On Su Shi "meaning-based" Art Aesthetic

The thought of taking "sense" as the nature of literature and art can be considered the kernel in Chinese traditional aesthetics. This paper is intended to try something useful for Chinese traditional aesthetics through analyzing Sushi's theory on sense. In this paper, I traced back to a long period of time from "xianqin" to Song Dynasty, intending to find out the source of Sushi's theory on "sense" in such fields as poetry, prose, calligraphy and drawing.In order to understand Sushi's theory on sense deeply and exactly, we should analyze the meaning of the word "sense" in Sushi's theory at first. With the way of thinking called "weitao", I analyzed the thought of heaven and human going as one , the thought of monism of air and the relationship between Sushi and Confucianism .Buddhism and Taoist school. Then I reidentified Sushi's world outlook and methodology. In his opinion, the human being and all the substance got entangled with each other and formed an integrant and organic world. But this world was not changeless or in other word, it did not mean different units only gathered together with their own independent properties. Because the "air" changes all the time, the whole world changes correspondingly, all the rules and meanings come into being immediately and there are not any changeless attributes at all.If we look back to Sushi's art theory according to this new world outlook and methodology, his "sense" will emerge different meanings from what most scholars have understood nowadays. Firstly, it's the way in which the integrant and organic world presents itself and which human being comprehends and grasps the same world. Secondly, it is different from Plato's "idea" which was merely a rigid and abstract property. On the contrary, it is just like a chemistry reaction without a single moment stillness. But up to now the most common interpretation is only looking Sushi's "sense" as a man's subjective idea and emotion. This interpretation is based on the way of thinking called "weixue" which puts subject and object in an opposite way. In comparison we can see, the latter interpretation emerges when a man has a relationship with particular things and views them as objects, while the former interpretation which means a man, as a part of the world, experiences it directly from inside can be true only when a man links closely with all things and even more, they embody each other; the latter one belongs to theory of knowledgewhile the former one belongs to ontology; Although both kinds of interpretation involves mental activities including perceptual or rational, conscious or unconscious, they are still different greatly in a range way. That is to say, the latter one only comes from a man's mingling with particular things while the former one also means one should surpass the mingling itself, then experience the whole world, including himself, as a inseparable body.Of course, the thought about "sense" was not Sushi's invention but underwent a long way. But undoubtedly it is he who contributed much more to descendants. He developed his own theory system on "sense" based on what he had learned about concerned things from the period of "Xianqin" to Song Dynasty. Firstly, he put "sense" on an ontological position and analyzed its meanings in different levels. Secondly, he advocated a new idea, that was, Tao went with skill. In other words, before we arrived at the highest realm of "sense", we still had a long way to go both in mentality and in skill. Thirdly, he advocated splendidness came after splendor, which showed the external form of the highest "sense" and revealed its mobility trait.In one word, it is Sushi ,a versatile artist, who made the theory about "sense" mature in a real sense. So we should never forget his contributions to us.