Hi. While such an approach is hardly exhaustive, I would look at the religious "roots" of art. While some art became quite abstract, much of it seems focused on protagonists. These protagonists seem to embody in a sort of shorthand the values of a culture or subculture. I just watched a documentary on Spock (hence the choice of avatar), and he was summed up by admirers in terms of integrity and dignity. Stoicism obviously comes to mind, and perhaps stoicism is a "late" individualistic sort of "religion." Of course the many paintings of Jesus illustrate this more directly than Star Trek, but I approach the art that speaks to non-specialists (non-theorists?) in terms of incarnate values. With abstract expression and the like, perhaps the artists themselves become the protagonists of interest.