issue144 坚持20天

xbcperceptionUID: 2309800

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.

Artists, who provide pleasure, the sense of beauty etc to us through the works they created, are eulogized by more and more people nowadays. To the contrary, critics are often demurred, for they always do some negative comments on the artist or their works. Although the some true values can only be created by artist, we should not overlook the significant role played by critics, and sometimes they help artist create lasting value in our society.

Admittedly, it is the artist who creates the authentic values, which give us a feeling of relax, sense of beauty and inspirations. Only through these productions can we grasp these values conveyed by artist. It is Beethoven's symphony relieve us from pressures, it is the Mona Lisa’s smile instill us with the perception of eternal beauty. On many occasions, these values are beyond expression, which means they can not be interpreted with words that are used by human being to explain some concrete objects. And we just can attain these thoughts, feeling by intimately approach to these works and communicate to them with our minds by ourselves. Therefore, the implicit values are created by artist and can be felt by ourselves alone.   

However, critics can reveal the hidden values, which can not be seen through by ordinary people, of the artist's works. The works created by artist always contains lots of meanings that related to the artist's experiences, world view, moral attitude. The average person may lack some understandings about the artist, consequently, they are unable to feel the inner values of the works of this artist, nevertheless, the critics, whose profession is to remark on certain artist works, are always familiar with all aspects of this artist and therefore can easily find out these covert values. I concede that some values created by artists can not be explicit expressed by others, but the critics who understand the works well can give some remarks on them, and these remarks, which always associated with these veiled values to some extent, can give the ordinary person a hint that may help him/her find these values by himself/herself. As mentioned above, critics serve as a useful role in help people understand all the art works thoroughly.   

Furthermore, the comments of the critics, which ostensibly seems undermine the works created by artist, sometimes are positive to the artists and can be used by themselves to improve their works. The artist's always creates his/her own works by himself/herself, as one person can not take all respects of an object into account, then there must be some defects of his works that he do not notice. As the saying "the onlookers see most clearly" goes, the critic as an "onlooker" can always find out some deficiency of the works, then comment on them. The artists can learn a lot from these remarks whether it is good or not and improve their productions in the future. Thus, the critics have a positive influence on the artists in this respect that the artists can ameliorate their works from the comments made by critics.

In sum, most values of the works are created by the artist himself/herself, but by the assistance of the critics, we can discover some meaningful values of the work that may not even be regarded by the artists themselves, and critics provide a lot help to the artists in the improvement of their works. In order to create most meaningful, lasting values, both artists and critics are needed.     





[ 本帖最后由 xbcperception 于 2007-7-9 22:07 编辑 ]