i have time, but i am traveling and the laptop has english O/S on it, so i will do this one in english, as odd as it appears….

in last section, we talked about the aesthetic values and how are they transformed within a transit process defined by the social environments/cultural bases oif different times.

in this section, let’s take a look into the socialogical functionalities of the visual arts in general:

as mentioned in a series of earlier posts, visual arts started with very practical functionalities: recording the life style of certain times, regardless if it was intended by the art creaters.

in fact, we do know that at least the chinese characters came from those original rock arts some 7000 years ago,as lately discovered, while fresco could date back to a million years ago. it is well known that the oldest fresco in human history are found in china. mostly in inner mangolia and gansu.

again, back then, all they had for materials were the animal fat for cohesiveness and certained mineral contained clay (thus with certain color) and they applied the material to the surfaces of vacano rocks.

there was no skills perhaps, as the materials were available to all but non were specialized in such activities.

visual arts, for some like myself, could be a communicating language contained with icons recognizeable by the fellow society members of the same times, at least in that times (not in the contemporary times when multiple sub culture produce cultural variances and thus separate icons) and thus many of the symbles used in those fresco arts are yet to be decypherd.

then, also as mentioned, visual arts began to serve certain purposes in the more developed human societies:
the religious authorities in the western world deployed visual arts as means to promote and support their preachings, while in the chinese history it was primarily elite leasure deployed to express personal aesthetic and phylosophical values shared by the inner circle of the social group received same trainings, and to have communicated among each other effectively.

as the societies developed in due process of the scientific and technological progress, resulted in economic progress, people’s value system shift in line with such socialogical and economic changes.

the aesthetic values of the pre-insutrial societies, insutrial societies, post industrial societies are certainly different, the materials of art medias progressed with more and more availabilities of varieties, and the skills based on such media materials are also different.it is hard to imagine that 100 years form now people still sticking to the same media as the main visual art experession means. similarly, it is difficult that people of 100 years from now would share the same value as we have today.

if the above perspective is recognized, then we may come to a conclusion that different visual arts of different times or cultures of same times serve different purpose, regardless intended or not. how do you expect an average
western individual to appreciate the art works of ancient chinese artists the same way we do? or for that matter how would even the contemporaries of andy warhol fully appreciate what andy was all about?

therefore, it would be odd if a contemporary chinese visual art work look exactly like some artists’ works from
the contemporary usa or germany or france….

why would people hire interior designer to decorate their house? my guess is that the house onwers are not sure about their own cultural taste would fit into the social group that they would like to be associated with.

supposed you have been working in the street for all your life, you parents worked all their lives in factories, your grand parents worked all their liveds on the farm.

in socialogical sense, this process really reflected the social progress from a farm country to industral society.

but if you hit the jackpot and suddently got rich, you may have a snobish need to have those in the circle you are now joining in to recognize you and accept you as one of their own.

so while you may have just spent 10s of millions of dollars qcquired a big property, you know when you have a party in the house people walk in and found you have no personalities in your house decor, or even worse thatyou have a poor taste demonstrated in your decor…they would laugh at you either right in frront of you or behind your back (depends how much they need you)

so you decided to hire someone who can hopefully put you in the right place with the right decor, by providing a decor with the appropriate personalities shown. (not necessarily truly your own, but to be perceived as your own)

by the same token, when you have the money but not the taste (which takes more than one generation to acquire)
you may find yourself in a pretty ambarrasing position.

so what does all this mean? it means you never were exposed sufficiently to the value system of the social group that you are now projecting to be a member of, as you just came from a different social group. now doesn’t this illustrate the value differences and thus the taste for different arts.

if you look at it, it is very interesting: most of the chinese in their 40’s or younger, can easily accept pop music including rocks. but they could barely appreciate visual arts or dance without leaving the techniques alone.

now why is it that you can allow those god knows who doing what jumping up and down on the stage screaming into the microphones without any basic trainings as art, but you cannot excuse those with true naked talents in visual arts
but not showing impressive skills?

this is only because you grow up with pop musics and everyone around you told you it is OK to sing without skills otherwise needed for operatic singings. too bad no one ever told you the same thing about visual arts. the education system you came through pretty much prepared you for expectation of high skills to representational techniques. if one draw or paint something or someone, that got to look like the subject, or it is of no value.

do you think this is going to last? no! the chinese cultural environment will continue to change, so will the visual arts and the society’s aesthetic values based expectations towards them.

we will talk about that in next section