【Big Fish】03月10日Issue144-By FF

FloridaffUID: 2772878

Issue No.144
"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.
艺术家而不是评论家带给了社会一些具有持久价值的东西。
*评论家指的是评价艺术作品的人，例如小说、电影、绘画等。


The argument that whether the artist or the critic brings the permanent value of art to our society, depends primarily on the essence of what one gives us. To some extent, I strongly agree that it is the artist rather than the critic, that brings us the permanent value of the sort.

To begin with, the very essence of the artist, who creates art of permanent value, is something of objective existence. Once a valuable work of art were created by its artist, it would exist forever no matter how time flies and what the ups and downs of society are. For example, novels, as Gone with the wind which is still the fancy of most people around the world, would be loved from generation to generation. So would films, music, paintings, etc. That is to say, whether a person loves it or not, the artist's creating always objectively exists and of high value.

On the other hand, what most of critics express about works of art is their personal ideas and thoughts, which are highly subjective. Common sense tells us that anything subjective, that would be as changeful as human's view of life and world is, could not permanently exist. For example, Van Gogh, a famous painting artist now, however, once was described as a madman. His still life paintings have been hailed by critics as a triumphant piece of impressionism now, while he only sold one piece of his paintings in his entire life. What we can learn from it is that the evaluations of critics about works of art could not be lasting valuable, and sometimes even of prejudice.

Besides, with respect to the essence of what one gives society, the speaker's statement requires two qualifications. First, the artist we talk about in this article is a person who practices any of the various creative arts, such as a novelist, film-maker, musician or painter. Moreover, the foundation of the keyword--lasting value--of this issue is that the work of artist created by artists should be valuable first of all. Secondly, some critics might turn to be artists and their criticism as well become a sort of art, when the criticism stands in such a high level that can be something of lasting value.

In summary, aside from these two qualifications, I agree with the statement that the true-value works of artists can exist eternally in society, while the words of critics evaluated art are more than a subjective representation of someone in some time.