Research On Sun Chengze’s Artistic Concepts

Sun Chengze has a unique position in the formation of artistic trends in the early Qing Dynasty.From involving in officialdom to retreating to the mountains,he has always been active in the art circle of the capital region and has important influence in many fields such as appreciation and collection of calligraphy and painting,epigraphy textual research,and artistic criticism.His artistic concepts not only reflect the general characteristics of the literati group in the context of the dynasty change,but also have distinct propositions based on their own experience and knowledge.However,due to his identity of renegade official,previous studies debase his work because of his moral decay.In such circumstance,his academic thoughts and artistic concepts have not been thoroughly sorted out and fully presented for a long time.With the evolution of the Times and the renewal of academic research horizons,attention has gradually increased to Sun Chengze’s personal experience and academic works,mainly focusing on three aspects: Sun Chengze’s life experience and social contacts,his collection of books,paintings and calligraphy,and his book Geng Zi Xiao Xia Ji on connoisseurship and collection of calligraphy and painting.This paper contends that Sun Chengze’s artistic concepts are generated under his unique political,spatial,and intellectual background.Through continuous revision and improvement of his collection,evaluation,and dating activities,a complete conceptual system of categories,methods,and propositions has finally been formed,as well as unique views on style,emotions,reality,nature,and methodology.The author insists on taking “commenting‘Human’by his ‘Word’ and‘World’” as the theoretical foundation and comprehensively applying Marxist Literary Theory and sociological analysis methods.In this way,this paper not only examines all of Sun Chengze’s academic works,but conducts an in-depth analysis of his life,learning experience,and political and cultural environment,so as to specify the origin of Sun Chengze’s artistic concepts,main artistic actions,categories of artistic criticism,and unique artistic propositions.Meanwhile,this paper examines the impact of Sun Chengze’s artistic concepts on the Qing Dynasty and later generations,thereby to sort out the complete system of Sun Chengze’s artistic concepts.According to the study,under the influence of the academic atmosphere of transformation from the virtual to the real in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty,some traces of Confucianism can be found from his artistic proposition.In Sun Chengze’s creative style,he favors the graceful bearing of Jin and Tang dynasties and the elegance of antiquity;in terms of emotional perception,he emphasizes simplicity,innocence,and seclusion;as for the viewpoint of virtuality or reality,he has the characteristic of valuing reality and pursuing change;in his perception of object,he attaches importance to “morale” with the tendency of gentlemen to “not be distracted by trivial things”;while in his methodological view,he focuses on meticulous research and comprehensive study.The main structure is divided into five chapters,a total of seven sections.In the introduction section,the origin,theoretical basis,research framework,and other contents of the question are expounded,and the motivation and main program of the research are described.Chapter One focuses on the analysis of the origins of Sun Chengze’s artistic concept,including three categories: political origin,spatial origin,and knowledge origin.Chapter Two analyzes his artistic actions through collection activities,appreciation activities,and social activities,presenting the characteristics of various activities.Chapter Three and Four are the key contents of this study.An in-depth discussion of Sun Chengze’s art criticism is at first conducted from six categories: antiquity,elegance,pleasure,rhyme,excellency,and vigor,so as to explain his artistic concept system from five perspectives: style,emotion,substantiality,antiquity,and methodology.Chapter Five elaborates on the social influence of Sun Chengze’s artistic concept from two aspects: historical status and social impact.Finally,an analysis of shortcomings of this study is presented in the conclusion section,and thoughts on the next step of research are proposed.