Throughout the history of the arts, thenature of creativity has remained constant to artists．Nomatter what objects they select, artists are to bring forth new forces andforms that cause change—to find poetry where no one has ever seen orexperienced it before．

Landscape (风景) isanother unchanging element of art．It can be found from ancient timesthrough the17th-century Dutch painters to the 19th-century romanticists andimpressionists．Inthe 1970s Alfred Leslie, one of the new American realists, continued thispractice．Lesliesought out the same place where ThomasCole, a romanticist, had producedpaintings of the same scene a century and a half before．UnlikeCole who insists on a feeling of loneliness and the idea of finding peace innature, Leslie paints what he actually sees．In his paintings, there is no particularchange in emotion, and he includes ordinary things like the highway in thebackground．Healso takes advantage of the latest developments of color photography to helpboth the eye and the memory when he improves his painting back in his workroom．

Besides, all art begs the age-oldquestion: What is real? Each generation of artists has shown theirunderstanding of reality in one form or another．The impressionists saw reality in briefemotional effects, the realists in everyday subjects and in forest scenes, andthe Cro-Magnon cave people in their naturalistic drawings of the animals in theancient forests．Tosum up, understanding reality is a necessary struggle for artists of allperiods．

Over thousands of years the function ofthe arts has remained relatively constant．Past or present, Eastern or Western, thearts are a basic part of our immediate experience．Many and different are the faces ofart,and together they express the basic need and hope of human beings．

    The death of the plastic credit card could be a step closer as high street names including McDonald's and the Co-op prepare to test a breakthrough finger-scanning payment technology.

    FingoPay, developed by British start-up Sthaler, uses a biometric reader to scan the veins of a shopper's finger, building up a “map” that is unique to each individual.

    By connecting this pattern with a credit card or bank account, the company plans to let shoppers pay simply by placing their finger in a pocket-sized scanner, doing away with cash and credit cards.

    Sthaler, founded by former music industry executive Nick Dryden, will begin testing the technology next month in Proud, a London nightclub. Mr. Dryden said McDonald's is experimenting with a pilot of the technology, and that Sthaler is also planning a project with Co-op's food stores.

    It comes amid growing interest in using biometric identification in payments, which backers believe are more secure and efficient than passwords and PINs. Apple Pay, which uses the iPhone's fingerprint technology, launched in the UK in 2015 and was followed by the Android equivalent in May 2016.

    Hendrik Kleinsmiede, the director of Visa Europe's innovation arm Collab, which is backing Sthaler, said the Fingopay technology was less immune to problems such as wet and dusty fingers or fraud. “People are ready to accept biometrics as a secure authentication mechanism,” he said.

    Sthaler says the chance that two people have the same vein structure is 3.4bn-to-one, making it virtually impossible to crack. The vein scanner, developed by Hitachi, is already being used by Barclays to identify business customers as well as in cash machines in Japan, but Sthaler has the unique rights to license it to retailers.

    In the trial at Proud set to begin in September, the technology will be used to speed up waiting times at the bar both by cutting down on cards and by being able to suggest drinks based on what a patron has previously ordered.

    My teenager son Karl became withdrawn after his father died. As a single parent, I tried to do my best to talk to him. But the more I tried, the more he pulled away. When his report card arrived during his junior year, it said that he had been absent 95 times from classes. In this way he would never graduate. I sent him to the school adviser, and I even begged him. Nothing worked.

    One night I was at work when I got a phone call. A man introduced himself as a head teacher, “I want to talk to you about Karl's absences (缺席).” Before he could say another word I choked up (硬咽), and said sadly, “I love my son. I've tried everything to get Karl to go back to school and nothing has worked. It's out of my hands.” For a moment there was silence on the other end of the line. The head teacher seriously said, “Thank you for your time.”

    Karl's next report card showed a marked improvement in his grades. He was even on the list of the best students at school. In his fourth year, I took part in a parent-teacher meeting. I noticed that his teachers were surprised at the way he had turned himself around. On our way home, he said, “Mum, remember that call from the head teacher last year?” I nodded. “That was me. I thought I'd play a joke but I heard you said. It really hit me how much I was hurting you. That's when I knew I had to make you proud.”

    To help you travel well in Argentina, we've put together some exciting activities, courses and tours that you can add to your schedule. These are not only designed to be fun, but also to enable you to learn and expand your personal and professional development.

    Walking Tour of La Boca

    The 5-hour tour, moderate（适度的）walking, departs at 11 am in Monserrat and finishes at 4:30 pm, Tuesdays and Fridays.

    Price: £15 per person

    Tour the beautiful cobble stone（鹅卵石）streets of Le Boca, the heart of Buenos Aires and the birth place of Tango. This fascinating walking tour is a must if you want to explore the rich history of Buenos Aires.

    Photography Courses

    6 hours of lessons per week

    Price: £295 for two weeks

    Study photography with an experienced private tutor who will tailor your lessons to your individual needs. Classes include practical teaching, analysis of your work, theory and history and regular opportunities to explore the city by yourself to photograph landscapes of the city.

    Graffiti Tour of Buenos Aires

    The 3-hour tour departs at 3 pm in Colegiales and finishes at 6 pm in Palermo, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays or Saturdays.

    Price: £35 per person

    Experience the world of urban art through this wonderful tour of Buenos Aires. You can travel both on foot and by air-conditioned minibus. The tour finishes in Post Bar in Palermo, home to the unique street art gallery Hollywood and Cambodia.

    Spanish Courses

    1-Week Intensive Course with private lessons, before starting your Main Project

    Price: £590 per week

    Weekly Lessons: 10 hours of lessons per week running concurrent with your Main Project

    Price: £195 per week

    Use your time in Argentina to learn Spanish. You can either do a 1 -week intensive course or take lessons at the same time as doing your main project.

    In some countries where racial prejudice is acute, violence has so come to be taken for granted as a means of solving differences that it is not even questioned. There are countries where the white man imposes his rule by brute force; there are countries where the black man protests by setting fire to cities and by looting and pillaging. Important people on both sides, who would in other respects appear to be reasonable men, get up and calmly argue in favor of violence—as if it were a legitimate solution, like any other. What is really frightening, what really fills you with despair, is the realization that when it comes to the crunch (关键时刻), we have made no actual progress at all. We may wear collars and ties instead of war-paint, but our instinct remain basically unchanged. The whole of the recorded history of the human race, that tedious documentation of violence, has taught us absolutely nothing. We have still not learned that violence never solves a problem but makes it more acute. The sheer horror, the bloodshed (流血), the suffering mean nothing. No solution ever comes to light the morning after when we dismally contemplate the smoking ruins and wonder what hit us.

    The truly reasonable men who know where the solutions lie are finding it harder and harder to get a hearing. They are despised mistrusted and even persuaded by their own kind because they advocate such apparently outrageous things as law enforcement (执行). If half the energy that goes into violent acts were put to good use, if our efforts were directed at cleaning up the slums and ghettos, at improving living standards and providing education and employment for all, we would have gone a long way to arriving at a solution. Our strength is sapped by having to mop to the mess that violence leaves in its wake. In a well-directed effort, it would not be impossible to fulfill the ideals of a stable social programme. The benefits that can be derived from constructive solutions are everywhere apparent in the world around us. Genuine and lasting solutions are always possible, providing we work within the framework of the law.

    Before we can even begin to contemplate peaceful co-existence between the races, we must appreciate each other's problems. And to do this, we must learn about them: it is a simple exercise in communication, in exchange information. "Talk, talk, talk" the advocates of violence say, "all you ever do is talk, and we are none the wiser." It's rather like the story of the famous barrister who painstakingly explained his case to the judge. After listening to a lengthy argument, the judge complained that after all this talk, he was none the wiser. "Possibly, my lord," the barrister replied, "none the wiser, but surely far better informed." Knowledge is the necessary prerequisite to wisdom: the knowledge that violence creates the evils it pretends to solve.

    Exactly five years ago, on New Year's Eve, I was invited to a children's ball by a man high up in the business world, who had his connections, his circle of acquaintances, and his close friends. So it seemed as though the children's ball was merely an excuse for the parents to come together and discuss matters of interest to themselves, quite innocently and casually.

    I was an outsider, and as I had no special matters to express, I was able to spend the evening independently of the others. There was another gentleman present who had just stumbled upon (偶然遇到)this affair of domestic happiness，just like me. He was the first to attract my attention. His appearance was not that of a man of noble birth. He was tall, rather thin, very serious, and well dressed. Obviously he had no heart for the family celebration. The moment he went off into a corner by himself, the smile disappeared from his face, and his thick dark brows knitted into a frown. He knew no one except the host and showed every sign of being bored to death, though bravely keeping the role of thorough enjoyment to the end. Later I learned that he was a provincial, had come to the capital on some important business, had brought a letter of recommendation to our host, and our host had taken him under his protection, not at all with love. It was merely out of politeness that he had invited him to the children's ball.

    They did not play cards with him .They did not offer cigars. Thus , my gentleman , not knowing what to do with his hands , spent the evening stroking his whiskers(胡须). His whiskers were really fine, but he stroked them so eagerly that one got the feeling that the whiskers had come into the world first and afterwards the man, in order to stroke them.