issue144 第一篇艺术内的，写到内伤

风中尘埃UID: 164965

思路清楚了，但还需要事例补充，先搁置，等我再找些资料在补充完整

OPIC: ISSUE144 - "It is the artist, not the critic,* who gives society something of lasting value."

*a person who evaluates works of art, such as novels, films, music, paintings, etc.
WORDS: 478                    DATE: 2006-6-14

In this era of challenging, more and more attention have been paid to the commercial affairs. At the same time, people also tried their best to reduce the negtive inflluence of this trend by paying more money to the field of art, which has so many incarnations such as film, novels, music, paitings and so forth. Many of them seriously believe that art could offer an therapy to this over oppressed society, no matter the pressure is from the work, politics, or other sources. But few of them really know what  the lasting value that a piece of art could give us is. And the clarification of this question offers insight into the sequential one, that who gives society something of this value?

The first question have three traditionally accepted answers: the lasting value include the pleasure, the beauty, and the instruction. Since we defined the value into three aspects, we could also compare the artist and the critic in three aspects to define their function.

The first, and may be the most original function of art is pleasure. In the early days, artists were mostly recognized as craft men, doing their work merely to entertain the aristocrat or as an ornament of ordinary life. Music, for instance,  was basically done for the need of religion to express the love from god, or to cater the aristocrat by offering them hamonious, soft, and skillful performance. It is clearly for us to see that artist, other than critic, which may have not appeared at that time, was the only origin of pleasure in art. Even now, when the critic society has been fully developed, critics have done almost nothing to offer the society pleasure. Kids don't need the critics to teach them to become comfort when listening to the music of Morzart, adults also don't need them in relaxing themselves by wathing comic movies. Artists could basically offer them alone.

As to beauty, things become complex, because both the definition and origin of it is controversial.  Some believe that beauty is something eternal in the works of art and won't be changed as time goes by. While others believe that beauty in a work is changeble, as every one could have his own Hamlet. If we regard beauty as a reflection of one's phsychology, the latter oppion would be more sensible. And then, we could find how groundless to say that it's critics who help reveal the internal beauty of the art and transmit it to ordinary people. The ability to appreciate arts may need training, but it's too far to say that critics, instead of artists give the society beauty.

The last function of art is instruction, moraly or politically. Artists, especially after 19th century, used to express their feelings or thoughts through their works. Critics may play an important role in deffusing it, but not create it.