First of all, the first chapter expounds the basic concept and history of aesthetics, focusing on Kant's philosophical system, and puts forward that the task and significance of aesthetics in the contemporary era lies in "highly developed technology leads to the hegemony of instrumental rationality in daily life, while aesthetics plays the role of reflecting on modernity and restoring sensibility". In the past, the task of contemporary art was to make people return to humanity.
The second chapter focuses on the history and characteristics of China's aesthetics, and points out the differences between China's aesthetics and western aesthetics. It is worth noting that without understanding China's philosophy, sociology and folklore (especially Wei-Jin philosophy), one cannot learn China's aesthetics. With these foundations, it is easy to explain China's aesthetics. China art realized these concepts earlier than western contemporary art. Therefore, China art is not backward, but ahead of time. The result is nowhere to play. China artists worship western art, but they don't know that the essence they pursue goes back to themselves. In addition, I also noticed that the class division of aesthetics has finally surpassed the regional division-the division of official art, literati art and folk art has finally replaced the division of north and south art, not the dividing line between north and south art has finally been replaced, but blurred.
The third chapter expounds two main issues discussed in western aesthetics & the principle of imitation and the principle of form of beauty. The two sources of western culture, Greek culture and Hebrew culture, complement each other and form the spiritual pattern of western culture. And the well-known beautiful and noble statement-involving the sun god-Dionysian spirit. At this point, western aesthetics has a more complete and rigorous pattern than China's aesthetics.
The fourth chapter is about Duchamp's query, which is the most important breakthrough in aesthetics. It is of epoch-making significance to really introduce art into aesthetics, which gave birth to modern art. Modern art is different from classical art, and aesthetic thought has also developed by leaps and bounds: "It can be seen that different theories about art in aesthetics actually have their own emphases. Imitation theory cares about the relationship between works and the world, rhetoric theory cares about how works impress readers, expressionism cares about how works convey artists' emotions and thoughts, and objectivism only cares about the form of works of art itself. The process of transition from one theory to another is the history of aesthetic thought. " And simply explained the concept of art.
The fifth chapter explains the relationship between imitation and reproduction from the psychological point of view, and points out the biggest difference between modern, contemporary and classical art.
The sixth chapter explains the emotion and expression of art in detail from the perspective of psychology. Without a good psychological foundation, it is difficult to understand. Teacher Zhou wrote this chapter in simple terms, which is great.
Chapter seven is easy to understand and explain the meaning and function of form.
If the previous chapters focus on art itself, then the eighth chapter focuses on artists as the main body of creation and analyzes the problems existing in artists' artistic creation. If you do in-depth research, you must have a psychological foundation, and you can get some results by drawing inferences from others.
The ninth chapter is well written and elaborated in great detail from the perspective of the audience. At present, the research on appreciation aesthetics is really just a blank.
Chapter 10 explains the most important function of art/aesthetics-the existence of poetry. At the same time, it also puts forward many ideas and concepts that are worth learning from aesthetic education. The implication is, don't think that just watching so many people learn art can make the whole country catch up with the charm of ancient Greece and the prosperous Tang Dynasty, but rely on aesthetic education (not equal to art design education) to cultivate an individual with compassion and profound aesthetic accomplishment, look at daily life with aesthetic spirit, change its mediocre and boring state, and thus build a poetic existence. -At present, art and design colleges should not only learn design skills, but also cultivate a style of everyone.
In a word, this book is the best introductory book to understand aesthetics. After reading this book thoroughly, you will be admitted, and then you can study the history of aesthetics and even philosophy and psychology if necessary. In this way, you are a real artist, not a draftsman as Mr. Tang said.
Reading Notes: What is Aesthetics?
First of all, the first chapter expounds the basic concept and history of aesthetics, focusing on Kant's philosophical system, and puts forward that the task and significance of aesthetics in the contemporary era lies in that "highly developed technology leads to the hegemony of instrumental rationality in daily life, while aesthetics plays the role of reflecting on modernity and restoring sensibility". In the past, the task of contemporary art was to make people return to humanity.
The second chapter focuses on the history and characteristics of China's aesthetics, and points out the differences between China's aesthetics and western aesthetics. It is worth noting that without understanding China's philosophy, sociology and folklore (especially Wei-Jin philosophy), one cannot learn China's aesthetics. With these foundations, it is easy to explain China's aesthetics. China art realized these concepts earlier than western contemporary art. Therefore, China art is not backward, but ahead of time. The result is nowhere to play. China artists worship western art, but they don't know that the essence they pursue goes back to themselves. In addition, I also noticed that the class division of aesthetics has finally surpassed the regional division-the division of official art, literati art and folk art has finally replaced the division of north and south art, not the dividing line between north and south art has finally been replaced, but blurred.
The third chapter expounds two main issues discussed in western aesthetics & the principle of imitation and the principle of form of beauty. The two sources of western culture, Greek culture and Hebrew culture, complement each other and form the spiritual pattern of western culture. And the well-known beautiful and noble statement-involving the sun god-Dionysian spirit. At this point, western aesthetics has a more complete and rigorous pattern than China's aesthetics.
The fourth chapter is about Duchamp's query, which is the most important breakthrough in aesthetics. It is of epoch-making significance to really introduce art into aesthetics, which gave birth to modern art. Modern art is different from classical art, and aesthetic thought has also developed by leaps and bounds: "It can be seen that different theories about art in aesthetics actually have their own emphases. Imitation theory cares about the relationship between works and the world, rhetoric theory cares about how works impress readers, expressionism cares about how works convey artists' emotions and thoughts, and objectivism only cares about the form of works of art itself. The process of transition from one theory to another is the history of aesthetic thought. " And simply explained the concept of art.
The fifth chapter explains the relationship between imitation and reproduction from the psychological point of view, and points out the biggest difference between modern, contemporary and classical art.
The sixth chapter explains the emotion and expression of art in detail from the perspective of psychology. Without a good psychological foundation, it is difficult to understand. Teacher Zhou wrote this chapter in simple terms, which is great.
Chapter seven is easy to understand and explain the meaning and function of form.
If the previous chapters focus on art itself, then the eighth chapter focuses on artists as the main body of creation and analyzes the problems existing in artists' artistic creation. If you do in-depth research, you must have a psychological foundation, and you can get some results by drawing inferences from others.
The ninth chapter is well written and elaborated in great detail from the perspective of the audience. At present, the research on appreciation aesthetics is really just a blank.
Chapter 10 explains the most important function of art/aesthetics-the existence of poetry. At the same time, it also puts forward many ideas and concepts that are worth learning from aesthetic education. The implication is, don't think that just watching so many people learn art can make the whole country catch up with the charm of ancient Greece and the prosperous Tang Dynasty, but rely on aesthetic education (not equal to art design education) to cultivate an individual with compassion and profound aesthetic accomplishment, look at daily life with aesthetic spirit, change its mediocre and boring state, and thus build a poetic existence. -At present, art and design colleges should not only learn design skills, but also cultivate a style of everyone.
In a word, this book is the best introductory book to understand aesthetics. After reading this book thoroughly, you will be admitted, and then you can study the history of aesthetics and even philosophy and psychology if necessary. In this way, you are a real artist, not a draftsman as Mr. Tang said.
Reflections on the history of aesthetics
[Reflection on the History of Aesthetics] Before reading this book, I thought that aesthetics was just a simple reflection on the history of aesthetics. But after reading the catalogue, I know that aesthetics is complicated. It not only lists people and works in strict accordance with the order of dynasties, but also highlights the development track, aesthetic taste and theoretical characteristics of classical aesthetics in different times. This is a complex and rigorous subject, which needs people to read and understand seriously and aesthetically. Just like the title of the first section, it has a primitive aesthetic feeling. At the beginning of the first section, the author points out that in ancient times, ceremony was a primitive ceremony. When I first read this sentence, I was stunned and puzzled, because in my impression, ceremony was just a polite expression for me, but what I said here was that in ancient times, ceremony existed as a ceremony. The word ritual makes me curious about the word ritual. Wang Guowei wrote in Interpretation of the Book of Rites that the word "Li" in ancient Chinese characters in China is a bean, a vessel for eating and drinking. Therefore, the author thinks that the hieroglyphics of using food containers as rituals contain the following four meanings: First, the rituals in China were related to food from the beginning. This makes me particularly puzzled. What does ceremony have to do with diet? Did the ancients think that primitive rituals were first embodied in diet? Or is it more direct and important to be polite in diet? Secondly, diet is of great significance in China culture. From this point of view, it seems that some explanations have been made to the argument just now. Book of rites? Li Yun said: The ceremony of husband began with food, so it is not difficult to see that it first affirmed that China's ceremony originated from food, as well as the food and types involved in food, such as crops, animals and drinks. , all the necessary equipment to accommodate it. Thirdly, I talked about two major factors in the ceremony: diet and dance music. It seems that the rituals of the ancients are still colorful, and dance music, like diet, occupies a very important position in their lives. Fourth, the function of ceremony is to make it respect ghosts and gods. Diet is the origin of ceremony. Taking the most everyday things as sacred things, I realized that China culture was practical from the beginning. Diet has become the most important factor in communication with God and an important part of sacred ceremonies. China's art has a long history and is brilliant. From the beginning of the ceremony, it seems that the brilliance of China's art at the beginning was related to the utensils for holding food and drinks, and painted pottery, as a daily necessities, was also the most sacred ritual vessel and became a symbol of ancient ceremonies. Painted pottery is sacred, on the one hand, because its patterns are colorful and aesthetic; On the other hand, it is because of its profound thoughts. Only from these two aspects, who can compare with painted pottery? We have heard such a saying since childhood: food is the most important thing for the people, and the nature of human existence is related to eating. In Laozi, cooking is used to describe governing the country-if the cooking is small and fresh, it also shows that the stability of the country is related to the emperor's diet. From the relationship between diet and God, we find that diet occupies an incomparable important position in China culture, and this power is constantly expanding to various fields. Later, the author talked about: another part of the structure of etiquette-jade. Just as diet plays an important role in the ceremony, so does jade. Wang Guowei's Interpretation of the Book of Rites says: It looks like two jade, and it looks like a device. The ancients saluted with jade. Moreover, the status of jade in China is comparable to that of painted pottery, and compared with eating utensils, I think jade has a more prominent advantage, that is, it can be carried with you, whether on ritual vessels or on people who perform ceremonies. On the other hand, as we all know, jade is a kind of aura, which is related to the soul, so it represents more meanings. Perhaps this is the beauty of the ancient people's choice of words. When two wonderful things overlap, a more wonderful feeling is formed. Jade has been a beautiful landscape in China culture since ancient times. Confucianism takes jade as virtue, poets use jade to describe their hearts, and laymen know jade as treasure. And what we usually say is pure and clean, and a piece of ice heart in the jade pot is also the most direct embodiment of its influence. More importantly, jade means the pure pursuit of China people's moral ideal and personality ideal. China's art, whether it is literature, painting or calligraphy garden, has a kind of charm of jade. After reading it, feel the review of aesthetic history. Ceremony is a kind of etiquette, which constitutes the core of culture and is the most important practical activity. As a whole, ceremony includes four elements: ritual vessel, saluter, saluting place and saluting process. As descendants of the Chinese people, we can only understand etiquette >>
Reflections on Kant's Aesthetics
Kant put forward the relationship between things themselves and phenomena. What we see is only phenomena, and all our cognition is based on phenomena. As for the thing itself, it is not the category of our human cognition. I don't know whether Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sartre and others think that the world is essentially nothing, but people actually know nothing about it. We just use our consciousness to make up a world, just like a blind man touching an elephant. Macbeth said that the world is full of noise and commotion, but it is meaningless.
Kant is almost a prophet of modern nihilism. Although he wants to delimit a field for us to ensure the feasibility of our understanding, in order to refute Hume's skepticism. Scepticism shattered the knowledge we gained from experience, and philosophy faced the challenger and almost completely collapsed. Kant put forward transcendental philosophy, defending human knowledge with transcendental knowledge, transcendental rationality and transcendental judgment. Transcendentality refers to what we have before we experience it, which is beyond our perception. Kant believes that the possibility of human knowledge lies in that people take some transcendental ability as the principle.
Transcendental judgment is a special kind of judgment, and reflective judgment is closely related to beauty. Reflective judgment is the ability to attribute specific things to universality. The world is complex, and people's desire to know the world needs this ability, and people often use this ability, so Kant assumes that this ability exists, although we can't see it. Kant defined this ability as an innate principle. We find that many of Kant's premises are hypothetical or reduced to absurdity. Deng Xiaomang thought Kant was a great anthropocentrist, which was quite correct. In fact, all his philosophies revolve around human needs. As a reflective judgment, Kant believes that this ability is innate and legislative. General judgment should relate specific things to a concept, but Kant believes that this concept of beauty has no specific content, only an abstract form. As long as things conform to this form, they can bring people emotional pleasure. Beauty, which is often mentioned in aesthetic textbooks, has no purpose and purpose. I think it means that things are considered beautiful, that is, aimless, not because they are useful. The purpose is always accompanied by a certain functional color that conforms to people. People in China say that sheep are beautiful from the perspective of sacrifice or diet, so China's aesthetics and western aesthetics, on the surface, refer to the same, but in fact they refer to different things. There is a purpose, which is innate, that is, the attention to form in aesthetic judgment is innate and cannot be recognized by human experience. Bell later put forward a view that beauty is a meaningful form. I think his point of view is very good, which inherits Kant's emphasis on form. But Kant always talks about beauty from the perspective of aesthetics. He doesn't talk about beauty directly.