Issue 131

TOPIC: ISSUE131 - "The arts (painting, music, literature, etc.) reveal the otherwise hidden ideas and impulses of a society."

WORDS: 544 TIME: 00:45:00 DATE: 2008-4-6 11:23:46

The speaker asserts that arts can be used to unveil concealed ideas and impulses of a society. However, the speaker unfairly generalizes. I concede that in many cases arts can serve to call our attention to important hidden ideas and driven force of a society. On the other hand, arts can not represent certain notions of the masses. Moreover, artistic works may not be reckoned as successful, or even anti-social.

Admittedly, arts can serve chiefly to unmask special streams that we would otherwise neglect. For instance, the Divine Comedy, written by Dante, uncovered various unfair laws and rules conducted by political leaders. In this prominent book, hidden ideas and impulses were unveiled through symbolism and metaphor--such as hell, heaven, and monsters. Without Dante's artistic work, people today would never understand the true ideas of the multitudes of his period. Another paradigmatic archetype perhaps is Van Gogh who created impressionism on painting, which was accepted several years after his death. Albeit the works of Van Gogh were not recognized by people of his time, Van Gogh's paintings did represent certain impulses--postimpressionism in this case. If Van Gogh fails to pursue his ideas and faiths till he was not able to pick up a pencil, the appearance of impressional arts would otherwise be put off.

However, in most cases, art works stand the mainstream of social or political ideas and impulses, and are broadly recognized as great by their contemporaries. In the realm of literature, this is especially true. Consider Voltaire's works that represented the main trends amid literature--the Age of Enlightenment. Essays and articles written by Voltaire just reflect the thread of developments in human history. Or, consider Homer, a distinguished writer in Ancient Greek, who was famous for his two great works: Iliad and Odyssey which describe the noble wars of his age. In effect, Homer did most of his work on addition, expurgation and modification on the achievements of his contemporaries. Therefore, artistic works created by Homer actually recorded the paramount events in society--a myriad of wars in Ancient Greek.

Furthermore, when it comes to the field of music, the speaker's claim finds even less support from historical record. For instance, Nie Er, a prominent Chinese composer, created a great many art works including the national song of PRC. Nie Er composed most of his works during the 1950s when new ideas of liberation and individual freedoms dominated the society. The International Song, one of Nie Er's music, was considered as a representative work of that period. Another example involves Mozart. Even though Mozart experienced a short time of life in the world and passed away in his thirties, his artistic symphonies did stand the chief ideas, instead of hidden ideology, of his society. After all, monarchs of the Europe recognized Mozart's artistic greatness through granting him their most generous commissions--a symbol of mainstream culture of that period.

In summary, with a few exceptions in which arts are utilized to unveil undercover stream and unique creative impulses of a community or society, under most circumstances, arts created by plenty of historical and contemporary figures serve chiefly to reflect the prevailing attitudes and values of a society of their distinct dynasties. Consequently, in the final analysis, I tend to disagree with the speaker's claim.