0910AW 同主题写作第四期 ISSUE143 by leopard2009

leopard2009UID: 2596872

143"Artists should pay little attention to their critics.* Criticism tends to undermine and constrain the artist's creativity."

Due to the widely used technology of mass communications, the voices of both artists and critics can often be heard in our society. I often watch the interviews in which some artists were asked to give their response to certain criticisms. "No," claimed those artists, "I don't care their criticisms, and I want to do my work in my own way." Obviously, we should applaud these artists for their firm attitude toward the critics. As an artist, the independent pursuit of the artistic expression is their responsibility. However, we can't assert, like the speaker above, that criticism tends to undermine and constrain the artist's creativity.

Let's get down to fundamentals and say that the value of arts is to provide original lens to the understanding of our life and world, and to express this understanding in an aesthetic manner. In this sense, artists, partially like scientists, try their best to discover something valuable--something that's usually hidden or neglected in our life. Then they brightly utilize their magnificent talents to express the ideas and concepts artistically. For instance, they may first notice the weak character in Chinese people at the end of Qing Dynasty, then creatively display the theme in a critical and enlightening manner, much the way Luxun, the greatest Chinese writer, did in his masterpiece "the true story of Ah Q". The inherently innovative inquiry that lies in the arts naturally requires artists to do their work independently, paying little attention to their critics . Otherwise, artists may lose their creativity by trying to cater to the standards of critics. And their works will surely lose the most important artistic value--originality.

Without artists' dependence on their critics, however, criticism itself won't necessarily undermine and constrain the artists' creativity. Anyone even with rare background in arts may agree with the statement from their daily experiences. Look at many blockbusters, such as "Forest Gump" and "Titanic"; they all got big applause from the critics because of their originality in conveying the directors' ideas in life and love. Besides, look at Langlang, the most talented and recognized Chinese pianist; he got many criticism even in his early stage, but that doesn't undermine and constrain his creativity in playing many classical music. Actually his individual and passionate style of playing piano earns the world reputation for him. We can therefore safely arrive at the conclusion that criticism alone won't necessarily reduce and limit the artists' creativity.

Moreover, as long as artists don't treat the criticism coming from their critics as the "Bible" but regard them as something like the mirrors from different angles and think critically, this criticism may have the positive impact on his/her artistic expressions. The critics are usually the experts in some specific areas. Their criticism may include some constructive suggestions to the artists. For example, a famous contemporary Chinese writer, Yuhua, once said that a review from a foreign critic did shad some enlightening light on him and helped him to see the problem depicted in one of his fictions in a novel way. Perfect arts are virtually rare, and constructive criticism may help the artists to investigate their artistic expression in a new perspective, if the artists can think critically and do their job independently.

To sum up, the responsibility of artists is to convey his/her creative ideas in an artistic way. This inherent characteristic in arts leads us to the conclusion that artists should do their work independently, paying little attention to their critics. However, we argue that the speaker above unfairly claims that criticism tends to undermine and constrain the artists' creativity. According to our analysis, we can clearly see that criticism alone won't reduce and limit the artists' creativity, if they don't rely solely on their critics and can think critically. Moreover, if the artists can think critically and do their work independently, they may benefit from some constructive criticism.