| The life theory at the end of the 20th century was to combat the separation between the subject and the object in western traditional culture.In the field of aesthetics,the life theory not only shows the spiral process which refers to the integration of art and life,then the separation,and the integration again("art life"),but also illustrates "art of life"or "life aesthetics" which holds both the horizon and the trend of anthropology.In the field of aesthetics,the studies of ancient Chinese aesthetics mainly focused on the art aesthetic,such as literary theory,music theory and painting theory,while the aesthetic form like the ancient Chinese life aesthetics was given limited attention.Most researchers in the field defined ’life aesthetics’ as "aesthetics in life" or "taking items used in life as aesthetic objects",which was the result of their superficial understanding of the differences between life aesthetics and art aesthetics.This thesis defines "life aesthetics" as "The people’s practical aesthetic activities that are not objective,not divorced from life,situated in the context of life,and happening for survivable behavior and life." "Art aesthetics" is "The people’s unprofitable aesthetic activities that are objective,divorced from life,separated from the context of life,and happening for non-survivable behavior and unliving objects."In this definition,the thesis attempts to avoid those ancient-Chinese-art-aesthetics-related content,while focuses on the research of aesthetic form of ancient Chinese life aesthetics.Ancient life aesthetics can not only do cross sectional research from all aspects of life like housing,clothing,food,language and behavior,but also do longitudinal study from the perspective of historical development.This paper emphasizes on the study of aesthetic principle for ancient Chinese life.The various specific life aesthetic activities such as housing,clothing,food,language and behavior are not the aim of this research,and the history of the ancient life aesthetics is not the focus of this research,either.The judgement "ancient Chinese life aesthetics" is not the full name to judge.This paper aimed at analyzing the ancient Chinese life aesthetics,more specifically,the cultural lives and the relevant realistic life aesthetic activities which had an aesthetic tendency in the ancient China are the purpose of this study.The study does not negate the ethical,political and economic natures of ancient Chinese life.That is,ancientChinese life has multiple dimensions such as ethical,political,hierarchical,farming and aesthetic,etc.Aesthetics is just one dimension of the multidimensional natures of ancient Chinese life.But this dimension does not hide itself among these multiple dimensions,in a sense,it is more a representative of ancient Chinese ideological and cultural essence.The introduction mainly introduces the concepts of "ancient" "China" "life","life aesthetics" and the related present research."Ancient and modern" and "Chinese and Western’ are two comparative dimensions of this thesis.The comparison between"Ancient and modern" is before the comparison between "Chinese and Western".The term "life" has the ontological significance,with macroscopic,historical and holistic meanings,and it means "all human’s life activities for the survival and development".Based on this,the thesis mainly discusses the aesthetics of ancient Chinese life from the following four aspects.Chapter One mainly discusses the social cultural basis of ancient Chinese life aesthetics.1.The ancient Chinese small-scale peasant economy laid the economic foundation for the aesthetic trend of Chinese ancient life.This economy made the ancients have the regular life.People had a harmonious relationship with the nature.The aesthetic appreciation of "Cheng Wu" "Cheng Ji" occurred in the farming affairs.Due to the poor production of the small-scale peasant economy,the ancients felt satisfied with being full,and they made use of their fee time to create those practical items with aesthetic design.Planting and harvesting during the small-scale peasant economy need the cooperation of members,so the ancients attached great importance to the harmonious relationship among people,which resulted in the aesthetics of people’s relationship.2.The structure of the Chinese clan was the political basis of the Chinese ancient country.This was the social organizational form of the ancient Chinese life aesthetics.The same structure of the country and the clan which owned the extensive features of moral and emotion mainly depended on the moral strength.Its liyue system had ethical,political and aesthetic natures.3.The life culture laid the foundation for the ancient Chinese culture.The core of the Chinese culture focuses on Life and Living rather than Producing in the West.The heavy emphasis on life and body made the Chinese ancients attach much importance to the long and healthy life of this world and little importance to the world of afterlife.The emphasis on emotion made the Chinese ancients’ relationship have mutual subjectivity.The descriptive words and the poetic thinking pattern strengthened the people’s daily aesthetic tendency.In Chapter two,the features of the ancient Chinese life aesthetics are discussed,such as normative order,ethical morality,form etiquette and firsthand experience etc.1.Normative order.In ancient time people had strong sense of stability and security because of the poor production.The orderly life could make people feel stable and secure.The Chinese ancients copied the order of the nature to build the social order.This formed the normative order of the ancient Chinese life aesthetics.In ancient China,order was closely related to the level of Chinese ancient politics and penetrated in the various aspects of daily life.2.Ethical morality.Due to low productivity,survival was the first thing especially in the ancient society,so people formed the concept of the practical beauty in broad sense,which was reflected in virtue as beauty,unification of beauty and goodness.The virtues of junzi and lady were the representative of ethical aesthetics.3.,Form rituality."Li-yue culture" made the ancient Chinese life aesthetics have form rituality.People showed their status through the suitable dramatic language and artistic behaviors.Controlling and expressing emotion through ethical code,as form rituality,went through the whole life and all activities in four seasons.4.Firsthand experience.People’s own experience was related to the non-religion culture of the Chinese valuing life.This was mainly illustrated in the three levels:situational experience,overall harmony,transcendence of body and mind.The third chapter studies the social form of the ancient Chinese life aesthetics.1.The upper class’s life aesthetics more highlighted etiquette,their daily behavior and poetic language,all of which had strong ceremonial feature.2.Artistry was the characteristic of the literary classes’ life aesthetics.The literary class’s ideal penetrated in the daily activities,such as reading,writing,playing Guqin and the lute,and making friends.This made those daily activities artistic.3.The merchant class had the aesthetic tendency of enjoying their material lives.They had been involved in the flowing transaction for a long time,which made them lack of cherishing objects.Their lack of cherishing made them tend to spend wastefully to show their existence.4.The farmer class’s life aesthetics was natural and with strong emotion.The farmer class was companied with land year after year,and the limited resources made them greatly cherish objects in their life.They had frequent intercourse,especially on festivals.So their life aesthetics was natural and with strong emotion.Chapter 4 mainly talked about the meaning and value of ancient life aesthetics for modern society.1.The differences between ancient life aesthetics and modern daily aesthetics are as following:the ancient life aesthetics had rhythmicity,emphasized quality,highlighted natural beauty and focused on inner aesthetics;the modern daily aesthetics has commerciality,emphasizes quantity,highlights artificial beauty and focuses on outer aesthetics.These differences especially show the alienation of modern daily aesthetics,which is closely related to the modern crisis.2.The modern crisis.The modern crisis mainly refers to the features of superficial,consuming,rapid,virtual,scientific and rational.The modern crisis results in the alienation of modern life aesthetics.3.The modern significance and value of ancient life aesthetics and the problems that transition faces.The ancient life aesthetics was rhythmical,combined beauty and virtue,emphasized on emotion;while the modern life aesthetics reverses day and night,separates truth,kindness and beauty,emphasizes on objects.The ancient life aesthetics can relieve the modern crisis and are recommended.However,the modern linear time conception,the vague idea of kindness,the commercial attitude are the important problems that the transition of ancient life aesthetics faces.The Conclusion deepens and summarizes the whole thesis from the three aspects:1.The thesis considers the two realistic problems that are "Inheritance&development of Chinese excellent traditional culture "and " nationalization--globalization".This study is a response to The life-world theory in the academia,meanwhile,the main content of this thesis refers to defining the ancient Chinese life aesthetics and the related theoretical research.2.The ancient Chinese life aesthetics maintains some problems.These problems took place as a hierarchical aesthetics suppressing normal human nature,the mass aesthetics suppressing the individual aesthetics,ritual aesthetics heavily emphasizing on form and past,greatly highlighting ethical aesthetics,ignoring intellectual virtue posed by Immanuel Kant,attaching more importance to the balanced and stable aesthetics,and despising unstable and inharmonious beauty,etc.We must have objective and sensible understanding of these problems existing in the ancient Chinese life aesthetics,and put them into serious consideration in the modern transformation.3.This paper is open and extensive to some extent.Some other related problems can be further studied,such as the ancient Chinese women’s life aesthetics,the modern transformation of ancient Chinese life aesthetics,the various aesthetic forms of all walks of life in the ancient China,etc. |
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