The arts serve as social, political and economic indicators that can help call into being an era.
The public art of today serves a different need.
Although he believed that art should of course serve the people and the party, it did so best by staying away from life.
In other political states during the twentieth century, there has been strong support for the view that art should serve a social purpose.
Now the deadly art of the blade served him well.
If art serves with genius, so much the better.
"My art serves socialism and the people," he says unapologetically.
"The art almost serves as a commentary on the text," she said.
But I can stand in most company, now, and know my art will serve me.
Still, while a war of images is often fought in today's media, art can serve as an interlocutor.