High culture is a term, now used in a number of different ways in
academic discourse, whose most common meaning is the set of
cultural products, mainly in the
arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture. In more popular terms, it is the culture of an
elite such as the
aristocracy or
intelligentsia. It is contrasted with the
low culture or
popular culture of, variously, the less well-educated,
barbarians,
philistines or the
masses.
[1]Although it has a longer history in Continental Europe, the term was introduced into English largely with the publication in 1869 of Culture and Anarchy by Matthew Arnold, although he most often uses just "culture". Arnold defined culture as "the disinterested endeavour after man's perfection" (Preface) and most famously wrote that having culture meant to "know the best that has been said and thought in the world" - a specifically literary definition, also embracing Philosophy, which is now rather less likely to be considered an essential component of High Culture, at least in the English-speaking cultures. Arnold saw high culture as a force for moral and political good, and in various forms this view remains widespread, though far from uncontested. The term is contrasted with Popular culture or Mass culture and also with Traditional cultures, but by no means implies hostility to these.
Much of High Culture consists of the appreciation of what is sometimes called High Art. This term is rather broader than Arnold's definition and besides Literature includes Music, Visual arts, especially Painting, and traditional forms of the Performing arts, now including some Cinema. The Decorative arts would not generally be considered High art.
The cultural products most regarded as forming part of High culture are most likely to have been produced during periods of High civilization, for which a large, sophisticated and wealthy urban-based society provides a coherent & conscious aesthetic framework, and a large-scale milieu of training, and, for the visual arts, sourcing materials and financing work. All this is so that the artist is able, as near as possible, to realize his creative potential with as few as possible practical and technical constraints. Although the Western concept of High Culture naturally concentrates on the Graeco-Roman tradition, and its resumption from the Renaissance onwards, it would normally be recognised that such conditions existed in other places at other times. A tentative list of High Cultures, or cultures producing High art, might therefore be
