On The Aesthetics Of Thingness In Western Modernist Painting

During the approximate one hundred years from the latter half of the 19 th century to the early half of the 20 th century,western modernist painting broke away from the principles of imitation and reproduction that were rigorously observed by classical painting and moved towards a period advocating self-disciplined expression.With an aim to highlight the pure surface of painting,it summons the viewers’ embodied participation of the present,which symbolizes that painting is no longer a narrator in the classical painting but an independent thing and accordingly,painting has stepped into a historical period to foreground its beauty as a thing.Thingness is the ecstatic nature of a thing,that is,properties and features of the thing itself.Therefore,the term “thingness”has two connotations.Firstly,a thing with thingness must be present in its own form rather than in the form of signs.Secondly,the process of foregrounding itself is not an accomplished process,but a process with constant revelation by means of obedient observation and thingness of a thing can be revealed only with the dual presence of a thing with thingness and an observation of thingness.Generally speaking,this paper is designed to conduct an in-depth exploration of the thingness in modernist painting from four aspects,namely,the foundation of thingness,the schema of thingness,the experience of thingness,and the aesthetic connotation of thingness.The first chapter,entitled “The Foundation of Thingness in Western Modernist Painting”,presents an examination of “what makes a thing” in modernist painting from three perspectives,namely,“the emotional expression that resists the symbol system”,“the abstract form that offends the daily vision” and “the material plane that highlights the reality”.First of all,different from the inner spiritual sentiments of Romanticism,sentiments of modernist painting are atmospheric and authentic,which is the indescribable passion of the painter under the influence of atmosphere.It forces the painter to create in turbulent energetic forms and constantly changes the original energy form with the deepening of the creation,so that the painting becomes an independent thing which goes beyond the external image and internal experience.Secondly,the abstract form from the authentic passion is not a simplified form of logical abstraction,but a condensed form of artistic abstraction.Artistic abstraction can be traced back to primitive human beings,who always follow the impulse of passion to generate condensed forms unconsciously.Since the nature of the condensation mechanism entails the avoidance of self-censorship,likewise,its abstract forms reject the daily visual gaze and call for an observation from the perspective of painting so as to discover its own significance.Thirdly,the space on which abstract forms depend has also undergone great changes.On the one hand,it has shifted from the imaginary three-dimension which is prevalent ever since the Renaissance into the two-dimensional plane that highlights the thingness;on the other hand,it has changed from the centralized and hierarchical focus perspective space to the rhizome-like multi-viewpoint plane.As the picture changes freely from one point to another,it betrays the narrative logic of ontology and requires an embodied participation of the present.The second chapter,entitled “The Schema of Thingness in Western Modernist Painting”,mainly examines the specific expressions of modernist painting from three basic elements of painting,namely,“the thingness schema of lines”,“the thingness schema of colors”,“the thingness schema of light”.First of all,lines are no longer used as a means to shape objects in classical painting but as free lines under emotional impulse,which can be categorized into calligraphic lines and structural lines.While calligraphic lines form elegant and vivid intrinsic schemas through their exaggerated delicacy and perceptual space,structural lines construct differential schemas rich in tension,potential energy and strength through the juxtaposition of partial straight lines.Secondly,color also subverts the rule of gradual change of light and shade in classical painting by means of the juxtaposition of solid colors,making modernist painting shift from the modeling and symbolic function in classical painting to the purification function of showing its own pure formation,which can be specifically divided into two types,color block and color dot.While the color block generates the push-and-pull motion by a juxtaposition of larger color areas and a flat-painting schema with the coexistence of centrifugal and centripetal motion,the color dot makes full use of the relevant scientific discovery and employs strokes rich with tension,thus generating a“segmented” schema with changes in hue.Thirdly,with the liberation of color,the light formed also goes beyond the effective working range of the optic nerves in an extremely strong form,presenting its own ontological space,which can be categorized into natural light and interwoven light.Natural light is presented as a carnival schema either in a stroboscopic form or a flowing form,while the interwoven light is presented as a folding schema with rich tension by the confrontation of different lights.These schemas further demonstrate that modernist paintings are not symbols as carriers,but an independent thing with thickness.The third chapter,entitled “The Experience of Thingness in Western Modernist Painting”,mainly discusses the role of human beings in uncovering the thingness in western modernist paintingfrom three parts,namely,“the aesthetic consciousness of painting itself”,“the aesthetic manifestation from material structure” and “the generative construction from life experience”.Firstly,the identity of a “Thing” of the modernist painting requires people’s observation of thingness.In other words,it necessitates an observation with modern aesthetic consciousness.It includes“consciousness of concentrated observation” which excludes all utilitarian factors,“consciousness of reference” which guarantees the artistic experience with visual discovery,and “consciousness of embodiment of the present” which includes heterogeneous factors.Only with the proper aesthetic attitude,people can take painting as itself and enrich the existing painting forms.Secondly,the material structure of painting will be foregrounded with the modern aesthetic approach.Its image can be grasped as a stable physical property through concept,or as a non-determinant aesthetic property through “game of various manifestations”.However,only the latter is the goal of thingness experience,which is featured by simultaneity and elapse.While simultaneity indicates a synchronic manifestation of images in ways of contrast,mutual infiltration and transition,elapse indicates a temporary manifestation that the “game of manifestations” changes constantly with the passage of time and perspectives.Finally,simultaneity and elapse enables the aesthetic manifestation of modernist painting to break through the protective mechanism of consciousness in the way of a movie flow,triggering strong tremors of life and thus generating a new type of individual beyond anthropocentrism.The fourth chapter,entitled “Thingness in Western Modernist Painting and Its Aesthetic Connotation”,mainly explores the manifestation form of and the complex relationship between a thing with thingness and an observation of thingness,presenting the double reality of the manifestation of thingness,and accordingly tries to reconstruct an aesthetic theory with thingness as its core.Firstly,from the perspective of expression form,modernist painting causes tremor and fear by distorted abstract forms,thus providing an aesthetic experience of sublime.The term “sublime” can be traced back to Longinus in ancient Rome,developed later by Burke and Kant,etc.,and evolved into the form of the presence of things by Lyotard.Taking place in an unpredictable way,the sublime form of things initiates a non-historical primitive world,within which,daily consciousness and routine way of understanding have lost their effectiveness and one has no choice but take an obedient participation in the manifestation of things.Secondly,with the dual presence of a thing with thingness and an observation of thingness,modernist painting finally conveys nothing but itself.Since the image from the painting is always in the simultaneity and fluidity of various manifestations,which is full of uncertain and accidental factors,it goes beyond any logical relationship and can only coexist in a collection in the form of diversity and unity.This collection is the product of the ecstasy of things,that is,the thingness of things.