issue144

htpengUID: 2115584

------题目------
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.


The speaker claims that it is the artist, rather than the critic, who creates lasting value for the society. Though I fundamentally agree with the speaker, it seems that the importance of critic is neglected.

To begin with, artists can create a lot of art which can be enjoyed by everyone. Everyone can find ample examples in the art history. Take a look at those great musicians, such as Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin. Their music give great enjoy to human beings and bright people's souls. The music is invaluable to human beings. And also put some attention to those great painters. Leonardo Da Vinci comes immediately to mind, some of whose great paintings are exhibited in the Louvre. Few will deny the art value of these paintings and they had influenced a myriad of people. Similar examples can be found in other kinds of art. These famous arts are essential to people even in the present.

Moreover, the artists help to preserve and create values which their arts contain. For many years, human beings' religions, ethics, mores, custom and so on are preserved in the form of art. Take the works of Shakespeare for example. Besides the great art value, these works contain a great part of mores, custom, and ethics in Shakespeare's time. They are invaluable not only to the people who know arts but also to those historians. And let's turn our eyes to Da Vinci again. His works have a lot of contention about religion. Sometimes, artists can even help to create values. In the renaissant, artists help to create and transmit values of freedom and in such way, helps to form the culture.

However, though the speaker put great emphasis on artists, in my opinion, the merits of the critics should not be omitted. As experience tells us, critics can't make the obvious achievements as artists do. But they realize their values by helping and guiding the artists. In some cases, critics are spokesman of the public. They try to join the values of the public and the artists together. And also, through their comments or sometimes criticism, artists will gradually improve themselves. As a matter of fact, the merits of the critics are included in artists' achievements. In this way, critics help artist to preserve or create values, no matter social values or art values.

In the final analysis, the speaker makes a fundamentally right claim that artists rather than critics give society something of lasting value. As the text above analyzed, the artists' merits are great in history. However, the speaker neglects the importance of critics to a certain extent who can realize their values by helping artists gain achievements. In sum, artists play an important role in creating values, and critics are secondary.