power to the city outside the Palazzo Vecchio.