Is art a valuable source for historians?

Question

When I mean art, I am mostly talking about 20th century art, however, please put in any art you want.

Answer 1

It's not only valuable, it's invaluable. It expresses the hopes, fears, and joys of the people at any given time. Take 20th century music. Take a song like "Call Me" from Blondie. In this song she expresses an insatiable sexual appetite. Such a thing would have been unimaginable a hundred years ago. The psychedelic art of the mid to late '60's was a direct reflection of the LSD and pot culture of the time. The expressionist art of the 30's was very stark with heavy black lines; the times were stark as well, with the Great Depression, the rise of Fascism, Stalin's insatiable appetite for murder, and so on. Surrealism expressed the intellectual point of view that the world was perfectly absurd.