Just as "aesthetics" and "art" are not always the same concepts in the history of aesthetics, "aesthetic education" and "art education" are not always the same concepts in the history of education. Originally, the so-called aesthetic education (aesthetic education) refers to achieving a perfect and harmonious personality and perfect aesthetic virtue as human ideals through aesthetic activities and the subsequent cultivation of aesthetic ability, which belongs to moral education in a broad sense. In this case, as long as art is recognized as the representative of aesthetic value and even beautiful culture, aesthetic education can be carried out through art, so that aesthetic education can be truly realized as art education. In ancient Greece, ethical beauty ※ ideal, which is the goal of cultivating people, was widely advocated, and the courses of family education and school education for free people were also organized according to the goal of embodying integrity and harmony. But here, beauty and art generally don't cover each other, especially in Plato's thought. Love of beauty (Ф l λ ο κ α λ ο s) and love of knowledge (Ф l λ ο σ φ1α) are both ways to reach the ultimate truth in the world, and art is imitative and infectious because it is far from ideas. In his Republic, all artists except some musicians are in danger of being exiled. In short, from this perspective, ethical beauty, even if it is the concept of aesthetic education, can not be the concept of art education.
After being buried for a long time in the religious era of the Middle Ages, with the revival of humanism, this concept of people who create aesthetics, which is associated with ethical beauty, became the "soul of beauty" at the turn of 16- 17 century, showing new development. Shaftesbury, Rousseau and Golde all added new contents to this thought. In their works, we can often see the ideal of harmonious personality and the intention to approach this ideal through the cultivation of moral emotion and aesthetic virtue. Finally, "Schiller enriched the idea of" the soul of beauty "through the idea of" complete humanity "based on the harmony between rationality and sensibility, and at the same time advocated the so-called aesthetic education theory on the basis of this idea and with the background of classical artistic consciousness. In this way, aesthetic education began to be clearly defined in theory, and at the same time, it also established an introverted relationship with art education.
This aesthetic education thought appeared in Schiller's Aesthetic Education Letters (Uber Dieastitsche Erziehung des Menschen, Ineiner Reihe Vonbriefen, 1795). Its core is roughly as follows: we human beings are driven by the dual opposing impulses of bringing our inner inevitability into reality and making our outer reality obey the law of inevitability. The former is the "Sach Trieb" naturally produced by human's sensibility, which puts people under the limitation of time, humanizes people and binds the spirit of striving for improvement to the functional world. The latter is a kind of "formal trieb" naturally generated from human reason, which makes people tend to be free and tries to bring harmony to various phenomena. It is the task of education to return to the natural unity of human beings by sublating this extreme and fundamental opposition. Its activities are twofold: the first is to protect emotions from the interference of freedom, and the second is to ensure that personality is not infringed by sensory forces. Education realizes the former by cultivating emotional ability and the latter by cultivating rational ability. In this way, there are two kinds of impulsive harmony problems and problems that people can only solve after their survival is completed. It is a "concept of human nature" in the original sense, and it is an infinite thing. People can get closer and closer to it, but they will never arrive. However, if people feel their existence when they are aware of freedom and know the meaning of the spirit when they feel that they are things, then they will have a complete intuition about human nature and help to express the objects he has endowed with intuition as infinite objects. What really makes this experience possible is a new impulse formed among human beings, that is, "Spiegel Trieb".
Subjectively, material impulse excludes all self-initiative and freedom, subjectively forms impulse, and excludes all dependence and passivity. Free exclusion is material inevitability, while passive exclusion is moral inevitability. The combination of these two impulses and the game impulse between them make people free both materially and morally. Generally speaking, the object of material impulse is life in the broadest sense, the object of formal impulse is form, and the object of game impulse is "Lebender Gestalt". Moreover, only this concept of "living form" can show the characteristics, rapidity, goodness and completeness of the so-called beauty, which is only serious to people and the so-called beauty is the object of people's game. Man is a "complete man" only when he is playing. Therefore, beauty can be called the second creator compared with the original creator of human beings.
However, on the whole, it can be said that people's state has not developed to the sign of human nature, that is, the love for illusion and the yearning for games. Only indifference to reality and interest in illusion are the real expansion of human nature and the decisive step towards culture. As soon as the game impulse that delights in illusion is active, the imitation impulse that takes illusion as an independent object will follow. In short, the ability to imitate art is endowed with formal ability. Therefore, man is bound to exercise his dominant rights in illusion. Therefore, the more independent the form, the more the kingdom of beauty expands. In this way, asthetischerBildungstried established a third kingdom of games and fantasies, that is, a kingdom of freedom and beauty, a kingdom against violence and morality.
In this way, Schiller raised the aesthetic principle to the height of universal ideal formation and virtue cultivation in the broadest sense. Later, Herbart raised the basic principle of education to aesthetic ethics. In Herbart's view, relative theoretical philosophy studies the reality of things, while practical philosophy, namely ethics, studies its general value judgment. Therefore, as a moral interest theory, it can be attributed to aesthetics. ※. Aesthetics is to grasp the simple relationship between things that cause satisfaction or dissatisfaction in all value judgments. Theories about various forms and techniques of art, such as harmony and perspective, are typical theories of this kind of aesthetics. The "practical concept" of ethics stipulated in this aesthetics, that is, the simple relationship of will, is inherent freedom, integrity, goodwill, justice and fairness. In this goal setting, pedagogy with ethics (psychology as its means) as its basic subject is guided by these ideas, and its specific topics are three directions: guidance (Regierung), teaching (Unterricht) and training (Zucht). Therefore, as the moral character stipulated by these concepts, the harmony of people is the whole content of education only on the basis of forming a wide range of interests. Herbart's viewpoint is based on the so-called formal aesthetics and realistic aesthetics which are completely different from Schiller's, but it also contains the idea of aesthetic education.
Therefore, Schiller and Herbart's concept of aesthetic education is based on the clear connection with art education. With the development of educational thought and education movement in European countries, it eventually developed into art education in theory and practice. At the same time, aesthetic education initially emphasized moral education in a broad sense, that is, the significance of cultivating ideal and harmonious people, and now it is gradually replaced by the significance of social education and vocational education (special education) that is beneficial to national society and artistic culture. For example, in France, Alfred foyle (1838- 19 12) and others discovered the power of human evolution and the role of social resonance in the United States, so they attached importance to the cultural and social significance of aesthetic education and even art education. In addition, in Britain, Ruskin, Morris and others, in Germany, Langeben and K. Langer think that the improvement of aesthetic taste and artistic production is an indispensable foundation for the development of national culture and social life, so they launched the art education movement, which all illustrates the above situation. Especially in Germany's art education thought, even Dresden's thought appeared. He warned that aesthetic education, which specializes in cultivating aesthetic appreciation ability, is in danger of falling into aestheticism, so art education should be based on the principle of "art is creativity". In a word, it can be said that the emphasis on individuality and creative opportunities is the characteristic of modern art education thought. For modern aesthetic education, please refer to On Aesthetic Education.