Monday, July 26, 2010

the permanence of act is set against the ravage of time

From my perspective, the value of art is beyond utilitarian function. I remember an artist said: the higher value of art work , the meaning of it more non-existente. Art is the lust of inner world. The purpose of fine art is rooted not in catering to the public taste or getting recognition but in expressing visceral emotion and exhibitting deep inside. In this way, i want to talk about the spiritual influence of art on our society.
To begin with, some classical art works deliver perpetual beauty and humanity, which moisture our heart like spring shower and brighten our future like light house. For example, Van Gogh’s most famous still life, Sunflowers exhibits the eternal love to the life and promotes the thoughts about life and death; Jules Verne’s famous novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea shows the original desire to travel space, air, underwater and everywhere human want to travel and helps us to fancy what the scene of the future of world looks like; Beethoven’s famous symphony, symphony NO.5 “destiny” deliver a spirit and eternal theme about facing frustration and fight the destiny for one’s dream and hope, thus convulsing the whole world with this spirit and humanity.
Additionally, since the social reality is an important source of creativity and imagination upon which artists depend to complete their original works, arts is a mirror of society hidden ideas and impulses in some cases. In the realm of literature, authors often present vivid scenes and shape various characters, the scenes and characters which are abstracted from observation and experience in the society. An apt example can illustrate this point is about Shakespeare. In his famous tragedies---Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, he strived to shape some characters who woke up from the ignorance and tried to get rid of the shackle of medieval but could not overcome the limitation of their times. He profoundly revealed the dark side of society and the people's strong desire to fight against the fate and harsh environment.
Besides, through studying the splendid history of art, we can lift our spirit level and aesthetic conception. History tells us that the immortal value of the art, which would not fade away as time goes by, lies in its intrinsic property which reflects the artist's true emotion, splendid imagination and their eternal pursuit of beautiful things. In the process of exploring the immortal value of art, we may find that we are more and more sensitive about the outside world and everything in our eyes becomes bright and unique. As a consequence, we get closer to our inner spirit and feel the outside world more beautiful.

2 comments:

Beth(wang qing) said...

Wow!your understanding of art is so deep! ^_^

Mike Lohre said...

I agree, Beth. I like when Sophy writes: "Art is a mirror of society's hidden ideas and impulses in some cases." One of my favorite poets, Richard Hugo, said that a lot of art comes from obsessions which we can't explain but that help explore the mysteries of our life. To me, Art is like the meat and potatoes of life (for Chinese, let's switch that metaphor to rice and noodles, ha ha). It's like a sustaining meal that takes me through the weeks. Thanks for a thoughtful post, Sophy.