issue144

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Issue144 “It is the artist, not the critic, who gives society something of lasting value.”

Is it the artist, not the critic, who gives society something of lasting value as the author’s claim? Admittedly, the artist plays the crucial role of creating prominent art with lasting value. However, I fundamentally disagree with this statement since it overemphasizes the role of artist and ignore the important efforts made by critics.

There is no doubt that many classical art works made by artists ranging from poetry, painting to novel, music and so forth incite humanity to public and deliver lasting value to human society as well. The paint sunflower, one of the most prominent works of Van Gogh, impressed by the unique use of light, conveys eternal love to life as well as gives inspiration to us. Jules Verne’s famous novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea shows the original desire to travel space, air, underwater and everywhere human want to travel and helps us to fancy what the scene of the future world looks like; Beethoven’s immortal symphony “The Destiny” provokes the sense of public about dignity, perseverance and self-worth while enhancing the thought about humanity, value and fate, encouraging us to immerge ourselves facing and struggling every storm during the life span. Therefore, by creating such outstanding arts, the artists give our society something of lasting value.

However, I disagree with the statement since it narrowly focuses on the efforts brought by artists while overlooks the indispensible role of critics. Granted since the limitations caused by finite knowledge, common sense of that time, personal prejudice and so forth lead to some comments addressed by critics failed accurate and fair, posing obstacle to the development of art, we still can’t neglect the critics’ endeavors for giving our society lasting value.

On the one hand, without critics to excavate the true value of these excellent art works, perhaps most of them might be buried with the floating time let along to becoming famous and delivering eternal value to human society. On the other hand, the genuine value of each art which is the accumulation of artist’s emotion delivering their belief, ideas as well always hinds behind the superficial appearance. So it is hard for individuals to understand the connotation and grasp the gist of these masterpieces without the explanations and comments of critics since most of them only place glances on the exterior appearance of these arts while neglecting the further meaning and other pertinent information of them. As a result, only few of common folks could truly comprehend the genuine meaning of these famous works, especially those made during renaissance as we can hardly imagine a layman to understand the abstract paintings made by Picasso. On the contrast, critic with professional knowledge and familiarity to these arts, is available to nearly access to the genuine purpose of artist and provides the public with opportunity to focus on the connotation of these masterpieces, hindering behind the superficial appearance. Hence, there is no denying that the critic also play indispensible role in finding and spreading prominent arts which also render lasting value to our society.

To sum up, artists’ efforts can serve as paramount role in creation of art works but the endeavors of critics, evacuating truly precious arts from the sea of artists’ works and revealing the further meaning of such crafts, making them understandable to the public are equally important. Therefore, it is necessary and desirable for us to admit the contribution made by each of them which will bring more lasting value to world.