In Ellen’s article, he talks about that human’s value has different meaning in different period in history. Historically, the arts influence community and the people in different way. For example, in the Middle Age, art are closely relating to religion to advocate god. In the Renaissance, artists believed in humanism. Like Ellen mentioned “As medieval society and art was God-centered, that of the Renaissance man centered.” (Dissanayake, p. 21) Art has different meaning and value at the different period of time. Today, art is a broad concept, and it includes various forms, such as painting, sculpture, dance, music, movies, and so on. Although there are different forms of art, but basically they are intended to convey the essence of the artist’s thinking. I think art is becoming more and more creative, and more and more people are creating art to express themselves. Ellen said in the article “I hope that a more human future society and art will be species-centered that is, will regard all human as a like in having the same fundamental needs.”(Dissanayake, p. 21) As Ellen’s hoping, artistic environment is becoming relative free, so artists would represent the publics to pursue the needs of individuals and the society. Comparing to the art environment in the Middle Age, the environment has changed today. Artists have relatively free environment to create, however, art is more surprising and stranger in the contemporary art. For the general aesthetic of the outside, the contemporary is weird and unacceptable. Only the art piece contains significant meaning could stand the test of time. Also, Ellen said that “Everyone may be and artist-decorating their bodies and possessions, dancing, singing, versifying, performing-even when some person are acknowledges as being more talented or skillful than others.” (Dissanayake, p. 19) Everyone could become an artist, because people desire to express. Now, A lot of media coverage in making art, and there are many art-related consulting on the network. Therefore there are a lot of opportunities for artist to exhibit their artwork, and also the people who love art have opportunities to learn more about art.
I think the interesting thing about your comment is that you mentioned if we only have tastes, we would appreciate the artistic essence of food more. I could sense your pity towards the fact that we could only appreciate the beauty and art of food by eating and destroying it. However, I want to argue that the uniqueness of food as a form of art is that food ultimately becomes part of our body and our life. I think that the highest appreciation of art is to embrace art into our survival and let art becomes something crucial. As compared to other forms of art, food is more pervasive and important for human survival and should definitely be valued more often. I also think that we should not just appreciate the ‘desirable’ food , i.e., the food that attracts us aesthetically, we should appreciate food that let us realize more about our body and our culture.