Author: Zherich

On the Aesthetic Significance of Preface to Lanting Collection

In aesthetics class, we use the illustration of Preface to Lanting Collection, which originally appeared as calligraphy appreciation. However, after repeated reading, we feel that aesthetics involves the essence of beauty, aesthetic activities, aesthetic forms, aesthetic experiences, and even art and aesthetic education. This article is a subtle, unique and even systematic exposition, and it is a "discovery". Later, as an introduction to the aesthetic content, my classmates and I discussed the topic of the aesthetic paper: Interpretation of Preface to Lanting Collection. Finally, afraid of losing the hearts of the ancients, I changed the "aesthetic thesis" into "aesthetic essay". Later, after consulting the relevant papers, I had to read Mr. Cao Chuji's On Wang Xizhi's Theory of "Xing Huai"-Aesthetic Significance of Preface to Lanting, saying that Preface to Lanting was an important aesthetic paper in ancient times, and specifically stating that "its theory of" Xing Huai "is actually an accurate and comprehensive expression of aesthetic feeling". Therefore, "this article" written by Mr. Wang ten years ago is still inspiring and thought-provoking. Fools have a lot on their minds, and occasionally they get an article entitled "Talk Again" to show their contribution and continue their righteousness.

The Preface to Lanting Collection also classifies aesthetic feeling and provides relevant psychological explanations, which is still remarkable.

Originally, China's aesthetics was based on the theory of Yin and Yang, which was interpreted as "emotional appeal". There are many kinds of beauty, such as masculine beauty and feminine beauty, but they all lack psychological explanation and stay in the stage of representation description. Western aesthetics also implied this idea from Plato, but it was not until Burke made a preliminary classification from the perspective of psychology and gave a more reasonable psychological basis after Kant, Schiller and Schopenhauer. Wang Guowei, who combines Chinese and western culture, said in "Words on Earth": "Without self, people can only get it in silence; If you have my realm, you get it in silence: so, you get it in silence, that is to say, in Wang's view, the "beautiful" person gets it in silence, and the "great" person gets it in silence. This theory is consistent with Preface to Lanting Collection. Wang Xizhi divided the aesthetic feeling into "beauty" and "sublime" in Preface to Lanting, and then provided the psychological basis for the difference, that is, "quietness is different". Among them, "mania" is what Wang Guowei called "movement". The difference is that Wang Guowei pays attention to the same place of "quietness", so he says "quietness of movement". Wang Xizhi's context emphasizes the difference between the two, so he says "quiet" and "impetuous". They pay attention to different periods, and their essence is one.

Of course, there is no psychology of consciously using the Preface to Lanting, but the psychological basis of its distinct aesthetic intuition can be roughly detected from the above-mentioned thorns on earth.

We use the thorn on earth as an intermediary to reveal the aesthetic classification thought and its psychological basis contained in the preface to Lanting Collection. As mentioned above, we can see that the two are quite consistent. However, there is more than that. Both of them also have a view of aesthetic choice, that is, "beauty is born in the right time" and "only the elements suitable for" aesthetic intuition "are beautiful", that is, things can become aesthetic objects and must conform to the aesthetic "ideal" or "concept" of the subject, and the subject can treat "natural things". The Preface to Lanting Collection is eclectic, while the words on earth. However, when it is written in literature and art, it must leave its relationship limitations (delete the original as "or leave a part" here), which is what Wang Xizhi calls "choice".

As far as the specific context is concerned, Wang Xizhi's theory of "choice" is self-sufficient from the perspective of "view" that is, appreciation, focusing on explaining the difference between "beauty" and "sublime", which is related to personality and also explains the difference between aesthetic personality. Wang Guowei focuses on the distinction between "natural beauty" and "artistic beauty" or "pure beauty", and dialectically demonstrates the relationship between art and nature from the perspective of "expression" or creation. However, it is not difficult to find that they all think that "beauty is a real learning", that is, beauty is the spiritual integration of man and his object, and belongs to the essence of beauty. On this point, Mr. Cao Chuji also said. He called it Wang Xizhi's "definition of aesthetic feeling". As for its specific content, Mr. Cao believes that the sentence is "when you are happy, you will gain yourself temporarily and be self-sufficient, but you don't know that you are old." In my opinion, this sentence is not so much "the definition of aesthetic feeling" as the last sentence "look up at the universe and lean down" because, logically speaking, the former sentence says that beauty should be like this, and then there are two forms, and the latter sentence shows that the essence of the two divisions is the same from the aesthetic effect. That is to say, both the sentence identified by Mr. Cao and the sentence identified by me are Wang Xizhi's definition of beauty, but the former sentence focuses on defining "beauty" or "aesthetics" and the latter sentence focuses on defining "aesthetic feeling" or "aesthetic effect". On the other hand, Preface to the Lanting Pavilion can also be regarded as a spiritual dialogue between Wang Xizhi and Zhuangzi, and his definition of beauty is what Zhuangzi called "wandering between gods and things". Based on this, generally speaking, "interpersonal relationship" refers to interpersonal communication, but I think it should be interpersonal communication. Otherwise, it seems conceivable to talk in one room, but the objects of "sending" and "entrusting" are hardly people, only "entrusting".

At this point, we can analyze the Preface to Lanting Collection from the structure. The first paragraph, from Nine Years of Yonghe to Love, is really written and summarizes Ji Ya's singing skills. The second paragraph begins with "it was a day" and is a feeling of chasing, that is, it begins to recall before aesthetics, focusing on the aesthetic process, and finally writes "emotional system" and "I still want to use it to be happy" compared with the secular world after aesthetics, explaining the origin of Ji Ya's writing, and ending with "it's not painful", which inevitably leads to tears. The rest is the third paragraph, which inherits the problem of "life and death are also great" and focuses on the problem of "life and death", which enhances the ideological realm of the full text. In the article, Wang Xizhi's emotional path is quite tortuous, from the real world to the aesthetic world is one layer, and then falling into the real world is another layer. Compared with the two, he feels "emotion" in his chest, writes poems, and then recalls his "recent writings" and imagines his "outlook on the future", which is another layer. The so-called "music" can't control the whole process from aesthetics to writing, including the formation of natural beauty and artistic beauty, so I think it can be summarized by another word "Xing Huai" in the text, not "Xing Huai".

The enlightenment of this structural analysis is that only by putting Wang Xizhi's aesthetic feelings in the whole article can we dig out his aesthetic theory and ideological realm more appropriately. Judging from the overall writing, putting aesthetics in the thinking of "life and death is too big" is his real destiny. At the beginning of the article, Ji Ya's environment is high mountains and flowing water, "Maolin xiuzhu is not a painting", "There is a clear stream running around, reflecting its left and right, thinking it is a stream", which makes people sigh that "the deceased is like a husband", and the feeling of "love" is profound and mysterious, that is, it points to the following. The way of liberation is aesthetic and temporary. "Being complacent for a while", "Emotion follows things" and "I don't know how to get old" not only show the transcendence of aesthetics, "I lost myself" and "true self", and get rid of the shackles of sufficient reasons, but also show that the aesthetic illusion is temporary and even realizes Zhuangzi's "death and life"

From the analysis of the overall structure of the article, we can also draw several other key aesthetic problems in the preface to Lanting Collection. With the help of Ci on Earth, it is said that "poets must be inside and outside the universe", and the so-called "inside" means "looking up at the universe and overlooking the prosperity of categories", "seeing the scenery" and "listening to the audience", while "feelings move with the times and are perceptual". Preface to Lanting and Wang Guowei's aesthetic ability, that is, the relationship between "being able to view" and creation, can be described as the same strain. Among them, I believe that the joy of Coke is fast and self-sufficient, and I am glad for it. Facing the grief of literature mourning, I reveal that the first element of beauty is fast and aesthetic alcoholization, especially tragedy.

To sum up, in connection with the aesthetic significance of Cao Chuji's On Wang Xizhi's Theory of Sexual Feelings-Preface to Lanting, the aesthetic significance of Preface to Lanting lies in that, in the unique way of China, although the words "beauty" and "aesthetic feeling" did not appear, they were vividly and appropriately defined. The psychological foundation is given by "quietness", and "beauty" and "sublime" are distinguished by "choice". It is believed that aesthetics can temporarily relieve the trouble of life desire, but it still can't solve the problem of "life and death". It can only enhance people's realm and purify people's soul, and "beautiful heart", that is, "beautiful soul", is eternal.