How many things there are, how many images there are "; /kloc-A. Rodin, a realistic sculptor in the 0/9th century, said: "The only principle in art is to copy what you see. "A large number of works of art in Chinese and foreign history, such as landscapes, flowers and birds, figure paintings in the Tang and Song Dynasties, Greece, Renaissance, neoclassicism, realism, etc., all adopted the technique of reproduction or emphasized reproduction, which is characterized by the leading role of perceptual reality and calm rationality, as well as strict observation techniques.
It is the main trend in the history of art for artists to pursue true reproduction. Their works have unique aesthetic charm and broad mass base. Reproduction in art is not a mechanical reflection of reality, nor a purely objective reproduction of reality, but an artist uses material media such as lines, colors, bronze and marble to reflect the reality he knows according to the law of beauty. Reproduction in art is inseparable from the artist's understanding, selection, refining, processing and transformation, which embodies the artist's purpose and essence.
Generally speaking, performance refers to the artist's direct expression of his emotional experience and aesthetic ideal through artistic means. Rational and perceptual factors are more obvious. In terms of creative techniques, he emphasizes the ideal expression of things or abandons concreteness, pursues extrasensory content and concepts, and adopts artistic languages such as symbol, implication, exaggeration, deformation and even abstraction to break through the experience habit of feeling. In the creative tendency, it focuses on self-expression, changing objects and expressing ideals. Artistic expression has the characteristics of shocking, high generalization and not seeking similarity. Since the Song Dynasty, China's literati painting began to focus on the expression of subjective feelings instead of the real representation of objective reality. Su Shi opposed the theory of painting with images and advocated "meaning in things"; Ni Zan said, "The so-called painter is just a sketchy brushwork, not seeking shape" and "talking about writing breasts and ears"; Shi Tao emphasized that "what I do is my own existence" and "I write everything in the world with pen and ink, but Tao Yong cares about me". Western art has developed from romanticism in the19th century to modern schools.
They all emphasize subjectivity, individuality, emotion and self-expression. E. Delacroix thinks that "the expression of emotion should be put in the first place" in painting, and the painter "should express it according to his own temperament"; H Matisse said that "the first thing I try to achieve is performance" and "my road is to constantly look for the possibility of performance other than truthful imitation"; Expressionist artists emphasize a sense of straightforwardness and express subjective consciousness. For example, Koelsch Nye said, "My paintings are metaphors, not imitations. Form and color are not their own beauty, but only created through the will of the mind. " The expression techniques in artistic creation are characterized by the leading role of rational ideas and strong emotions, free creation, not bound by existing techniques and greater randomness.
Performance adapts to the general trend of western modernist art and has a great influence on the development of modern art. In fact, the expression of the subject is an indispensable factor in artistic creation. Any artistic work expresses the artist's subjective thoughts and feelings, personality, subjective consciousness and aesthetic evaluation and ideal of social life to varying degrees.
Relationship in calligraphy, arts and crafts and architecture, artists do not need to simulate external objects and reproduce reality from external shapes, colors or ornamentation, but can directly affirm themselves emotionally from the external forms of their works by freely applying the law of formal beauty, showing certain emotions, styles, aesthetic tastes and aesthetic ideals. In painting and sculpture, reproduction can't be completely absent, and reproduction can't be completely divorced from reproduction. They either achieve perfect unity or have different degrees of emphasis, but they do not offset each other one by one. Reproduction and expression, as two basic means and methods in artistic creation, have no advantages or disadvantages, and can adapt to the needs and characteristics of different times, societies, genres, themes, styles and interests respectively.
The terms "expression" and "expression" are sometimes used to express the general inherent characteristics of works of different artistic types or styles. For example, "calligraphy is the art of expression, and painting is the art of reproduction"; "Western painting is representation, while eastern painting is expression"; Classical art is representation, while modern art is expression.
For example:
The film and television work Tangshan Earthquake
Painting "guernica" Picasso from World War II.
They are all based on real life and artistic processing. Pay attention to the expression of the theme and deepen the center. Reflect social problems.
Reproduction is based on real events, and expression is the sublimation and refinement of real things by artists. The two are still organically unified.
Art, fine arts
A social ideology is a special way for people to master the world spiritually, and it is an organic part of human spiritual civilization. The concept of art generally has three meanings: ① refers to the skills of human activities, including all unnatural objects; (2) refers to all kinds of creation according to the law of beauty, including all kinds of practical products with aesthetic factors and all kinds of artistic creation; (3) refers to painting, sculpture, architecture, music, dance, drama, literature and other works of art.. Any artistic work, with an artistic image shaped by some artificial material medium, appeals to people's perceptual experience and exchanges people's thoughts and feelings, which directly affects people's psychology and mental outlook.
The essential characteristics of art in the history of aesthetics, there are different views and theories about the aesthetic essential characteristics of art.
Among the three main theories about the essential characteristics of aesthetics, the most influential and representative ones are: ① Representative theory. Art is an imitation of nature or a representation of reality. Aristotle systematically put forward for the first time that art imitates nature, and artists "imitate various personalities, feelings and actions through gestures and rhythms", giving people "the pleasure of knowing". From the perspective of the "mirror" theory in the Renaissance, the art of D Diderot and G·E· Lessing in the Enlightenment should be based on the natural and transcendental artistic views. In the19th century, belinsky and Chernyshevski in Russia put forward that "art is a copy of reality and beauty". On the relationship between art and reality, this theory adheres to the materialistic epistemology principle that art comes from real life, and emphasizes that art has the cognitive function of revealing the essence of life through perceptual images. However, because the old materialists don't understand the essence of social practice and its decisive role in understanding, their views on art are basically based on perceptual intuition, so they can't really scientifically reveal the dynamic dialectical relationship between art and reality, and can't fully clarify the aesthetic characteristics that distinguish art from other ideologies. ② Theory of the origin of artistic spirit. This theoretical school believes that art comes from the spiritual world and is "the expression of absolute concept". Plato followed the representative theory of ancient Greece, but reversed the relationship between matter and spirit, thinking that the real world is an imitation of the conceptual world, while art is an imitation of imitation and a shadow. German classical aesthetics further explores the origin of art from the "spiritual kingdom". Although they misinterpreted the relationship between art and reality, they developed art into a dynamic aspect of human free creative activities, and profoundly explored and revealed the dialectical unity relationship between subject and object, perceptual form and rational content in art. Modern bourgeois aesthetics mostly abandoned the Hegelian dialectics, advocated subjective idealism and irrationalism, and described art as the product of special intelligence of "genius" characters, "lyric intuition", the expression of subconscious instinct and desire, and so on. In this way, the spiritual activities of art are separated from people's objective practical activities, and the cognitive function and ideological education function of art are distorted and denied. (3) Formalistic artistic view. This school of theory holds that the aesthetic value of art lies in the form itself and has nothing to do with any rational understanding or emotional expression. Modern formalism aesthetics inherits and develops Kant's view that pure beauty lies only in form, not in content, and holds that the value of artistic works lies not in content, but in the organic combination of lines, colors or volumes and the relationship between proportion, symmetry and harmony. Although formalism aesthetics emphasizes the important role of formal beauty and feeling in art, it cuts off the connection between art and social life by separating and opposing form and content.
There are different opinions on the essence of art, on the one hand, because theorists of different schools take different philosophical positions, and on the other hand, because they focus on different kinds of art and creative methods when defining the essential characteristics of art, such as painting, sculpture or expressive music and poetry, and emphasize classical art or romanticism and realism. Because the structure of art itself is multi-level and multi-functional, it is impossible to grasp the essence of art as a whole by emphasizing or highlighting any aspect or function. Therefore, scientific aesthetics must be based on the basic viewpoints and methods of Marxism, critically absorb the reasonable components of classical aesthetic heritage and modern aesthetic theory, conduct a systematic and comprehensive study of the complex and complete structure of art, and further explore and reveal the essential characteristics of art.
As a social ideology, the basic art that determines its essential characteristics is the product of a certain social life reflected in people's minds. Art, like other social ideologies such as science and ethics, comes from real life, actively reflects social existence, positively affects people's spiritual world, and reacts to people's practical activities to transform the objective world. However, as an aesthetic activity to meet people's special spiritual needs, art has its particularity in content and form. As Marx pointed out, art is a special way for people to master the world, and the theoretical way for people to master the world is "different from artistic, religious and practical-spiritual mastery of the world" (Selected Works of Marx and Engels, vol. 2, p. 104). As an ideological thing, the essential characteristics of art, which is different from other ideologies, first depend on the unity of the particularity of the object it reflects and the particularity of the way of mastering. Although the object reflected by art is a unified objective world, it is a special aspect of the objective world, that is, concrete life phenomena with various aesthetic characteristics, which are formed on the basis of social and historical practice and can arouse people's general interest. In a sense, art has its special object of reflection, that is, vivid and complete social life, which is the unity of the essence of human society and its colorful concrete manifestations. Therefore, people in society and their inner world will always be the central object of artistic reflection. Even the natural scenery depicted in works of art has a different reflection angle and significance from the research object in natural science. This description of natural scenery is not only a direct representation of some natural attributes and characteristics of nature itself, but also an indirect expression of people's social life and spiritual outlook. It can meet people's special aesthetic requirements for art and make people affirm themselves in the object world not only through thinking, but also with all their feelings. This particularity of aesthetic object fundamentally determines that art must grasp real life from the unity of essence and phenomenon, reproduction and expression.
As a special way to master the world, the art of revealing the essence of life by images is characterized by revealing the essence of life in the form of concrete and vivid artistic images and image systems instead of reflecting the essential laws of the objective world in the form of abstract concepts, categories and theoretical systems like science. Artistic image is a special means for art to reflect social life, and it is a special way to grasp social life completely from the organic unity of essence and phenomenon, individual and general. Artistic thinking is creative thinking in images. Although the artist's grasp of the essence of life must be deepened from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge, this thinking process has never been divorced from the concrete image feeling and emotional experience of things. The result is not to summarize abstract concepts and theoretical systems, but to summarize a typical image or artistic conception with distinctive personality characteristics that shows the essence of life through the selection, refining and concentration of life materials. Therefore, the artistic thinking in images mediated by emotional experience is a process of essence and individualization. When the real life is transformed into an artistic image through the artist's creation, it is also more typical, ideal and universal. In the history of aesthetics, this point has been emphasized from Aristotle's emphasis that "the things described in poetry are universal" to Hegel's theory of artistic beauty.
Another basic feature of art's positive reflection of reality is that the artistic image is not only a summary of the aesthetic characteristics of real life, but also an expression of the artist's aesthetic feelings about reality. Its content is the organic unity of objectivity and subjectivity, reproducibility and expressiveness. As the materialized form of aesthetic consciousness, artistic works are produced in the interaction between creative subject and aesthetic object. When artists choose, refine and summarize life materials, they have to show their understanding, evaluation and ideals of life. The artist's creative psychological activities should first reflect the objective things in the form of perception and highlight the image characteristics of the object, and this perceptual factor is closely combined with imagination and restricted by it. This creative imagination not only reproduces ready-made things, but also creates new images. Imagination in artistic thinking is different from imagination in scientific thinking, which has strong emotional factors and promotes the free development and expression of emotional activities. In China's ancient poetry theory and painting theory, it was called the realm of "scene blending". The artist's rational understanding of the nature of life does not appear in his works in the form of abstract concepts and logical reasoning, but is contained and infiltrated in the interaction and integration of factors such as perception, imagination and emotion. Therefore, Engels said that "the tendency of his works should be naturally revealed from the scenes and plots, and should not be specifically pointed out" (Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 4, page 454). Artistic image is not only a concentrated and generalized reflection of the essential characteristics of life phenomena, but also contains the artist's thoughts, feelings and aesthetic ideals; The expression of artists' subjective feelings and thoughts often reflects and condenses the universal thoughts, feelings and aesthetic ideals of people of a certain era and class. In the history of human art, all true arts not only reproduce objective reality, but also express subjective ideals. In this sense, realism and romanticism are essential factors in art.
Unity of Practical Mastery and Spiritual Mastery Because the artistic image formed in the artist's mind needs to be embodied by certain materials and means, it can become the actual aesthetic object that people watch, so artistic activity is also a practical creative activity. As a kind of spiritual production, art has both connections and differences with material production. The connection between artistic production and material production lies in that they are both purposeful perceptual activities of human beings, and they are both objectification processes from subjective to objective. It is also a creative activity carried out by people "according to the law of beauty". However, artistic activities are not only different from material production activities with the direct purpose of meeting people's material needs, but also different from scientific experimental activities with the purpose of grasping objective truth in theoretical form or exploring effective practical activities. Although productive labor and scientific creation contain certain aesthetic factors to varying degrees, these factors do not constitute the basic purpose of these activities and the main value of their products. Artistic beauty is the reflection of realistic beauty and the product of artists' creative activities to meet the needs of social aesthetic spirit. Artistic creation is a unified process in which artists form artistic images in their ideas through positive reflection on life, and on the other hand, through the use, processing and production of certain material materials, the artistic images in their ideas are transformed into practical works of art that can be specifically perceived. Therefore, artistic creation is both aesthetic creation and aesthetic reflection, which combines people's practice and spiritual grasp of the world. Although artistic beauty is the product of this practical activity, its essence is a dynamic reflection of the objective world.
Artistic works and social functional artistic works are the central links of artistic creation and artistic appreciation, and are also the basic components of the artistic and cultural system. Any artistic work is made up of vivid, concrete and complete artistic images or artistic image systems. Its content consists of some aspects and phenomena of life that artists choose, refine and process, and is dominated by artists' understanding, evaluation and emotional attitude towards these phenomena. The form of artistic works includes two closely related aspects: one is the internal connection and organization of the factors that constitute the artistic image system; The second is the composition of some material means to convey artistic image. Every original work of art is a unique and complete "artistic world" created by the artist creatively using certain artistic means and skills on the basis of artistic discovery and generalization of real life. In the history of aesthetics, from Schelling, Hegel to belinsky, they all emphasized that the integrity of works of art is the organic unity of content and form.
The value of artistic works is formed in the historical process of social practice, which comprehensively embodies the interaction of various functions in human aesthetic activities. Judging from the relationship between subject and object in aesthetic activities, artistic works, as a life model conceived by artists-image system, are a kind of material structure created by artists by using some materials such as sound, lines, colors, body and language. It is not only a simulation of reality, but also a deformation of reality, so the truth of art is often the organic unity of hypothesis and reality. Art not only reflects information but also creates factors of production. Judging from the relationship between individuals and society in artistic activities, art not only reflects the objective social life, but also expresses individuals' subjective psychology, which has certain social significance. In works of art, it not only shows the artist's creative personality and emotional attitude, but also reflects the internal relationship between the creator and the appreciator. The process of accepting works is a process in which the appreciator re-creates and re-evaluates the image created by the artist, and it is also a process in which the appreciator and the author's thoughts and feelings are aroused, thus effectively exerting the social aesthetic and educational functions of works of art ... Therefore, art has a connection between personal psychology and social communication. The interaction of the above aspects forms different levels of art in functional sense, such as evaluation, education, information transmission, entertainment and other functions. The artistic value of the work is formed in the interaction and mutual penetration of various functions at the above levels. The special social function of art lies in realizing its cognitive function, evaluation function and ideological education function through its aesthetic function. Art is a way to fully influence and educate people with a complete life experience that combines truth, goodness and beauty.
Studying the origin and historical development of art is of great significance to reveal the essential characteristics of art, which has always been valued by aestheticians of various schools. In German classical aesthetics, J.C.F von Schiller linked the origin of art and beauty with people's game impulse, and made a historical investigation and theoretical summary of the development of European cultural and artistic thoughts from the perspective of the relationship between man and nature and individual and society in the historical development of mankind. Hegel's research on art history not only affirmed that art is a historical phenomenon of development, but also saw for the first time that this development has an internal and essential connection with the development of world history. In his aesthetics, this magnificent view of history is everywhere. However, the real causality of historical development was reversed because of his objective idealism, and the development of art was interpreted as the stage of absolute spiritual development. The positivist aesthetics after Hegel emphasizes the study of art from experience. In modern western aesthetics, based on the methodological principles of sociology, folklore, ethnology, archaeology and cultural anthropology, various empirical, genetic and historical studies on the origin and development of art have emerged. For example, in the study of the origin of art, some people put forward that art originated from games from a physiological and psychological point of view, some used anthropological methods to find the origin of art from the cultural customs of primitive people, and some explored the origin of art from the labor of primitive people, and so on. Sociological aesthetics emphasizes that all artistic phenomena are explained by social environment, and race, environment and times are the basic conditions that determine the formation and development of an art. Although these studies have opened up the fields and ways of aesthetic research and provided a lot of valuable materials, it is impossible to scientifically explain the social ideological essence of art and the basic laws of its development because its philosophical methodology is limited to historical idealism and empiricism.
The historical materialism founded by Marx provides a methodological basis for the scientific view of art history. It requires the explanation of history from the social material living conditions, and the explanation of the origin and development of various social ideologies including art; People think that material production is the most basic practical activity of human beings, which determines all other activities. As a special spiritual activity, the origin and essence of art can only be explored from the basic practice of human beings. A large number of materials about primitive art provided by anthropology and archaeology prove that the initial aesthetic consciousness and artistic activities of human beings are directly produced on the basis of productive labor and are determined and restricted by production practice. Primitive people intuitively realized their own strength and life in the process of material production, in labor tools, hunting objects and the surrounding living environment, and experienced the aesthetic pleasure in the bud. Primitive dance related to imitating labor activities, primitive music related to labor rhythm and language development, and plastic arts related to making labor tools have appeared one after another, which embodies the budding aesthetic consciousness of primitive people in a materialized form. Primitive art still maintains a direct practical and utilitarian relationship with the object, and then obtains some independent aesthetic value. Primitive people's artistic activities are often mixed with ideas or activities such as totem, myth, religion and witchcraft, and they are influenced by them. Primitive art has such characteristics, which was also caused by the low productivity and primitive lifestyle at that time.
With the further development of productive forces, on the basis of social division of labor, especially manual labor and mental labor, art, as a relatively independent spiritual production activity, has been separated from material production and has become an activity and object to meet people's aesthetic spiritual needs. As a relatively independent social ideology, the development and evolution of the content and form of art are ultimately restricted by the economic base of a certain society, and interact with other social ideologies such as politics, law, philosophy, religion and morality, thus reacting to the economic base. In class society, various forms of class struggle have a profound impact on the development of literature and art, restricting and promoting the evolution and replacement of various literary trends and schools. The change of art is ultimately restricted by social changes, but it has its own special laws. The course of art is mainly manifested in the inheritance and innovation of the achievements of human cultural and artistic development in the past, the continuous enrichment, development and change of the methods, means and forms of world art, and the mutual influence, inheritance and replacement of various artistic thoughts, creative methods and styles, thus continuously enriching and developing the treasure house of human artistic culture. However, the development of artistic production and material production often forms an unbalanced relationship. Ancient Greek art will not disappear with the myth, but as the most perfect artistic expression of human childhood development, it has maintained a permanent charm.
The process of art is a tortuous and complicated historical process, which reflects the profound contradictions and conflicts in social development. With the development of capitalist mode of production and the opening of the world market, the spiritual products of all ethnic groups have become the property of the public, expanding and strengthening the mutual influence and exchange between cultures and arts of all ethnic groups. However, capitalist production is hostile to spiritual production such as artistic poetry. Under the condition of capitalism, art is generally commercialized, and literary and art workers become hired laborers. The development of material civilization is accompanied by the decline of spiritual civilization. The contradiction between the development of productive forces in modern society and the development of social art, the contradiction between the great scientific and cultural potential and the realistic spiritual poverty, has reached an unprecedented acute level in the imperialist stage. This contradiction can only be fundamentally solved in the revolutionary practice of the proletariat in its struggle to liberate itself and all mankind. The scientific socialist theory founded by Marx and Engels reveals the great historical mission of the proletariat, pointing out that only by carrying out socialist revolution, eliminating private ownership, gradually eliminating class and three major differences, and realizing * * * productism can human personality and creativity be fully and freely developed, and human society and art can enter the free kingdom from the inevitable kingdom.
The classification of art and the study of section art The same law and internal structure of art have many forms in its historical process. On the one hand, various types and schools of art have been formed in the evolution history of this form, such as architecture, sculpture, painting, music, dance, literature, drama, film, etc. On the other hand, it forms various specific artistic historical types, such as various artistic trends, schools and styles. There is an internal connection between these two forms of evolution. The dominant artistic thoughts and styles in a certain era often need corresponding forms of expression and means of communication, thus giving priority to different artistic types and genres, such as epics in ancient Greek art, dramas in classical art, poems and music in romantic art, novels in realistic art, etc. Different kinds of art have their own aesthetic characteristics and laws, and at the same time they all follow the same laws, which show the internal structure of the whole art, and on this basis, they are interrelated and infiltrated each other.
In the history of China's aesthetics, scholars of past dynasties put forward many valuable opinions on the classification of art. For example, The Preface to Mao's Poems in Han Dynasty discusses the connection and difference among poetry, song and dance from the organic unity of human aesthetic consciousness and expression means. In Wen Xin Diao Long, Liu Xie further reveals the visual characteristics of artistic thinking of "Emotion moves on things, and words are emotional", and accordingly makes a comprehensive summary and analysis of the historical evolution of literary style. After the Tang Dynasty, with the continuous development of poetry, literature, calligraphy, painting, singing and dancing, artistic theoretical criticism has also developed, and the aesthetic characteristics and internal relations of various arts have been discussed in detail, such as the mutual influence and infiltration between poetry and painting, calligraphy and dance.
In the history of western aesthetics, Aristotle systematically put forward the classification of art for the first time. In laocoon, Lessing further put forward and demonstrated the boundary between poetry and painting, and the difference between language art and plastic arts, and demonstrated it from three aspects: art media, theme and artistic effect of works. For the first time, German classical philosophy examines the classification of art from a systematic philosophical point of view, trying to grasp the aesthetic characteristics of each art as a whole and explore the internal relations and laws of its historical development. For example, according to the relationship between ideal and reality, Schelling divides art into two series: realistic (such as music, painting and sculpture) and ideal (such as lyric poetry, epic poetry and drama poetry). From the viewpoint of the unity of history and logic, Hegel put forward three famous conclusions according to the different forms and stages of artistic concepts and perceptual forms in the historical development: symbolic art (material overwhelms spirit), classical art (harmonious unity of material and spirit) and romantic art (spirit transcends material). Influenced by positivism philosophy, modern aesthetics after Hegel emphasizes starting from subjective experience and utility, or according to the different characteristics of artistic aesthetic representation, or divides art into three categories: space (plastic arts), time (music) and time (poetry). Or according to the different senses of the subject, art can be divided into perceptual (plastic arts, music, simulated movements and dances) and imaginative (epic, lyric and dramatic poems); Or it can be divided into visual arts (plastic arts), auditory arts (music), imaginative arts (literature) and so on. Italy's B Croce and others attribute beauty and art to inner intuition, denying the role of material media in artistic expression, thus fundamentally denying the necessity of artistic classification.
The classification of art can only be judged scientifically by starting from the essential characteristics and internal structure of art and examining the overall performance of the unity of content and form of art. The reason why art is divided into different types depends on the rich and diverse forms of existence of realistic beauty, the ways and methods of artists reflecting reality, and the different means of material communication to shape images. Therefore, it is necessary to grasp the aesthetic characteristics and special laws of different art types and genres from the organic unity of the specific forms of artistic images (time and space, motion and static), the specific feelings of aesthetic subjects and the ways of reflection (vision, hearing, imagination, etc.). ) and the specific means of material communication (shape, color, line, sound, language, etc.). ).