The Aesthetic Study On Visual Form

Visual form is basic of visual arts. With reference to the visual form theories in German-speaking countries, the dissertation attempts to conduct a thorough research on visual form from the following perspectives: the transformation of the style of perception (tactile style or optical style ), static structure of visual form (the analysis of surface and deep structure), dynamic structure of visual form ( relationship between building and transforming of visual form, relationship between the shaping and the transforming of visual style , and the relationship between them all and human being), and culture-history(feeling of the world, and feeling of life).The dissertation is divided into five parts as follows:Part One explains the visual form theories of German-speaking countries in detail. At the end of 19th century and beginning of 20th century, with the successive emerging of modern art (such as expressionism, etc.), the issue of form has been paid unprecedented attention to. In this case, the theory of visual form has been established by many art essayists and art historians, such as Konrad Fiedler, Adolf von Hildebrand, Alois Riegl, Wilhelm Worringer, WllheIm Worringer and the art psychologist Theodor Lipps and Vische in German-speaking countries. On the one hand, as a study of pure form, the theory of visual form in German-speaking countries probed into form from the change in the style of perception, adopting a method of phenomenology and discarding the external causes of culture, race, times, and religion; on the other hand, the final purpose of the visual form theory is to seeking for the corresponding relations between visual form and the spirit of human being in order to display human's recognition of world and life by the way of form.Part Two begins with explaining the concept of form from its connotation and extension and reduced the meaning of form into eight aspects which corresponded to the certain category respectively with no exception of the possibility of meaning-crossing. Then, the dissertation turned to the research of visual form and divided the visual form into two parts: surface form and deep form. The former refers to the material medium such as dot,line,side,texture,shadow, etc. The latter is about the contents of several relations in space, coagulation of force in space, distance, and direction, which finally rimed as the aesthetic rule of form in visual art, such as ratio, contrast, rhythm, etc. The discussion of the vocabulary and grammar about the surface and deep form of visual form is the keystone of this part.Part Three looks into the stages of visual form and transformation of its style in Western visual art". Based on the visual forms and the transformation of their styles, the visual art in history was divided into four stages, that is:"inorganic form"in primitive times (form of geometry),"organic form"in classical times (decorated by plant and animal, etc.),"inorganic form"in modern art times (form of geometry), non-form in post-modern art times (multi-form exists together). Through the analysis of the art form in these four stages, the change of the spirit and world value of human being was displayed.Moreover, the inner and outer factor of the transformation of style was also analyzed. E.H.J. Gombrich, the British art psychologist argued that the transformation of style should be probed from two perspectives: synchronously and historically. The former refers to the research of the style from the external structure factors, that is, the times, religion and culture which art works existed. And a conclusion was made that the transformation of art style was resulted from all of these factors. The latter was based on the research of Alois Riegl's art will, and a conclusion that the transformation of style is the result of inner driving force of art, namely, the inevitable development of art was made. As to this dissertation, it points out that the transformation of visual form and art style is the outcome of the transformation of human being's visual paradigm. Just as every breakthrough in scientific field is almost the change of paradigm, any transformation of art style is also a kind of transformation in the model of thought and the paradigm of explanation, that is, is a shift of visual paradigm, which means the emerging of a kind of new form and new art style. At the end of this part, the dissertation pointed out that the reasonable method to research on changes of visual form and art style was to combine the inner and outer factors of changes of art together, and any emphasis of them separately would be harmful to the research on visual art.Part Four discusses two main issues:"the origin and the appreciation principles of visual art form"and"the enlargement of appreciation's threshold of visual form."Based on the knowledge of psychology, physiology, genesis of art, and philosophy, it was put forward that the taking place of visual form is the outcome of human being and his object interacted together. It was pointed out that there is a kind of transcendental pattern existing in human being's brain, adding up to the acquired practice, the form originally owned by human being came into being at last. At the same time, the form of object is an objective being. As a result, the formation of visual form is outcome of the visual and psychological capability of man.Furthermore, the dissertation put forward that the forming of beauty is the outcome of combination of the Gestalt of human brain and object Gestalt. The appreciation of visual art is decided by two factors: the objective factors and the subjective ones. The former means that the reason why the beautiful thing looks beautiful lies in its ratio and harmonious characteristics. And the latter refers to human being's subjective form which is under the influence of history, culture, personality, and education of oneself. It also pointed out that people's ability of the appreciation of visual form could be enhanced by training and education. The way of training was provided in the dissertation.Part Five exposes the application of visual form.Combined the theoretical and practical ways, this dissertation analyzes"visual communicative design", one of the most important part in visual form, and explained the origin of visual design, formation of aesthetics of form, style of communication, psychological influence on audiences from the point of information theory, communication science and aesthetics, which provided appreciable approach for men to understand visual forms.The dissertation managed to make the following breakthroughs through the research of visual forms. Firstly, in the way of research, by virtue of phenomenology and structural linguistics,"visual form"was discussed not from the angle of epistemology simply, but from the relations between"human being and aesthetic object", which made the conclusion that visual form is a system and structure was come into being naturally. Furthermore, the research method of visual form in German-speaking countries was also adopted in this dissertation, which explained the changes and development of visual form from the point of view of the changes of perception and world value of human being. Secondly, in the stage of the style of visual form, the dissertation divided the western visual art into four periods, which made the analysis of the expressive character of visual form in the development and change of the whole art history. Moreover, the dissertation attributed the basic reason of the change on visual style into the transformation of"visual paradigm", which corrected the deflection of theory of"external root"and"inner root"about the change of visual form and put the probe of visual form into the track of"human being-object"mutual influence and dynamic development. Thirdly, in the study of appreciation about visual form, the dissertation maintained that it was a process of mutual comparison and mutual melt of main body gestalt and object gestalt. And it also put forward a way for the enlargement of threshold on visual form, which provided an academic instruction and a way using for reference of art creation, art appreciation, aesthetics education for the relative courses. Fourth, in the application of visual form, the dissertation banded together the study of general concept and specific case and applied the theory of visual form into art design and art creation in order to provide fresh and lively material and useful advice for applied study of aesthetics.