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本帖最后由 wagner1985 于 2010-7-10 16:07 编辑
131"The arts (painting, music, literature, etc.) reveal the otherwise hidden ideas and impulses of a society."
Every civilization has its distinctive art style. Sometimes, it somehow reflects the reality of temporary society in certain time and attitude of the some people. And, in modern time, arts also predict some transformations of feelings and viewpoints about world and uniquely express that. However, there are still some common themes or ideas universally shared and expressed by the different artists in different times, countries or subjects. After all, arts are too complex to be summarized as a sentence, or else, the public would not rely on the connoisseurs or scholars’ advice to uncover or explore the meaning of certain style.
Admittedly, to some extent, arts reflect some typical aspects of their temporary situation. For instance, all kinds of popular arts, pop music, TV series, or Movies, merely attempt to cater the taste and fashion of the majority and earn profit. What they demonstrate or express is not far from the enjoyment or feelings which the society at the time could appreciate, at least would not disgust. In the hundreds of Hollywood movies, the typical plot is the heroic actors with Harrison Ford’s face, or with Schwarzenegger’s muscle, lead a common life at first and then are involved into a conspiracy and he found that and try his best to get rid of it, finally defeated all the enemy. And even in the classic art works, the social feelings are one of their important main ideas. From the Renaissance, the subject matters of art works tend to gradually get rid of the constrain of religion and eulogy of the God’s characters, but more try to vividly depict the social living and the character of human themselves. Even the drawing with the themes about the theology, the artists endow the goddess and god in the drawing with more humanity, say, moods, feelings, anger or pleasant etc. It somehow reflects the end of the Middle Age in which the human’s character was looked upon and pressed, and the coming of the Humanism thought.
However, underlying ideas of the arts are not congruous to what the majority believe, sometimes it reveal the feelings of forthcoming transformation of mental world or simply the revolt against the mainstream style in previous time,but not reveal something at the temporary society. In the modernism works, more and more masterpieces did not get the applauding of the contemporary world but enjoy great fame aftermath till now. Compared with the tradition, the modernism like to praise evil, ugliness, wild, and highlight the frenetic emotion and describe distortion or abstraction of reality. Yet, the beauty of the reality and goodness, which used to be extolled and praised in Classicism and Romanticism time, is demeaned and disparaged. The Baudelaire’s The Flower of Evil and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in two different ways represent the spirit of Modernism. The latter work even caused chaos in the theatre in Paris at its debut. Maybe people in nowadays has been given or provided with so much joy from all kinds of ways, but stray away from the direction which used to be guided by the church and religion. Then the modernism somehow takes the place of the church and religion, maintains the severity of themes, and reminds people of previous catastrophes and miseries through the exaggeration of emotion, reality, goodness and evil.
And what is interesting is some permanent themes or content always appears in the plot or themes of art in every time. Compared to the superficial variations of social appearance, these inner presence are hidden behind and persisted. The emotions or humanity among people, like loyalty, friendship, anger, hatred, love, are not only shown in the ancient Greek Tragedies and Comedies and tremendous epics but also in Shakespeare’s outstanding classic works and glorious Russian novels. Till now, they still constitute the stories of dramas, TV series or movies. The happiness is not only flowed in Beethoven 9th symphony but also exaggerated in the laughters of Zaporozhian Cossacks. Suffering is expressed as heavy as Haulers’ trudging besides the Volga, and remained in every note of Tchaikovsky’s the pathetic.
In other word, some importance in the world, say humanity or emotion, is permanently maintained the arts.
In sum, art is not so easy to be summarized. Although the arts and artists cannot survive without certain social background, there are still some content always be attractive and living forever. Neglecting these themes, art cannot develop profoundly with any further. It reflect characters, whatever is linked with or without society, from human beings and make people more human. |
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