(GRE Essay)"The arts reveal the otherwise hidden ideas and impulses of a society
Art is derived from everyday life and at the same time beyond daily life. Artists are always trying to explore the hidden ideas and impulses of a society and to give them a form accessible to understand. At the same time, arts as important part of a particular cultural system are more than hidden scripts; rather, they record public life and cast great influence on the public sphere.
Artists are required to be creative, to be detached from the transparent life and thus to reveal those hidden ideas and impulses obscene to laymen. As a famous Chinese write Lu Xun once commented, a writer should be a fighter, fighting with common sense; and he should dig out unrecorded history, unvoiced voice and untold story. During 1920s to 1930s, Lu Xun wrote under great pressure of political terror from domestic government; his literature reveals the dark side of then government and the unbearable suffering of common people. Lu Xun and his many contemporary in the era of high modernism believed that the artists have the responsibility and privilege to reveal the hidden scripts of the society. First, Constrained by the form of presentation and limited by the everyday language, there exist a multitude of ideas and voices evading everyday talk; and a variety of arts could just provide vantage to articulate these hidden ideas and voices. On the other side, some impulses of a society are difficult for the average people to sense and grasp with; while the artist could take advantage of their keen insight and piercing analysis to undercover these hidden meaning.
Although the artists have the tradition of presenting hidden ideas and impulse, they are also interested in those public events and history. Many contemporary artists pay a high respect for those everyday language and event. In their opinion, our time does not need those heroine artists to undercover hidden ideas and history; rather, the most important task for contemporary artists is to record things happened and expression articulated in daily life. After all, they embrace keenly an anti-heroine time, when those who declare their ambition as articulating alternative ideas and impulses for common people are seen to be arrogant and ridiculous. We come to, they declare, a time glorifying public transparence rather than hidden obscenity.
In these years, we witness a boom of popular art and commercial art. Unlike many predecessors who stressed their privilege of discovering the obscure meaning under the flow of everyday life, this new generation artists make more conversation with public and popular culture, invite their audience to participate into the interpretation of art rather than revealing for the audience. With the rising convergence between the art and other form of presentation created by the mass, the arts no long enjoy the pejorative of revealing hidden ideas and impulses, if there are such things at all.
To sum up, as pioneering thinkers in our society, the artists indeed have great power to reveal the hidden ideas and impulses, which are thought to be the important task of art for a very long time. However, with the rising tide of popular arts challenging the dominant narratives of artists, the new generation artists are short of ambition and confidence to make "revealing" form of art; rather, they pass their privilege of revealing of hidden facts and meaning to the audience.
PS: my GRE examination is approaching, could you give me advice on how to improve my writing? thank you in advance~~~~
Art is derived from everyday life and at the same time beyond daily life. Artists are always trying to explore the hidden ideas and impulses of a society and to give them a form accessible to understand. At the same time, arts as important part of a particular cultural system are more than hidden scripts; rather, they record public life and cast great influence on the public sphere.
Artists are required to be creative, to be detached from the transparent life and thus to reveal those hidden ideas and impulses obscene to laymen. As a famous Chinese write Lu Xun once commented, a writer should be a fighter, fighting with common sense; and he should dig out unrecorded history, unvoiced voice and untold story. During 1920s to 1930s, Lu Xun wrote under great pressure of political terror from domestic government; his literature reveals the dark side of then government and the unbearable suffering of common people. Lu Xun and his many contemporary in the era of high modernism believed that the artists have the responsibility and privilege to reveal the hidden scripts of the society. First, Constrained by the form of presentation and limited by the everyday language, there exist a multitude of ideas and voices evading everyday talk; and a variety of arts could just provide vantage to articulate these hidden ideas and voices. On the other side, some impulses of a society are difficult for the average people to sense and grasp with; while the artist could take advantage of their keen insight and piercing analysis to undercover these hidden meaning.
Although the artists have the tradition of presenting hidden ideas and impulse, they are also interested in those public events and history. Many contemporary artists pay a high respect for those everyday language and event. In their opinion, our time does not need those heroine artists to undercover hidden ideas and history; rather, the most important task for contemporary artists is to record things happened and expression articulated in daily life. After all, they embrace keenly an anti-heroine time, when those who declare their ambition as articulating alternative ideas and impulses for common people are seen to be arrogant and ridiculous. We come to, they declare, a time glorifying public transparence rather than hidden obscenity.
In these years, we witness a boom of popular art and commercial art. Unlike many predecessors who stressed their privilege of discovering the obscure meaning under the flow of everyday life, this new generation artists make more conversation with public and popular culture, invite their audience to participate into the interpretation of art rather than revealing for the audience. With the rising convergence between the art and other form of presentation created by the mass, the arts no long enjoy the pejorative of revealing hidden ideas and impulses, if there are such things at all.
To sum up, as pioneering thinkers in our society, the artists indeed have great power to reveal the hidden ideas and impulses, which are thought to be the important task of art for a very long time. However, with the rising tide of popular arts challenging the dominant narratives of artists, the new generation artists are short of ambition and confidence to make "revealing" form of art; rather, they pass their privilege of revealing of hidden facts and meaning to the audience.
PS: my GRE examination is approaching, could you give me advice on how to improve my writing? thank you in advance~~~~