Reflections on Irrationalism in Chinese Aesthetics

1996 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Rakita Goldin
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Aesthetics

scholarly journals Different Approaches to Modern Art and Society: Li Zehou versus Xu Fuguan

Asian Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Téa Sernelj
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Chinese Modernity ◽  
Material Development ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Chinese Aesthetics ◽  
Basic Approaches ◽  
Art And Society ◽  
The Individual

Proceeding from the inseparable relation between ethics and aesthetics in traditional (and often also modern) Chinese thought, this article aims to illuminate two important approaches to the aesthetic foundations of Chinese modernity. The relation between the individual and society, which is a core question of modern ethics, is reflected in most of the ethical theories of 20th century China. In this context, the article first presents Li Zehou’s theory of aesthetics and his definition of aesthetic experience. In this way, it aims to illuminate Li’s interpretation of modern art and society, and to posit it into a contrastive position to Xu Fuguan’s ethico-aesthetic theories, especially the ones regarding modernity and Western culture. The basic approaches applied by these two important modern Chinese scholars reveal great differences in attitude towards the spiritual and material development of humanity in the 20th century, which is especially interesting since they are both rooted in the abovementioned belief that ethics cannot be separated from aesthetics. Besides, Li Zehou sincerely admired Xu Fuguan’s work on traditional Chinese aesthetics and referred to his comprehension of general concepts of traditional Chinese aesthetics in many of his own works dealing with aesthetics.

scholarly journals Authenticity/Genuineness/Truth (Zhen 真 ) in Chinese Traditional Art Theories and Aesthetics

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-158
Author(s):  
Loreta Poškaitė
Keyword(s):  
Ming Dynasty ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Artistic Creativity ◽  
Traditional Art ◽  
Chinese Aesthetics ◽  
Dao 道 ◽  
The Ming Dynasty

SummaryThe uniqueness of Chinese traditional art and aesthetics is often presented by the popular Chinese saying “art is manifestation of Dao”, which could mean manifestation of truth or authenticity, since Dao 道 in Classical Daoism was understood as authentic being and a source of authenticity. However, the meaning of authenticity/truth (zhen 真 ) in Chinese aesthetics and theories of art seems less discussed, and far more complicated, than the term Dao. This article argues that zhen is no less important for understanding the nature of artistic creativity and expression in Chinese arts and their theories in the historical perspective, and the issue of likeness in art in particular. It demonstrates how this term is related to the evaluation of the work of art, the artist’s expression and self-expression, and his/her relation to the “object” represented in art; in other words, with representation, imagination and morality, which is evident in such compounds as “drawing truthfulness” (xie zhen 写真), and “to create the truth” (chuang zhen 創真). The article deals with the conceptual and historical analysis of the term zhen, aiming to survey the differences and changes of its meaning in theories of painting, literature and “aesthetics of things” (antiquarianism), and to reveal the relations between its philosophical and aesthetic interpretations, especially evident in the Ming dynasty.

scholarly journals Chinese Aesthetics in the Past Two Decades

2002 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gao Jianping
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Narrow Sense ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Development ◽  
Chinese Aesthetics

This paper is devoted to the discussion of Chinese aesthetics in the last two decades. In the early 1980s, there was an “aesthetic craze” in China, which endeavoured to develop the autonomy of art by breaking away from the art in the service of politics during the period of Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). This “craze” declined in the late 1980s, when people switched to the study of classic Chinese aesthetics in order to find their own cultural identity. During the early 1990s, when some scholars are interested in cultural studies, aesthetics in its narrow sense disappeared in China. In the late 1990s and the turn of the centuries, there was a sign of the revival of aesthetics. Many aestheticians tried hard to develop their studies in various fields, such as to combine aesthetics with contemporary cultural studies and to follow the new development of Western aesthetics, but, more importantly, to establish a Chinese aesthetics in the context of the development of world aesthetics.

Gadamer and the Yijing’s Language of Nature: Hermeneutics and Chinese Aesthetics

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 174-192
Author(s):  
Andrew Fuyarchuk
Keyword(s):  
Value Judgments ◽  
Art Of Medicine ◽  
Chinese Aesthetics ◽  
Practical Life ◽  
Interpretive Method ◽  
One And Many ◽  
The One

Although their value-judgments diverge, neo-Confucian and American continental philosophers agree that Gadamer’s hermeneutics is anti-foundationalist. Neither side, however, has asked why he frequently appeals to standards of harmony, or why he models the art of medicine on the order of nature. These indicate a commitment to trans-historical foundation of One and many that forms the basis for comparisons with Chinese aesthetics in the Yijing tradition. These foundations are grounded in Gadamer’s reading of Plato and shape his onto-dialogical interpretive method. In contrast to Whitehead, Gadamer cements the One and many in practical life by removing the contradiction through a transformation in human ethos.

(Un)consciousness? Music in the Daoist context of nonbeing

2019 ◽  
pp. 306-323
Author(s):  
Lanlan Kuang
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
Song Dynasty ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
Musical Time ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Experience Of Time ◽  
Chinese Aesthetics ◽  
Integral Element ◽  
Psychological Concepts

This chapter explores the interpretation of music as a philosophical concept within the context of Chinese aesthetics. A particular focus is the Daoist connection of music with psychological concepts such as consciousness, the experience of time, and the emergence of memory in space and time. The human body, regarded as both physical and spiritual, is an integral element of Daoism, which offers a route to understanding consciousness as coterminous with being and nonbeing, and to linking the latter to music. In the Daoist tradition nonbeing, in musical time, brings forth dynamic and temporal connections between the conscious and the unconscious through memory. The chapter uses the programmatic title and literary preface of Seagulls and Forgetting Schemes, a Song dynasty qin piece, as an exemplar of the Daoist aesthetic of (un)consciousness, approached as both an ideal comprising a world or state of enlightened detachment and an aesthetic activity for cultivating such a world or state.

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