His major works include Psychology of Literature and Art, Psychology of Tragedy, History of Western Aesthetics, Twenty Letters to Youth, Talking about Cultivation, Talking about Beauty, Talking about Poetry and Talking about Literature.
Among them, I have only read Teacher Zhu's On the Beauty and Psychology of Literature and Art, and its incisive and objective analysis and theory have proved to be appreciation and praise. The following lists the highlights of each chapter, giving some personal stupidity and subjectivity to pay tribute to Teacher Zhu's talk about beauty.
First of all, we have three attitudes towards Gu Song-practicality, science and aesthetics.
In this passage, the author talked about people's different attitudes towards things, or that everyone has different starting points and different standpoints for observing things. The same thing will have its own unique psychological or visual reaction in people with different mentality. A Gu Song, timber business mentality, scientists look at it with a research mentality, and painters look at it with an appreciation mentality. Gu Song reflects three effects in different people's eyes. It's just that the painter doesn't look at it from the perspective of "use", but looks at it with the appreciation of "inaction" as Mr. Zhu said, which also gives his painter a perfect concept in his inner world. Beautiful things need people to look at and think with aesthetic vision and appreciation mentality. If we only talk about practicality, then beauty is the least practical experience. However, if human history is endless, then the only works of art that can really touch your heart and mine are those that give people a good feeling. They shine around in the deep night sky like guiding stars, guiding people's souls and purifying people's thoughts.
To quote Mr. Zhu again: "Beauty is the most valuable aspect of things, and the experience of aesthetic feeling is the most valuable aspect of life".
Second, "the authorities are fascinated, the bystanders are clear"-the distance between art and real life
As the saying goes, "distance produces beauty." In fact, Mr. Zhu clearly pointed out the distance between art and life here. When the real world is shrouded in fog, snow or rain, it is easy to give people another kind of association. Its state makes the real world have a distance from you and me, so it has an eternal poetic feeling. The so-called: art comes from life and is higher than life. It should be the same reason. Art is a subjective taste and feeling, with some objective control and design in it. Too close to the truth is easy to be utilitarian, too subjective to be understood. After all, art is for people to appreciate.
Different arts have different forms of expression, just like Beijing opera has singing, reading, sitting and playing. Crosstalk includes speaking, learning, teasing and singing. Its methodical performance style is a performance form that people have honed on the stage for many years, and these forms are divorced from real life by using artistic laws such as exaggeration and deformation, but their contents are not divorced from life.
People always tend to ignore the beauty of familiar things, because they are too familiar to have a sense of distance and mystery, and tend to look at things in front of them from the interests of real life, while fresh and strange things tend to produce a sense of beauty with a sense of distance, which is also like the effect of Fortress Besieged. I think you are good, and you think I am good, just because distance and mystery generate beauty and make people yearn for it. As the saying goes: "the authorities are fascinated, and the onlookers are clear."
Third, "If you were not a fish, would you know the happiness of fish?" -Humanization of the universe
In this passage, Mr Zhu quoted Zhuangzi. A short story in Autumn Water illustrates the truth of human aesthetic experience, that is, aesthetic experience is the mutual return of people's interest and attitude towards things. People's cognition is sometimes accompanied by people judging the subjective taste of things. Then this subjective interest in judging things is "empathy", which maps one's emotions and other emotions to the surrounding things. This kind of empathy is closely related to aesthetic experience. As Mr. Zhu said, in appreciation, in addition to the aesthetic feeling of appearance, there is also a kind of inner appreciation interest, which will also make the aesthetic feeling include the personal cognitive experience of the appreciator. This is what people say when they see something: what do I think and so on. People are actually defining some benefits that things give individuals, and at the same time inadvertently imitating some attributes of things themselves. That is to say, people's aesthetic experience is not produced independently by things themselves or people's subjective interests, because the combination of physical attributes of things and people's empathy creates people's aesthetic experience. This is the humanization of the universe.
4. Statues of Greek Goddess and Vivid English Girls-Aesthetic Feeling and Pleasure
In fact, beauty and pleasure have always been in our lives, but the starting point is the problem of different attitudes mentioned by Teacher Zhu just now. Aesthetic feeling is not pragmatism, but a psychological activity without utilitarian mentality, and pleasure is the purpose of practical application. Just as thirst and drinking water can produce pleasure, defecation can also produce pleasure, but these will not have aesthetic feeling. Statues and English girls are both sculpture works of art and living people. From a practical point of view, English girls seem to be more useful than sculpture. Here, Mr. Zhu told us that we should make clear the difference between aesthetic feeling and pleasure, and not appreciate beauty with a utilitarian and practical attitude.
5. "Remembering the blue silk clothes, pity the grass everywhere"-aesthetic feeling and association
Let me explain teacher Zhu's article like this. Association is accidental, disorderly and disorderly, while aesthetic things are determined to be orderly, structured, detached and in harmony with form. Aesthetic experience can remind people of things, but simple association can't be regarded as aesthetic experience. Mr. Zhu mentioned that aesthetic feeling is an intuition. The feeling of a moment. Association will bring thinking, lead things to other irrelevant things, and can not directly appreciate a thing itself, but will produce imaginary psychological activities, so aesthetic experience and association are two concepts with different meanings and cannot be confused.
6. "Soul Adventure in Famous Works"-Textual Research, Criticism and Appreciation
In this article, we can see different attitudes towards a literary work. Textual research is closer to the way of scientists, criticism is closer to the attitude of philosophers or politicians, and appreciation is more about the behavior of artists or people who are interested in art. Textual research and criticism are not the same as appreciation, but appreciation needs to know some knowledge about works of art in order to appreciate it better. Many certificates are attached with historical judgments on the age, background, author, edition, unofficial history, etc., which are too rational and lack of intuitive and emotional reflection on art appreciation, and cannot be regarded as appreciation. Criticism, on the other hand, uses some subjective rules or unchangeable frameworks to regulate works of art more abstractly. Personally, I think that if a critic doesn't objectively comment on works of art, his articles will be useless. This is what Zhu Xian advocates: appreciating criticism. We should not regard the original standards of beauty and ugliness as the same in different times and different environments, but should put ourselves into our works, taste them repeatedly and then feel them. Finally, Teacher Zhu said that textual research and criticism are not appreciation, appreciation needs textual research and criticism, and appreciation needs textual research foundation and critical attitude, which is also a dialectical view of treating things. Things are universally connected.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder-beauty and nature
What is beauty? Opinions vary. Mr. Zhu proposed here that beauty is the physical attribute of things and an attitude towards things produced by people's psychological activities. Without natural physical properties and human emotional intuition, beauty cannot be produced. Nature has a sense of beauty after being processed by human psychological feelings, and different experiences will produce different feelings. Aesthetics is a re-processing and re-creation of nature. Different personal tastes lead to different results. As the saying goes, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", as Mr. Zhu said, is the result of humanization and idealization of people's psychological activities. This result is the subjective aesthetic experience of different people plus idealization, that is, the result of humanization. Beauty and nature are also the relationship of unity of opposites. The generation of aesthetic feeling can not be separated from the physical properties of nature, and the physical properties of things can not be separated from beauty, and can not be separated from the idealization of people, that is, humanized processing. For beauty, we should look at it from two aspects. Beauty does not come out of thin air.
Eight, "Draw a gourd according to the pattern"-the mistake of realism and idealism
Nature is just a dictionary, not a book. Delacroix
Here you can also mention that "art comes from life and is higher than life". Although the realism and idealism mentioned by Teacher Zhu here are slightly different, their views are both "learning from nature". We often say that there is no shortage of beauty in life, but the eyes that find beauty. Artistic beauty is expressed through nature, people's interests and a form. Pure nature can't define its beauty or ugliness, because the concept of natural beauty is produced with people's feelings or empathy. Although idealism has beauty and ugliness in essence, it wants an inherent common model after idealization. It is also imitating nature in another way. The beauty of art is higher than the beauty of nature. Nature only uses things to express feelings and human elements. People are the main body, and nature can only be beautiful if it is integrated with people's feelings and interests. This kind of beauty is also a re-creation of people. The beauty of imitating nature advocated by realism and idealism and what we call the beauty of art are two different concepts. The ugly elements will become harmonious and beautiful after the artist rearranges and organizes them. Simply put, people regard nature as their own beauty.
Nine, "Adults don't lose their childlike innocence"-art and games
When artists create works, they often feel, and the feeling here can also be interpreted as feeling appreciation, and then when they feel it, they will show it, whether it is poetry or painting, singing or writing, and so on. Creation does not come out of thin air, and good works must be made with emotion. In this chapter, Mr. Zhu mentioned that "the embryonic form of art is game". In fact, it can be understood that the process of the game contains pure freedom. As a game, it can come and go freely, and it contains many people's imagination, emotions and feelings. Is to create another state. It takes natural life as the carrier and reflects the subjective initiative of players. The behavior of this game is not social and does not convey the creator's emotions. There is still a difference between art and art, art should be social, because half of the evaluation of works needs to be in society. Then if an artist has both unrestrained artistic expression and childlike innocence (imagination), then his works must be touching.
Ten, castles in the air-creative imagination
If it is creation, there will be elements in life and elements imagined by the author. When the author creates, he sometimes reproduces the impression he usually observes, but this simple nature is still chaotic and needs to be refined from it. When the original material is insufficient or insufficient to express one's feelings, imagination is another creation of the author. The imagination that dares to create can be recombined with what he usually sees to express what does not exist. This is the creative imagination, of course, these need to be accumulated and precipitated in life.
XI。 "Outside the image, you can get it in the ring" —— Creation and emotion
Mr. Zhu said: Everything in art is creating an image, but this image must be saturated with emotion. The emotion mentioned here is the state of feeling, and creation needs full emotions to feel and improve at one stroke. Art is social, and the author conveys his own unique feelings while expressing it, which resonates with the audience. The author's emotions will be revealed vaguely or directly through his works, which will make people sad or happy. Emotion can be said to be the driving force of creation, because there is emotion, there is a desire to express, and creation is born from this.
Twelve. "Do what you want from the heart, don't go beyond the rules"-Creation and measurement
I understand that Mr. Zhu said that meter is a unique form of different artistic expressions. Isn't it a contradiction that art should be created and have rules? In fact, the phrase "do whatever you want, don't overstep the moment" really expresses a realm, which can not only express what you want, but also jump out of an expression. That is-rice. This realm is formed by countless puzzles, tempering and experiences, and it can express infinite content within limited norms. Because art is an emotional expression with certain norms and sociality, norms are not a constraint for real artists, but a display of the commonness of things, and talent or genius or pedantry will undoubtedly be revealed. Metric system can not achieve mediocrity, nor will it hinder talented people. It is fundamental to use it reasonably to serve us.
Thirteen. "If you don't like it, you will lose it, for poetry; If you like it, you will lose it for me "—— Creation and imitation
"Learn from me, life is like my death" is what Qi Baishi said when he educated his students. It coincides with what Mr Zhu said. In fact, creation and imitation complement each other. There are imitations in creation, and there are also creative elements in imitation. Artistic creation should have the author's own true emotional expression. If you feel it, you will certainly achieve something. The "feeling" here cannot be imitated by others. Creation and imitation only need to give me a degree. Most artists gradually sharpen their skills from imitation, and then create their own realm at will. Imitation should be a stage in the process of creation, and creation is the purpose of artists.
Fourteen, "Reading thousands of books, writing like a god"-genius and inspiration
Genius is also obtained by hard work. Without hard work, there is no ability. If you work hard, you will think like a spring and you will be encouraged. Mr. Zhu quoted: "Reading is like breaking thousands of books, and writing is like God's help". It is to warn us to work hard to have the charm of the work. There is inspiration in the heart, and inspiration can map out a genius, but behind the genius is trying to hone one's mood, will and skills. The so-called: one minute on stage, ten years off stage. The same is true.
Fifteen, "take your time and enjoy it slowly!" -The artistry of life
At the end of the article, the artistry of life mentioned by Mr. Zhu has been thoroughly analyzed in this section. Needless to say, after reading this book, we can see that Mr. Zhu has a good understanding of beauty and art. Our life is actually a big stage, and life can be artistic. Whoever knows how to grasp a kind of "degree" and who knows the law of "harmony" can live an artistic life. Living with interest is the skill to control life. You have to work hard, you have to work hard, you have gains and losses, and it depends on a state of mind, as wide as your heart is. An open-minded and optimistic attitude is art, because it is a spiritual realm. "Take your time and enjoy it!" Try to move forward, don't forget to stop, look at the scenery in front of you and taste life.
Pay tribute to Mr. Zhu again, comb the spirit again, and feel that I have gained a lot.