A general idea about art is that it can only presented using physical objects in which a thing of beauty can be represented, such as painting, sculpture, and architecture, etc. But if we look beyond this normal conception, we see that the means of creating art extends to intangible mediums as well. Music, dance, theater, and film can certainly express emotions, ideas, and aesthetics the same way that paintings can. As does poetry, prose writing, the novel, etc.
We can deduce this by showing that what the artist wishes to express is often extended beyond the realm of his medium. If his work is influential enough, it can trickle down through other mediums in which his work is capable of being expressed. For example, Shakespeare's most famous play Hamlet started out on the written page. Since then, its scenes have been reproduced in paintings, films, and operas, all of which serve the intense emotional conditions that Shakespeare intended. The Lord of Rings series has spawned many films and countless visual interpretations. It's even been represented in song, most famously by a rock band. That being said, one has to wonder why the written word tends to have more of an influence on other mediums than, say, painting, the medium which most consider to be the heart of arts. Many paintings throughout history have been based on works of literature, but you hardly ever hear about works of literature that are based on paintings. The same can be said of music and film. Many symphonies and operas are based on plays and epic poems, but it seems that very few songs and movies have inspired literary works. True, there are book adaptations of some films, but they are only written for commercial purposes. Considering this, one might imagine that literature is the real heart of the arts, and not painting as is traditionally thought.
What makes a work of literature so special that it can be represented in every medium, but not the other way around? Do artists have so much respect for its ancient heritage that the idea of writing a novel based on a movie seems ludicrous? The written word is so powerful because it was the first method that cultures used to preserve their mythologies, and they did it for centuries at that. Writing came before all the other mediums; therefore, it is so steeped in original material that mathematically there may be no other choice. You could counter by saying that cave paintings predate literature by a few millennia, so in all fairness the visual arts did come long before the written word. Consider though, that the word itself- the vehicle of story- came even before cave paintings, in oral folktales that were passed down from generation to generation. As oral legend preceded cave art, "literature" must have preceded painting in its attraction.
Literature also can present to the mind's eye such distinguishing visuals that we feel we must share with the world our own version of the events we see in story. It is the most abstract of the arts because the sheer act of imagining what one is reading can conjure up a vast catalog of visions, each of which are dependent on the reader alone. Nothing demonstrates this more than the Madonna holding her Christ Child. In the Middle Ages, almost every artist gave the world their own interpretation of this single image.
Finally, literature can reach the most amount of people in a given region, making it far more influential than the other arts (though in modern times music and cinema have also benefited from the mass production brought about by the Industrial Revolution). This is one of the reasons for the visual arts' rapid decline; paintings and sculptures simply can't be mass produced the same way the more popular mediums can. From the Renaissance to the late 1800s you couldn't hear a recording of classical music or see a detailed copy of an artist's painting without looking around and paying a hefty sum for it. You had to physically be there to experience it, whereas with literature you could just go out and buy your own book. That's why art commissioners profit less now than they did in olden times; the limitations on craft production, relative to the mass-produced arts, caused them to be more wary about their investments.
Literature's only drawback is that it requires a translation. Many fine novels and poems from the Renaissance onward remain untranslated, and as such have been swept under the dustbin of mass production. And let's not kid ourselves, the source of art can come from a variety of things, like historical or personal events, reflections on ideas, people that influence us, and things of beauty in the natural world. Women, world sites, and life changing events often generate more profound desires to release an artist's muse than a book does. So, we can't assume that literature is the heart of the arts simply because it's the most influential.
Ultimately it doesn't matter which medium has the most influence. The popularity of mediums rise and fall as commissioners become persuaded by trends in production value and market demand. But none of them ever completely die out. People still paint and sculpt and enact plays. The intentions of art will always propel people into finding which method of expression is most comfortable for them and utilizing it in their own stylistic way, even it means making less money.
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