ISSUE218 [Victors小组]7月3日作业 by jennetrj

jennetrjUID: 2275453

ISSUE218 - "In order for any work of art-whether film, literature, sculpture, or a song-to have merit, it must be understandable to most people."
WORDS: 554         TIME: 00:65:00          DATE: 2007-7-3 20:38:36

Should any form of art work be understandable to most people so as to get some merit? The speaker gives the positive answer to this question. In my point of view, there's no doubt that those understandable piece of work is easier to be accepted by the mainstream of the society, however, chasing for the acknowledgement from the populace might overshadow or even suffocate the originality that every art work deserves.

Admittedly, any work of art could pave the way for a success if it is compatible to the mainstream aesthetic values, or easily to be interpreted by most people. Looking back to the art history, theological art reached to its peach in the days predominated with theocracy. Stories concerning about mythology mentioned in the Bible were deeply innate inside people's heart, so that any paintings, sculptures and carols preying for God's mercy were welcomed at any place in medieval Europe. Furthermore, such art work could be strongly supported by the ascendancy which is crucial to the development of the art. Like most famous Renaissance artists, their ironclad support from the Roman Catholic Church and other city-state magnates, like Medici family in Florence, greatly magnified their artistic genius which brought about one of the most booming eras for art among human history. Being understandable to most people not only provides the basic social background for art, but also affirms its thriving and development.

Nevertheless, over-emphasis on the acceptance among people might mislead the artists to pander the mundane appetite and suffocate the originality that every artist should have. Apparently current film production is going on the deviated tract chasing more profits from the market, while real artistic scripts were deserted at the corner of producers’ office. More high-tech animation is replacing the montage to attract more teen-agers to buy the tickets; commercial films bungled by myopic producers are everywhere in Hollywood studios. Such disappointment triggers the nostalgia so that more and more people would just like to be stay at home with cassettes of those canonical pieces.

But the most avant-garde artists might fight for years to find for a place in mainstream society in order to express their thoughts and originality since little cognizance among average population. Current exhibitions held in art galleries in L. A, California illustrated the supreme originality of art work made by those feminist movement, however, even till now only a small number of people really understood their purpose of showing the struggles that generations of females had been through, let alone they could get support in early 1970's. And it is not unusual to consider it bizarre, or even crazy of those behavior artists to be naked on sod for their idea of keeping human's innocence. Therefore, art work that is much closer to ordinary life could be the easier to get accords from people, by whom the merit of art really transmitted.

In the final analysis, art work is the supra-structure that reflects the internal world of human being and the way that artists express themselves. Easily accepted art thoughts might be the perquisite factor for a masterpiece being preserved for a long time and to show their merit. But chasing for values is never the purpose for art and could do great harm to art development, not just currently, but at any time in the history.