issue144 快考了，请大家狠拍吧！

yyseaUID：2179011

不知这样写是否切题呢？ 而且感觉语言贫乏啊，请大家指教。万分感谢！

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TOPIC: 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.
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In all ages, once a piece of works is created, it would inevitably experience criticism--no matter positive or negative--which may influence the artist and audiences. It hence causes a debate that whether the artist or the critic gives the real value of art to society. In my view, at times critics play a useful role in the appreciation of art and bring helpful information to the society, however, criticism has a lot of limitations and the lasting value of art is essentially given by artists.

Admittedly, from time to time critics’ evaluation is valuable. First, critics can help us to understand art to some extent. After all, works of art are usually created in certain circumstances which we might not know, and they often have some connotative meanings which may be hard for us to find out. In this case, critics, who own more abundant knowledge and more acuminous insight about certain works, could help us to find out the meaningful value of the works. Secondary, critics are able to provide feedback for artists and reveal existent drawbacks in works sometimes. If artists can take the correct suggestions in heart, their works would make progresses. In addition, excellent criticisms themselves could also be works of lasting value. A telling example is Wen Xin Diao Long (The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons), one of the greatest works of literary criticism in ancient China, holding a considerable instructional value until now.

However, critics have various limitations and sometimes may holdback the development of art. Since the views of world from critics and artists are unavoidably different, it is completely possible for critics to misunderstand artists’ willing and could not find the real value of their works. Moreover, the sights of critics are often limited by old and established rules, which run counter to the innovational spirit of art. A typical example is Van Gogh, a gifted painter using color, line and brush stroke to express his emotional response to a subject rather than to describe an accurate object traditionally, whose works were judged out of the principle of art and could not received comprehension until many years after Van Gogh’s death. Further more, even if the evaluations of critics are correct, they still often confine the imagination of audiences. And unfortunately, imagination is important for an audience to appreciate art.

Finally, the lasting value of art is essentially from the works of art, in other words, from the works’ creators, the artists. Only after the creation of works, could a critic--no matter how wise he or she is--evaluate this works. Even in the cases that critical works themselves have refulgent values, such as the example Wen Xin Diao Long mentioned above, the critical works have to base on the former works they evaluates; in fact, in these cases the critical works are also art, and the critics are also the artists. Additionally, the real and lasting value of works is not attributable for the recommendations of critics, but lies in the emotional impacts to their audience's sense, spirits and souls, which do not require audience to understand the works utterly. In this sense, the existence of critics is unnecessary.

In conclusion, the value that critics bring is limited, and sometimes critics even harm the real value of art. Actually, the lasting value of art is essentially given by the artists. Thus, if we want to find real value of a piece of works, it is important for us to appreciate it by our hearts. Although we can seek some help from critics, we should not depend on them.

[ 本帖最后由 yysea 于 2006-7-10 02:44 编辑 ]