Issue 131【六人行小组8.3】by odie

odiehereUID: 2502172

题目：ISSUE131 - "The arts (painting, music, literature, etc.) reveal the otherwise hidden ideas and impulses of a society."
字数：550
用时：0:45:00
日期：2010/8/3

The creation of art is a great event in the history of human society. Cave paintings and ornaments in artistic forms found in various pre-historical sites around the world have revealed the rich spiritual life of our ancestors, telling us untold stories about the everyday life and thinking of these ingenious men. In this sense, I agree with the statement in point out one important value of arts, namely to reveal the inner feelings of a person, and of a society as a whole.

To begin with, art works are complementary to spoken words in expressing our true heart. One complexity with human nature is that we have an eternal desire to share our feelings with others but occasional reluctance to express them in an explicit way, because of shyness, a lack of security or simply not having found the most suitable way to speak it out. Therefore, many of us resort to art forms to explicit part of our inner world. Music is one instance. Just like birds are born to sing as a way to express themselves, human beings are also experts in employing music to open an window to their hidden impulses. No matter it be a young guy singing love songs under the window of a pretty girl, or a matinee passing the new year wishes to the audience, or even a group of crazy young people crying an angry song on the street, the music has been successfully used to let out the inner feeling, which can hardly be expressed equally effective in actual words.

Because the society as a whole is made up of individuals, the collection of individuals' art creations is a perfect reflection of the genuine nature of the society. Arts have been utilized in various ways to show the heart of the society. Sometimes, art is a good option of expression because daily words are not available. Poems, for example, have been frequently used by poets to intentionally obscure their ideas. In adverse political situations, when people are deprived of the freedom of speech, poems often come up as one effective way to release the inner cry of poets. This kind of poem was especially popular in ancient East Asian countries, which has help historians a lot in studying the political situation in certain historical periods. In other respects, art forms are virtually the only records of a society at one period. Fantastic cave paintings located in the French mountains made tens of thousands years ago are the only kaleidoscope of the primitive human society in Western Europe. Folktales passed down from one generation to the next, on the other hand, depict in front of us virtual paintings of the inner heart of ancient people. Even when we are looking at the society in the 20th Century, we rely heavily on art works created by, for example, the Lost Generation and the Beatniks, to understand the social atmosphere and the state of people's heart at that time. Therefore, our history will be dull and colorless without all the arts heritance.

The fact that modern people have well accepted the value of arts is certainly a good news for our future generations. Let's hope that our rich collection of art works, large amounts of wonderful museums will benefit our offspring.