ARGUMENT56 同主题第八期

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TOPIC: ARGUMENT56 - Collectors prize the ancient life-size clay statues of human figures made on Kali Island but have long wondered how the Kalinese artists were able to depict bodies with such realistic precision. Since archeologists have recently discovered molds of human heads and hands on Kali, we can now conclude that the ancient Kalinese artists used molds of actual bodies, not sculpting tools and techniques, to create these statues. This discovery explains why Kalinese miniature statues were abstract and entirely different in style: molds could only be used for life-size sculptures. It also explains why few ancient Kalinese sculpting tools have been found. In light of this development, collectors should expect the life-size sculptures to decrease in value and the miniatures to increase in value.
WORDS: 548          TIME: 0:55:04          DATE: 2006-8-4

1。life－size全身都是用molds做的？
2。molds确实是用来做statues的么
3。style的多样不能说明miniatures不是用工具做的
4。作者的推论过于鲁莽

没有批判那个It also explains why few ancient Kalinese sculpting tools have been found

In this argument, the author concluded that the values of life-size sculptures and miniatures will changed.  His conclusion is based on the assumption that the life-size statues were made not by sculpting tools and techniques but by the molds of human; also he inferred that molds could only be used to make miniature statues because few sculpting tools have been found. At first glance, this argument may be plausible, but with careful analysis, we could find it suffered from several logical flaws.

First and foremost, the author assumed that the ancient Kalineses (K) used molds but not the tools and techniques to make their life-size statues.  But this point may suffer from 2 aspects. First, the molds found by the archeologists is just of human heads and hands, but, a life-size statues of human figure is not just relevant to head and hands, but also other parts such as body, feet, legs and forth. It is possible that ancient K used molds to build the statues' heads and hands such parts which have a lot of details and own complicated structures, but it is mean all other simple parts such as bodies are made by molds? But there is no evidence to show this point because we just have the molds of hands and heads. So it is very possible that some other parts, even whole statue, except hands and head are made by tools.

Secondly, the author just mentioned the molds have been found but how could we know the molds were used for making statues? It is possible that the molds are used as examples for doctors in that era to comprehend the structure of human body or just for some arts to script. There must be some remainders relevant to clay on the molds if they have been used for making statues, but the author mentioned no words about it. So it is reasonable for us to doubt about the use of those molds.

Another significant logical inferiority is that the author assert that no molds had  been used for miniature statues.  Although the miniature statures are abstract and is in diversity styles, these can not be a sufficient evidence. Because the different in style may be caused not only by different personal techniques or customs but also by time--------the miniature statues may be made in different years, and as we all know, the art style is never stop its changing pace, so it is not surprised the miniature statues if the statues were made in different times. But author did not offer sufficient information for us to judge.


Last but not least, the author draw a conclusion that there will be a prize fluctuation between life-size sculptures and miniatures. As the economic principle told us, the value of thing is just dependent on the relation between supply and demand-------an old Chinese saying "when thing is scale, it is precious", so it is unreasonable to infer such a conclusion just based on different making processes.

All in all, the author failed to support his conclusion with such unfounded evidence and subjective assumptions. If the author could bring more information about those molds and do a thorough analysis, it will make this argument more logical acceptable.