 #1 (permalink) Wed Sep 26, 2007 20:05 pm GRE Essay: Critics have to invent standarts in order to assess art forms. |
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Hello!
Englishuser, thank you very much for your help! Following your advice, I'm revising English grammar (you know, I'm not A1 in grammar) and I hope that I will be able to improve the quality of my papers.
Question:
Although, critics who write about the arts tend to deny the existence of any objective standards for evaluating works of art, they have a responsibility to establish standards by which works of art can be judged.
Answer:
I tend to agree with the writer that certain standards are essential in judging works of art; moreover, only professional critics have necessary knowledge to establish these criteria. At the same time, he fails to acknowledge that critics, or at least some of them, haven’t been rejecting some objective standards. Sometimes they even try to use more harsh ones than necessary, underestimating the value of progressive art trends.
Critics are people, who have more extensive knowledge about history of arts than anyone else; so they could base their opinions not merely on subjective feelings, like common people, but on some rational standards too. Some philosophers believe that art is the mirror of the nation and only plain people are able to appreciate it correctly. At the earliest stage of civilization it was right. Today, however, art is so diverse that only people, spending their lives learning about this type of our self-expression, could assess any art form. It is their purpose to apply standards, which help to reject commonplaces and allow citizenry to enjoy only worthwhile things. The quest for such standards is a cornerstone of criticism; on the other hand, some art tenors have already had clear-cut guidelines. In popular art, for instance, it is a commercial success.
Without advisable standards, art would soon become too controversial: anyone would be able to say that he has been creating masterpieces. And only some common standards, in addition to public opinion, could prevent such situation. One may argue that many great artists have been acknowledged only posthumously; critics didn’t recognize the value of their works because the standards were out-of-date. As an example, we could consider the career of great Van Gogh, who lived in poverty throughout his life; but now his paintings are among the most expensive in the world. I agree with the thesis that sometimes standards are not quite appropriate. However, without them we would submerge into artistic chaos and true geniuses would be never appreciated at their true value.
The statement asserts that critics tend to refute the existence of any objective standards. In my point of view, they try not to deny them, but even overestimate the value of these criteria, which are often too formal and rigid. Admittedly, artists themselves want to reject all these labels, confining them in too narrow area. For example, a lot of metal bands play manifold music; they mix different trends from folk to black together, trying to invent something interesting for audience. On the other hand, critics often blame a group, if its music deviates from the conventional trends. I think that objective criteria, like novelty and clearness of ideas, have to be used by critics; nevertheless, these formal regulations shouldn’t be too rigid and shouldn’t confine development of arts.
In the final analysis, critics should establish certain objective standards, which are necessary in assessment of any art form. However, they have to do it quite prudently, because too narrow norms or too wide could cause break of the art development or make it absolutely uncontrollable.
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Konstantin
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 11 Nov 2006
Posts: 118
Location: Saratov, Russia
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