On the Philosophical Thinking in the Creation of Western Plastic Arts
Learning, as a unique cultural form, is a generalization and summary of knowledge of nature, social knowledge and thinking knowledge, which has a guiding and enlightening role in the development of human society and science and culture. The long history of human civilization and art has been influenced by philosophical thoughts from beginning to end. In the practice of China's traditional plastic arts, China's traditional philosophy is everywhere. Mdash& ampmdash The theoretical essence of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism has formed an artistic culture with oriental characteristics. Of course, the main discussion here is the philosophical thinking and creation of western plastic arts. For western plastic arts, from humanism in ancient Greece to religious theology in the Middle Ages, from humanism and Kant's rationalism in the Renaissance to scientism, structuralism, phenomenology, Frankfurt School and post-modernism, the West has had a profound influence on the development of western plastic arts. Plato's cosmology and Aristotle's philosophy give artistic creation a higher position. They think that the creation of art is the creation of imitating nature. It is believed that the evolution of the universe has the form of material process, just like the Greek sculptor presents the form of a human body in a marble. So their world view is almost the same as the artist's artistic creation.
Balzac once said, "You should be a profound philosopher, like Moliere, before you write a novel." If you expand his words a little, it is: "You should become a profound philosopher first, and then engage in artistic creation." This means that artistic creation and philosophical thinking are inextricably linked.
First, from imitating the truth to "changing the truth"
Historically, philosophy, as a science of wisdom, attached great importance to life experience and wisdom enlightenment from the very beginning. Socrates in ancient Greece taught philosophy through speeches and debates, which he called "spiritual midwifery"; Plato's Athens Academy is full of thoughts and discussions. Aristotle and his disciples discussed philosophical issues while walking, which was quite "carefree". Ancient sages in China also studied and taught philosophy in a similar way. Laozi's aphorisms, Zhuangzi's fables, and Confucius' answers to disciples all reflect the characteristics of thought-provoking and wisdom-opening. In the eyes of many philosophers, "theory is gray, but the tree of life is evergreen". Since real life is lively and creative, the relationship between knowledge and objects can only be a kind of negotiation and dialogue, rather than a one-dimensional "imitation" relationship between subjective and objective. In addition, any philosophy speaks for a certain value, viewpoint or interest, and of course there will be another philosophy that speaks for a certain value, viewpoint or interest. This means that philosophy not only provides a doomed life mode, but also provides a variety of lives for people to choose from; The object of philosophy is not the established fact, but the world that philosophy is creating or preparing to create. Broadly speaking, philosophy is the art of creating ideology, value system, constructing behavior pattern and meaning of life. Such a philosophy of life is self-knowledge and creative. Here, philosophy and art have been integrated. From this, we can draw a conclusion that the absolute imitation of objects can not produce the most beautiful works of art, for example, casting with molds is the best way to copy objects, but good casting works can't compare with finished statues anyway. During the trial, the clerk can record the words of both the prosecution and the defense, but the shorthand of the clerk itself is not a work of art, and at most it can only provide the writer with original materials. Painter Dana faithfully painted portraits with a magnifying glass. He drew dermatoglyphics, with tiny bloodshot on the zygomatic angle, black spots scattered on the nose, and light blue blood vessels under the epidermis. He reproduced almost everything on the model's face, including the surrounding scenery reflected into bright eyes! But later generations commented: "Where &; Middot Dyke's bold sketch is a hundred times more powerful than Dai Na's portrait! " In the creative performance of western plastic arts, some works even deliberately do not conform to the real thing. A statue usually has only one color tone, or bronze or marble. The eyes of the statue have no eyeballs, but it is the single color tone and indifference of expression that constitute the unique beauty of the statue. On the contrary, the painted statues in churches in Naples and Spain, saints wearing real robes, are sallow and emaciated, just in line with the skin color of ascetic monks; Blood-stained hands and a pierced waist are indeed signs of suffering &; Mdash& ampmdash Because they are extremely realistic, not only can they not give people beautiful enjoyment, but they make people feel sick.
Moreover, real works of art have changed the real relationship more. For example, Michelangelo created four marble statues and placed them on Florence's grave. In two men, especially in a half-awakened woman, the proportion of each part is obviously different from that of a real person. In Italy, you can see well-dressed young and beautiful women, bright-eyed and arrogant country people and generous models in the painting academy, but there is no real man or woman like the angry hero and the grieving giant Virgin displayed in the Medici Temple. Michelangelo's typicality is found in his own character. As a lonely, thoughtful, justice-loving person, a generous and excitable person, after being oppressed by fraud and oppression, tyranny and injustice, his great heart and grief are fully vented in art. Michelangelo wrote on the pedestal of the sleeping statue: "As long as there is suffering and humiliation in the world, sleep is sweet. If you can become a stubborn stone, so much the better. Seeing nothing and feeling nothing is my blessing, so don't wake me up. Ah, speak softly! " Inspired by this emotion, he created these bodies. In order to express this emotion, he changed the normal proportion, lengthened his trunk and limbs, bent his upper body forward, and his eyes were particularly sunken. The wrinkles on his forehead are like a lion with eyebrows and eyes. His shoulders are facing the overlapping muscles, and the tendons and spine on his back are twisted into a ball, and he is as nervous as an iron rope that is pulled too tightly and is about to break. It is precisely because of Michelangelo's changes in the normal proportion and his dynamics in the crystal state that the effect of "Mo Yan has a heart of stone and his blood is boiling" has been achieved, which makes this group of sculptures become famous masterpieces.
Second, from one-dimensional perspective to "perspective"
Perspectivism is an important philosophical methodological trend of thought popular in contemporary western countries, and it is also an important part of postmodern trend of thought. According to the definition in fontana Dictionary of Modern Thoughts, the perspective in philosophy "thinks that there are many alternative and unequal conceptual systems or hypothetical systems, each of which can explain the world, and there is no authoritative choice method". The fundamental methodological feature of perspectivism lies in giving up the fixed viewpoint, advocating pluralism and multi-faceted, and thinking that the interpretation of the world should be pluralistic and multi-dimensional, that is, multi-faceted rather than unitary and one-dimensional.
Thirty years later, the influence of perspectivism did not fade with the passage of time, but went beyond the ivory tower of philosophy and spread to all fields of thought and culture. A philosopher once used people's understanding of cubes to express perspectivism. He pointed out: according to the definition, a cube has six faces, but in fact no one can see them at the same time, and these six faces can never appear in front of us at the same time. When we say "this is a cube", there are actually more things on it than we can see here and now. In other words, if we walk around it, we will see several other faces. Here, past or future experience plays a role. Appear in front of our eyes and provide us with something meaningful, and it will never be possible to fully reveal all aspects of it at the same time. Therefore, we must regard reality as a constantly changing dynamic system, and allow and advocate to perceive, explain and create objects from different perspectives. Simplicity is the need of inertia.
Yes, ambiguity is a sign of wisdom. Perception from any perspective has no right to claim that it is the only truth, because the old perception always contains the possibility of being denied by the new perception, and today's truth also contains the danger of being overthrown and becoming the past. So there is no truth recognized by dogmatism and skepticism. Truth is defined in its generation, and it is its own revision and transcendence.
In the creation of western painting plastic arts, the same subject matter can be handled in a certain way, in the opposite way, or in all intermediate ways. Because of the differences in race, temperament, education and culture, artists have different impressions of the same thing. Individuals identify a distinctive feature from it according to their own unique perspective and form a unique concept of physical objects. As soon as this concept was shown in his works, it added a new masterpiece to the art palace. For example, as far as Italian painting in the Renaissance is concerned, the theme "Lida" originated from Greek mythology has been achieved. Finch, Michelangelo and Croce have all done it. Lida of Da & middot Finch has a shy look, saturated with poetry produced by infinite happiness; On the contrary, Michelangelo's Rita is full of strong tragic spirit, just like the queen of a mighty fighting tribe; Croce's Rita is intoxicated with the sweetness of love and shows deep sympathy for girls. Which of the three paintings do you like better? Which function is more advanced? Is it happy poetry, tragic spirit, or deep sympathy? From the perspective of perspectivism, these three paintings are the exquisite artistic treatment of the same theme by three painters from different perspectives. These three realms represent the main part of human nature and describe the main stages of human development, so they have their own characteristics and are of great value in plastic arts creation.
Third, from the only way to "anything will do"
Positivist philosophy attaches great importance to the certainty, clarity, strictness and "authenticity" of cognition, advocates a universally applicable method regardless of time and place, and regards whether it can "prove" the consistency with the object as the only criterion to distinguish science from non-science. However, the content and development of anything is always richer and more "elusive" than scientists and methodologies imagine. Therefore, the postmodern philosopher Faye Abend pointed out that science is not the only thought form, and the scientific method advocated by positivism is not the only research method. To understand the world, people must use any concept, any means and any method. In fact, there is only one principle that should be adhered to at all stages of human development &; Whatever you want. Generally speaking, no matter whether it is a white cat or a black cat, catching a mouse is a good cat.
As the expression of postmodern philosophy in the field of western plastic arts, postmodern aesthetics is committed to liberating plastic arts from the shackles of formalism, defending the emerging "popular art" and emphasizing the "omnipresence" of the artistry and aesthetic value of daily life. In this regard, postmodernism has played a role in fueling the flames. The painter Audenberg gave up painting, pasted objects on canvas, and Wei Sohlman combined real carpets into his oil paintings, all of which just destroyed the artificial boundaries in artistic creation.
As for whether the artwork is in line with the real thing. Whether the "imitation theory" and "reappearance theory" in art can be established can be seen from the post-modern artists' attack on Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa can be said to be the king of copying in painting, but only a few people have seen the original, and now people know nothing about Mona Lisa. Only Da & middot Finch's first copy paved the way for postmodern artists represented by Duchamp to attack Mona Lisa. Duchamp had a moustache under Mona Lisa's nose and a goatee on her chin. Because the original Mona Lisa no longer exists, and modern people have never seen her in person, she has reached &; Middot Finch's Mona Lisa and Duchamp's Mona Lisa are both replicas, imitations and replicas of the original. So, how to judge whose replica reproduces the Mona Lisa more truly and objectively? Obviously, Duchamp's transsexual Mona Lisa is a mockery and rebellion against the traditional concept of "representation". Andy middot and Warhol's Mona Lisa use the painting title of "thirty is not as good as one" to convey the post-modern message, that is, copying or reconstruction has not only forgotten the "original" or "source", but also has no important significance. People's minds are flooded with expanding information, and they have no power or interest to undertake these things. What they can do is to reproduce the process itself.
To sum up, in a sense, philosophical thinking and artistic creation are very similar, although the things to be created are very different &; Mdash& ampmdash; But it's all "art". If artistic creation is to maintain the creativity of human feelings, then philosophy is to maintain the creativity of human thoughts.
[Author's Brief Introduction] Sun Dehui (1972-), female, from Laiyuan, Hebei Province, director of the Department of Art and Design, Hebei University of Economics and Business, master of fine arts, mainly engaged in the teaching and research of aesthetic theory and art design; Chen Hui (1978-), female, from Handan, Hebei Province, is an art design teacher in the Art College of Hebei University of Economics and Business, mainly engaged in teaching and research of aesthetic theory and art design.
Sun Dehui and Chen Hui
The relationship between philosophy and art is discussed. The long history of human civilization and art has been influenced by philosophical thoughts from beginning to end. It can be said that artistic creation and philosophical thinking are inextricably linked. Various schools of thought in western philosophy have profoundly influenced the development of western plastic arts. Based on the creation of western plastic arts, this paper makes a scientific analysis and theoretical discussion on the relationship between philosophical thinking and artistic creation from three aspects: imitating truth to "changing truth", from one-way perspective to "perspectivism" and from the only method to "whatever it takes". The author believes that philosophical thinking and artistic creation are both "art" although they are very different.
[Keywords:] philosophy; Artistic creation; get in touch with
As a unique cultural form, philosophy is a generalization and summary of concrete knowledge of nature, social knowledge and thinking knowledge, and plays a guiding and enlightening role in the development of human society, science and culture. The long history of human civilization and art has been influenced by philosophical thoughts from beginning to end. In the practice of China's traditional plastic arts, China's traditional philosophy is everywhere. Mdash& ampmdash The theoretical essence of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism has formed an artistic culture with oriental characteristics. Of course, the main discussion here is the philosophical thinking and creation of western plastic arts. For western plastic arts, from humanism in ancient Greece to religious theology in the Middle Ages, from humanism and Kant's rationalism in the Renaissance to scientism, structuralism, phenomenology, Frankfurt School and post-modernism, the West has had a profound influence on the development of western plastic arts. Plato's cosmology and Aristotle's philosophy give artistic creation a higher position. They think that the creation of art is the creation of imitating nature. People think that the evolution of the universe has the form of material process, just as Greek sculptors present the form of human body in marble. So their world view is almost the same as the artist's artistic creation.
Balzac once said, "You should be a profound philosopher, like Moliere, before you write a novel." If you expand his words a little, it is: "You should become a profound philosopher first, and then engage in artistic creation." This means that artistic creation and philosophical thinking are inextricably linked.
First, from imitating the truth to "changing the truth"
Historically, philosophy, as a science of wisdom, attached great importance to life experience and wisdom enlightenment from the very beginning. Socrates in ancient Greece taught philosophy through speeches and debates, which he called "spiritual midwifery"; Plato's Athens Academy is full of thoughts and discussions. Aristotle and his disciples discussed philosophical issues while walking, which was quite "carefree". Ancient sages in China also studied and taught philosophy in a similar way. Laozi's aphorisms, Zhuangzi's fables, and Confucius' answers to disciples all reflect the characteristics of thought-provoking and wisdom-opening. In the eyes of many philosophers, "theory is gray, but the tree of life is evergreen". Since real life is lively and creative, then,
The relationship between knowledge and its object can only be negotiation and dialogue, not a one-dimensional "imitation" relationship between subjective and objective. In addition, any philosophy speaks for a certain value, viewpoint or interest, and of course there will be another philosophy that speaks for a certain value, viewpoint or interest. This means that philosophy not only provides a doomed life mode, but also provides a variety of lives for people to choose from; The object of philosophy is not the established fact, but the world that philosophy is creating or preparing to create. Broadly speaking, philosophy is the art of creating ideology, value system, constructing behavior pattern and meaning of life. Such a philosophy of life is self-knowledge and creative. Here, philosophy and art have been integrated. From this, we can draw a conclusion that the absolute imitation of objects can not produce the most beautiful works of art, for example, casting with molds is the best way to copy objects, but good casting works can't compare with finished statues anyway. During the trial, the clerk can record the words of both the prosecution and the defense, but the shorthand of the clerk itself is not a work of art, and at most it can only provide the writer with original materials. Painter Dana faithfully painted portraits with a magnifying glass. He drew dermatoglyphics, with tiny bloodshot on the zygomatic angle, black spots scattered on the nose, and light blue blood vessels under the epidermis. He reproduced almost everything on the model's face, including the surrounding scenery reflected into bright eyes! But later generations commented: "Where &; Middot Dyke's bold sketch is a hundred times more powerful than Dai Na's portrait! " In the creative performance of western plastic arts, some works even deliberately do not conform to the real thing. A statue usually has only one color tone, or bronze or marble. The eyes of the statue have no eyeballs, but it is the single color tone and indifference of expression that constitute the unique beauty of the statue. On the contrary, the painted statues in churches in Naples and Spain, saints wearing real robes, are sallow and emaciated, just in line with the skin color of ascetic monks; Blood-stained hands and a pierced waist are indeed signs of suffering &; Mdash& ampmdash Because they are extremely realistic, not only can they not give people beautiful enjoyment, but they make people feel sick.
Moreover, real works of art have changed the real relationship more. For example, Michelangelo created four marble statues on the tomb of Tiki in Florence. In two men, especially in a half-awakened woman, the proportion of each part is obviously different from that of a real person. In Italy, you can see well-dressed young and beautiful women, bright-eyed and arrogant country people and generous models in the painting academy, but there is no real man or woman like the angry hero and the grieving giant Virgin displayed in the Medici Temple. Michelangelo's typicality is found in his own character. As a lonely, thoughtful, justice-loving person, a generous and excitable person, after being oppressed by fraud and oppression, tyranny and injustice, his great heart and grief are fully vented in art. Michelangelo wrote on the pedestal of the sleeping statue: "As long as there is suffering and humiliation in the world, sleep is sweet. If you can become a stubborn stone, so much the better. Seeing nothing and feeling nothing is my blessing, so don't wake me up. Ah, speak softly! " Inspired by this emotion, he created these bodies. In order to express this emotion, he changed the normal proportion, lengthened his trunk and limbs, bent his upper body forward, and his eyes were particularly sunken. The wrinkles on his forehead are like a lion with eyebrows and eyes. His shoulders are facing the overlapping muscles, and the tendons and spine on his back are twisted into a ball, and he is as nervous as an iron rope that is pulled too tightly and is about to break. It is precisely because of Michelangelo's changes in the normal proportion and his dynamics in the crystal state that the effect of "Mo Yan has a heart of stone and his blood is boiling" has been achieved, which makes this group of sculptures become famous masterpieces.
Second, from one-dimensional perspective to "perspective"
Perspectivism is an important philosophical methodological trend of thought popular in contemporary western countries, and it is also an important part of postmodern trend of thought. According to the definition in fontana Dictionary of Modern Thoughts, the perspective in philosophy "thinks that there are many alternative and unequal conceptual systems or hypothetical systems, each of which can explain the world, and there is no authoritative choice method". The fundamental methodological feature of perspectivism lies in giving up the fixed viewpoint, advocating pluralism and multi-faceted, and thinking that the interpretation of the world should be pluralistic and multi-dimensional, that is, multi-faceted rather than unitary and one-dimensional.
Thirty years later, the influence of perspectivism did not fade with the passage of time, but went beyond the ivory tower of philosophy and spread to all fields of thought and culture. A philosopher once used people's understanding of cubes to express perspectivism. He pointed out: according to the definition, a cube has six faces, but in fact no one can see them at the same time, and these six faces can never appear in front of us at the same time. When we say "this is a cube", there are actually more things on it than we can see here and now. In other words, if we walk around it, we will see several other faces. Here, past or future experience plays a role. Appear in front of our eyes and provide us with something meaningful, and it will never be possible to fully reveal all aspects of it at the same time. Therefore, we must regard reality as a constantly changing dynamic system, and allow and advocate to perceive, explain and create objects from different perspectives. Uniqueness is the need of inertia, and polysemy is the signal of wisdom. Perception from any perspective has no right to claim that it is the only truth, because the old perception always contains the possibility of being denied by the new perception, and today's truth also contains the danger of being overthrown and becoming the past. So there is no truth recognized by dogmatism and skepticism. Truth is defined in its generation, and it is its own revision and transcendence.
In the creation of western painting plastic arts, the same subject matter can be handled in a certain way, in the opposite way, or in all intermediate ways. Because of the differences in race, temperament, education and culture, artists have different impressions of the same thing. Individuals identify a distinctive feature from it according to their own unique perspective and form a unique concept of physical objects. As soon as this concept was shown in his works, it added a new masterpiece to the art palace. For example, as far as Italian painting in the Renaissance is concerned, the theme "Lida" originated from Greek mythology has been achieved. Finch, Michelangelo and Croce have all done it. Lida of Da & middot Finch has a shy look, saturated with poetry produced by infinite happiness; On the contrary, Michelangelo's Rita is full of strong tragic spirit, just like the queen of a mighty fighting tribe; Croce's Rita is intoxicated with the sweetness of love and shows deep sympathy for girls. Which of the three paintings do you like better? Which function is more advanced? Is it happy poetry, tragic spirit, or deep sympathy? From the perspective of perspectivism, these three paintings are the exquisite artistic treatment of the same theme by three painters from different perspectives. These three realms represent the main part of human nature and describe the main stages of human development, so they have their own characteristics and are of great value in plastic arts creation.
Third, from the only way to "anything will do"
Positivist philosophy attaches great importance to the certainty, clarity, strictness and "authenticity" of cognition, advocates a universally applicable method regardless of time and place, and regards whether it can "prove" the consistency with the object as the only criterion to distinguish science from non-science. However, the content and development of anything is always richer and more "elusive" than scientists and methodologies imagine. Therefore, the postmodern philosopher Faye Abend pointed out that science is not the only thought form, and the scientific method advocated by positivism is not the only research method. To understand the world, people must use any concept, any means and any method. In fact, there is only one principle that should be adhered to at all stages of human development &; Whatever you want. Generally speaking, no matter whether it is a white cat or a black cat, catching a mouse is a good cat.
As the expression of postmodern philosophy in the field of western plastic arts, postmodern aesthetics is committed to liberating plastic arts from the shackles of formalism, defending the emerging "popular art" and emphasizing the "omnipresence" of the artistry and aesthetic value of daily life. In this regard, postmodernism has played a role in fueling the flames. The painter Audenberg gave up painting, pasted objects on canvas, and Wei Sohlman combined real carpets into his oil paintings, all of which just destroyed the artificial boundaries in artistic creation.
As for whether the artwork is in line with the real thing. Whether the "imitation theory" and "reappearance theory" in art can be established can be seen from the post-modern artists' attack on Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa can be said to be the king of copying in painting, but only a few people have seen the original, and now people know nothing about Mona Lisa. Only Da & middot Finch's first copy paved the way for postmodern artists represented by Duchamp to attack Mona Lisa. Duchamp had a moustache under Mona Lisa's nose and a goatee on her chin. Because the original Mona Lisa no longer exists, and modern people have never seen her in person, she has reached &; Middot Finch's Mona Lisa and Duchamp's Mona Lisa are both replicas, imitations and replicas of the original. So, how to judge whose replica reproduces the Mona Lisa more truly and objectively? Obviously, Duchamp's transsexual Mona Lisa is a mockery and rebellion against the traditional concept of "representation". Andy middot and Warhol's Mona Lisa use the painting title of "thirty is not as good as one" to convey the post-modern message, that is, copying or reconstruction has not only forgotten the "original" or "source", but also has no important significance. People's minds are flooded with expanding information, and they have no power or interest to undertake these things. What they can do is to reproduce the process itself.
To sum up, in a sense, philosophical thinking and artistic creation are very similar, although the things to be created are very different &; Mdash& ampmdash; But it's all "art". If artistic creation is to maintain the creativity of human feelings, then philosophy is to maintain the creativity of human thoughts.
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