Jasmine Directory

When talking about arts and entertainment, the main characteristic of the US stands in cultural diversity. The US is known worldwide as a nation of individual freedom, the American culture being based on an individualistic ground. In an endless race to achieve the so-called American dream, many have lost, but those who have strived and succeeded are truly beautiful and genius in their own way – the people who have left a permanent mark on the not-so-old and continuously updated US history of arts and entertainment are all groundbreakers in their respective field of activity and international trend establishers.

Due to its colonial history, the American literature was primarily defined alongside the English literary tradition. Nonetheless, naturally talented American poets, dramatists and novelists succeeded in separating themselves from their English equivalents, contemporary American literature having distinct characteristics. Great writers, like Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, William Cullen Bryant or Edgar Allan Poe have developed what is now called a unique American style. Some of the most internationally adored writers are American, from Mark Twain, Emily Dickenson, Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway to John Steinbeck or Arthur Miller.

The history of American visual art begins in the late 18th century, its evolution moving at a fast pace, from the American craft movement to new deal art, abstract expressionism, pop art, hard-edge painting and so on. Some of the most notable American artists are John Singleton Copley, Rembrandt Peale, Edward Hicks, Winslow Homer or James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Some of the most renowned art museums in the world are in the US, for instance the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., The Frick Collection in New York City, N.Y. or the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, Calif. 

Music in the US is a most profitable industry and the American prominent music genres differ from state to state. The popular music genre changes each decade, merging from the 50's gospel, passing through the flower power decade into the 70's heavy metal, punk rock and hip hop, making its way through the 80s into the 90's alternative rock. Blues originated in the “deep south” of the US and country music also had its early origins in the American South.