艺术家的社会价值
IELTS Writing Topic
Value of Artists
India and Saudi Arabia
January 2012
>Why do you think artists like writers, musicians and painters still have value in the society? Discuss.
Example Writing
Jeenn Lee Hsieh
The immense value of artists lies in keeping a true diary in another way of the society by sending light into the darkness of human hearts. All great masters--painters, musicians, writers--have a mission to record the inner reactions of their emotions to the outside world they live in. What art offers is spiritual space, a certain breathing room for the soul; without art, the crudeness of modern reality would make the world almost unbearable.
Artists at heart do not represent the outward appearance but the inward significance of things. Contemporary paintings, poems and musical pieces link their value to the most accurate perception of what is really going on, and not the official version or the popular impression in the society. Strangely enough, some artists do not seem telling the truth, as if it were a lie that makes the world realize the truth. In many cases, so powerful is the way art is presented in sound, canvas and letters that people can nearly feel like artists knocking at their souls. In this modern age, life may beat down and crush the human soul, and it is exactly that kind of art which is capable of reminding that the soul is still there. By telling the truth to human souls, artists in different disciplines are able to transfer emotional value to the society and wait for an answer.
Even in a world which is increasingly becoming materialistic, artists still have a place. One of the crude aspects of the money-oriented society is that some people seem beginning to learn the price of everything and the value of nothing. Such ignorance is, of course, the enemy of arts in all forms as the society is apparently not aware enough of the valuable contributions that artists can make to the society. It is as easy to under-estimate the role that a painter, a musician, or a writer plays in the society as to ignore the great contributions made by living artists. So much so that the artistic truth told about modern reality is often undervalued. After all, appealing to the soul, a work of art is emotional and therefore spiritual and its real value defies any artificial price tag.
To discuss the contributions of great artists is to emphasize their spiritual value in the materialistic society and to look into the human soul. Probably the value of all artists is to purify the inner emotions of many human hearts bewildered by the outside world. It may be said that art is a way rather than a thing, and the way of art is illuminating food of spiritual value for hungry souls.
