An Introduction to Chinese Aesthetics
Raymond Veon
{Please see the PowerPoint and pictures below)
While contemporary Chinese artists employ contemporary concepts and practices, it is worthwhile to understand the artistic and cultural context out of which they have emerged. I had the privilege of visiting China with education leaders from Georgia and other Southern states this past June, under the auspices of the Kennesaw State University Confucius Institute, and my understanding of the culture, history, and people has grown considerably as a result.
For instance, both China and America face similar challenges in education, infrastructure, and the environment; to understand the scale of the challenges faced by China, multiply our population by a factor of five and then imagine the "water wars" that would happen--and how much worse they would be than we are currently experiencing between several Southern states.
This page provides a very brief introduction to traditional Chinese aesthetics. For information regarding some significant contemporary Chinese artists, please click on the following:
Cai Guo-Qiang
Ai Weiwei
Chinese Art and Aesthetics
To understand Chinese aesthetics we must constantly be alert to reject inappropriate associations with the Western naturalistic attitude. To help make the appropriate mindset adjustments, a very approximate analogy between the Chinese habit of mind and Mondrian’s search for objective laws of plastic composition could be made. But whereas Mondrian thought it necessary to eschew representation and restrict himself to geometric design in the attainment of these laws, the Chinese assumed that the objective rules and rhythms are embodied in all things as the principle of their growth or structure and the representational artist must identify himself with them.
The Western naturalistic attitude appears as an aspect of the scientific attitude to nature which emerged in Classical Greece; it is a habit of mind that treats nature as something external and set apart from man—something to be studied, observed, mastered, harnessed, emotionally reacted to or mirrored, flattered, or improved in art.
In contrast, in Chinese aesthetics man is part of nature—the same life processes transfuse man and nature, with the ideal of bringing about a union between man and the cosmic principle. This is not a relationship of study or domination.
In China, from the Han Dynasty (200bce) onward, painting, poetry, and music were regarded as pursuits worthy of the gentleman and scholar in a social structure that accorded very high prestige to scholarship and culture.
In the Chinese tradition the emotional appeal of a painting, its expressive content, the personality of the artist, resides in the technique of the brushstroke. The most “emotional” paintings for the Chinese connoisseur are paintings which for the Western observer are most neutral—paintings of bamboos, louts plants, birds, flowers.
The Six Canons of Traditional Chinese Painting
First Canon. Ch’iyunshengtung. Spirit resonance which brings life movement.
Second Canon. Ku fayung pi. Bone structure, a technique of the brush.
Third Canon. Ying wuhsainghsing. Reflecting the object, which means drawing its forms.
Fourth Canon. Sui lei futs’ai. Correspondence to type, which has to do with the laying on of colors.
Fifth Canon. Ching ting weichih. Organization and planning, which involves placing and arranging.
Sixth Canon. Chaun mo I Hsieh. Transmitting models, which involves reproducing and copying.
While contemporary Chinese artists employ contemporary concepts and practices, it is worthwhile to understand the artistic and cultural context out of which they have emerged. I had the privilege of visiting China with education leaders from Georgia and other Southern states this past June, under the auspices of the Kennesaw State University Confucius Institute, and my understanding of the culture, history, and people has grown considerably as a result.
For instance, both China and America face similar challenges in education, infrastructure, and the environment; to understand the scale of the challenges faced by China, multiply our population by a factor of five and then imagine the "water wars" that would happen--and how much worse they would be than we are currently experiencing between several Southern states.
This page provides a very brief introduction to traditional Chinese aesthetics. For information regarding some significant contemporary Chinese artists, please click on the following:
Cai Guo-Qiang
Ai Weiwei
Chinese Art and Aesthetics
To understand Chinese aesthetics we must constantly be alert to reject inappropriate associations with the Western naturalistic attitude. To help make the appropriate mindset adjustments, a very approximate analogy between the Chinese habit of mind and Mondrian’s search for objective laws of plastic composition could be made. But whereas Mondrian thought it necessary to eschew representation and restrict himself to geometric design in the attainment of these laws, the Chinese assumed that the objective rules and rhythms are embodied in all things as the principle of their growth or structure and the representational artist must identify himself with them.
The Western naturalistic attitude appears as an aspect of the scientific attitude to nature which emerged in Classical Greece; it is a habit of mind that treats nature as something external and set apart from man—something to be studied, observed, mastered, harnessed, emotionally reacted to or mirrored, flattered, or improved in art.
In contrast, in Chinese aesthetics man is part of nature—the same life processes transfuse man and nature, with the ideal of bringing about a union between man and the cosmic principle. This is not a relationship of study or domination.
In China, from the Han Dynasty (200bce) onward, painting, poetry, and music were regarded as pursuits worthy of the gentleman and scholar in a social structure that accorded very high prestige to scholarship and culture.
In the Chinese tradition the emotional appeal of a painting, its expressive content, the personality of the artist, resides in the technique of the brushstroke. The most “emotional” paintings for the Chinese connoisseur are paintings which for the Western observer are most neutral—paintings of bamboos, louts plants, birds, flowers.
The Six Canons of Traditional Chinese Painting
First Canon. Ch’iyunshengtung. Spirit resonance which brings life movement.
Second Canon. Ku fayung pi. Bone structure, a technique of the brush.
Third Canon. Ying wuhsainghsing. Reflecting the object, which means drawing its forms.
Fourth Canon. Sui lei futs’ai. Correspondence to type, which has to do with the laying on of colors.
Fifth Canon. Ching ting weichih. Organization and planning, which involves placing and arranging.
Sixth Canon. Chaun mo I Hsieh. Transmitting models, which involves reproducing and copying.
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