ISSUE144[AW狂人社]第三次作业hqrzd

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Fundamentally I agree with the speaker’s assertion that artists produce works of lasting value. Nonetheless we should not overlook the role that critics play in the course of the spread and explanation of art works.
As I comprehend, there are three main functions of the critic. First, an art critic can help us appreciate and better understand the works which may otherwise be too complicated for us. Especially in today’s tendency of expressing unique characters of the world in a unique form, the public need the guidance of the critic to better understand the work. Secondly, an art critic can help spread to the public masterpieces of an artist and explain the value of a special artist. Thirdly, an art critic can bring some constructive feedbacks to the artists and serve as a bridge between artists and the public.
However, under precise contemplation, the three seemingly crucial functions all contain flaws at very fundamental level. For the first function of critics, history provides us cautions to this point. Critics often judge art in their own evaluating system or evaluate art to satisfy the appetite of some special potential clientele, who bring him the desired profit.
Let us come to the second function---- art critic help spread to the public the masterpieces of an artist and explain the value of a special artist. History also provides us with examples that at some periods of time critics ironically serve as obstacles of development of art. In the late nineteenth century, at the rise of the impressionism, critics at that time considered the new style of painting a threat to the morality and mores of the society. Critic‘s judgment is based on the principles of artistic value which were developed at the young age of them. As the society improves, those principles gradually become out-of-date and obsolete.
Finally, I turn to the third function of critics. Even though an art critic can bring some constructive feedbacks to the artists, the creative nature of art decides that artists are not living to cater the need of the society. As it so often pointed out, most of the world famous artistic works had been achieved through a long time efforts and all-consuming works of the artists. Masterpieces are produced when the artist has an impulse or passion to create, but when there is a certain social demand----only product for sale behaves according to the demand of the society.
In sum, based on the three functions of the critic, they only serve as filters for the public. What they do is simply presenting some works, which accord with the appetite of the society and helping the public better evaluate the works. In fact, the soil, water and atmosphere that they   live on are the art creativity and achievements of artists and the passion for art of the public. If I were to make an analogy here, the art works are the goods of a supermarket and the public are the customers and critics are the instructions or posters you find at the entrance of the store, which tell you where you can find the goods that you appreciate. What the “customers” really appreciate is the fine and perpetuating quality of the “goods”. In other words, only the great artist could present us with works of lasting value, either for his or her contemporaries or descendants, by the unique record of the culture to the insightful revelation of the history.