How does art reflect and inform the culture from which it emerges?

While we typically
look at literature as a means of humankind to tell its story through words, really this same
thing holds true for the visual arts, for music, for drama and performance.  Going back to the
paintings in the caves at Lascaux (in France) and Altamira (in Spain), or even looking siimply
at the hieroglypics found in the pyramids of ancient Egypt, one can see how humans used shape
and color to depict the things that were important to them.  The hunting and gathering lifestyle
of the prehistoric Europeans depicted at Lascaux and Altamira might be contrasted, for example,
with the paintings done thousands of years later by artists of the same part of the world: 
the affluent, and generally attractive folks depicted by the French artist Renoir, or the
numerous portraits of the royal court done by the Spanish artist Valezquez.

Mankind's desire to tell his/her story can be interpreted as much through what he or she doesn't
capture on paper or canvas, as what he or she...