Issue144 [SWEETBOX小组]第5次作业

jiangyue011UID: 2340595

144"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.
正文：
Arts, generally defined as a generic term of various creative endeavors spring from all human pursuits, have wide-ranging extensions and deep-going connotation. Concerning the issue of whether artists or critics produces long lasting value to the society, I would rather disagree with the speaker, subject to the proviso that the value of arts is consisted of two distinct parts. The two different parts, which are qualified with my point of view, are divided into artistic or esthetic value, and economic value.

On the one hand, there is no escaping the fact that artistic or esthetic value is created by artists with their unique perception and imaginations, and that is why people associate arts with the most brilliant painters, musicians, playwrights, etc. Looking back on our proud history, one could find that a myriad of excellent works from different areas have been created and passed on from one generation to another. Consequently one could find that artists give society of different kinds of lasing values: studying, education, amusement, inspiration. Because different works reflect distinct social phenomena and works of one famous artist usually represent the most brilliant achievement of that kind of arts in the particular era, by studying artists and their works, one learn not only the history of that period but also extraordinary techniques of the artists. Human beings also use arts to educate the next generation, teaching children the story of Aesop's shepherd boy, crying the wolf, we instill them the morality of honesty. Also, when people enjoy Beethoven's greatest music like 'Moonlight' or the ninth symphony at theater, we procure one kind of the most adequate and graceful amusement. We could also find striking examples of the lasting value of inspiration. For instance, we could find a lot of stimuli and inspirations from 'Sunflower' and 'Sunrise', both of which are created by Monet with his genius and crafts.  

On the other hand, the critic could contribute significantly to the economic value of a certain piece of works. In other words, though critic may not directly be engaged in the creation of the arts, they also provide many important factors that let the fog loop. Unlike direct involvement, critic serves to explore the existed artistic and esthetic value of art works and imparts the economic value to the public. Artists, if not be acknowledged by the society, could not be considered of artists simply because a man unknown to the outside world has no historical significance--it is under help of critic can real artists fully exemplify their brilliant works as well as their brilliant minds. For example, many art works seems at first glance very obscure to the public, it is by learning the explanation of the critics can the gap between the artists and the public be bridged. Also, critics could also help the artists evaluate the economical value of their masterpieces. This is of vital importance to the artists by the fact that a higher price suggests a higher level of achievement.

Another contribution of critics involves the feedback and guidance to artists. Even the most brilliant artists have drawbacks and hardly a piece of perfect art work could be found. Thus, the suggestions and feedbacks from critics could allow artists to know their shortcomings of their works, making them perform better and create more outstanding works. And, indeed, artists benefit a lot from the direction and guidance of the views of critics. In addition, without the direction and supervise of artists, some artists would strive to make as much money as possible without paying attention the quality of their works. They would, for example, produce, sell and disseminate a large amount of immortal or unhealthy works such as porn, violent videos.

To sum up, there are two categories of the artistic values and both of them are of vital importance to the art and artists. Thus, endeavors of both artists and critics contribute to the lasting value of society: artists create lasting value to the society with their hands and their creative mind; critics create lasting values by their comprehensive and in-depth understanding of arts.

[ 本帖最后由 jiangyue011 于 2007-6-22 23:42 编辑 ]

wchao69UID: 2209794

很不错的文章～～。无论从内容上还是语言表达上，都很出彩。艺术类题目总觉得有点难写，不过看你的文章，就感觉其实思路很清楚。不需要太多的艺术背景。

PS:sunflower 应该是 Vincent Van Gogh 的 masterpiece 吧