In order for any work of art—for example, a film, a novel, a poem, or a song—to have merit, it must be understandable to most people.

In order for any work of art—for example, a film, a novel, a poem, or a song—to have merit, it must be understandable to most people.

Normally, the merit of a work of art should be decided in two ways. One way is the commercial merit of it. This means the price that the art could be sold on the market. Another method is the artistic merit of it. This method always consider about what kind of skills the art adopted. However, some people give a different idea about judging  criteria of the merit of art. They believe that a valuable art must promise that anybody could comprehend it. From my point of view, I partly agree with this idea.

I have to admit that whether or not a work of art is understandable by most people is a method to decide the merit of it. This idea approved by the commercial value of art . For example, art like film and song, if these kinds of art hope to acquire commercial value, it must be sold very well. For film , the basic requirement of a well-sold film is that the film must promise that more people could comprehend the content of it and what the film want to taught. Only when a film cold fulfil this requirement, more spectator are possibly to be attracted to the cinema to buy the ticket. For songs , only on the circumstance that a song is prevalent enough, a company may spend a huge amount of money to buy the copyright of it. And the crucial point for a popular song is that it must promise that the main idea of the song could be fathomed by most people. If people could not understand the song, it is hard to image that they will recommend the song to their families or friends. Those two examples are enough to prove the idea that understandable is important for deciding the merit of art.

Although from the point of commercial merit, understandable is important, there is another way which do not stress understandable when judging the merit of art. Form the view of artistic merit of an art, whether or not a work of art could be understand by most people is not important , as long as it can be appreciate by artist , it could be vindicated as a merit one. Specifically, for art like novel and poem, it is unrealistic to image that most people could apricate the excellent writing skill of it ,for understanding it require a higher level of education. For example, most novel of stream of consciousness is hard to be understand by most people. Only those specialist could confirm the artistic merit of it. So for this kind of art, it is not necessary to be understand by most people to promise their merit.

In conclusion, it is reasonable to think that whether a work of art could be understandable by most people is an important factor in deciding if an art is merit or not, but this criteria definitely not suit for all kinds of art.