develop
The development of aesthetics in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties is generally related to three aspects in turn, namely, character interest, metaphysical discussion and the establishment of literary criticism. Since the end of the Han Dynasty, the so-called "personal taste algae" is to recommend talents to rulers through the evaluation of public opinion. This evaluation, due to various circumstances at that time, gradually developed into not only looking at the moral integrity of the characters, but also attaching great importance to talent, wisdom and adaptability. Liu Shao's People's Tales is a systematic theoretical work of this kind of evaluation. After the prosperity of aristocratic families in the Jin Dynasty, people's articles evolved into comments on characters' personality, temperament and talent. It can be clearly seen from Shi Shuo Xin Yu that this evaluation is not only political, ethical, but also aesthetic, and the latter occupies a very important position. This situation has had a profound impact on the development of various literary aesthetic thoughts, which made the aesthetic thoughts in this period often observe aesthetic and artistic issues from the perspectives of people's inner character, temperament, talent and unique psychological feelings, thus seeing the characteristics of aesthetics and art more profoundly than the previous generation. For example, Cao Pi (187 ~ 226) said that "literature should be based on qi" in Dian Lun Papers, which emphasized the relationship between a writer's personality, temperament and talent and his writing style and achievements, which was quite different from the moral cultivation previously emphasized by Mencius and Yang Xiong. Zhong Rong (? ~ about 5 18), poetry, like Preface to Mao Poetry in Han Dynasty, thinks that poetry is the expression of emotion, but it emphasizes the expression of various psychological feelings of individual "swaying temperament", rather than the relationship between poetry and political gains and losses, and the abolition of kingliness. In painting, Gu Kaizhi in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (about 346 ~ 407) put forward the principle of "conveying the spirit with form", Sheikh in the Southern Qi Dynasty put forward the principle of "conveying the spirit" (see the Record of Ancient Paintings), and Wang Sengqian in the Southern Qi Dynasty (about 426 ~ 485) advocated "the beauty of writing, the supremacy of spirit, and the second place of form and quality" in calligraphy theory, all of which were clear. Taking beauty and art as inseparable things from individual spirit, temperament and psychology is a remarkable feature of aesthetic thought in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and it is also a place where it has made great progress compared with aesthetics in pre-Qin and Han Dynasties.
affect
The rise of metaphysics in Wei and Jin Dynasties had a far-reaching influence on the aesthetic thought at that time. The emergence of metaphysics is closely related to the emergence of Confucian crisis in the late Han Dynasty and the literati's sadness about life caused by social unrest. Its core is to try to explore the value and ideal of life from the philosophical ontology. The two debates in metaphysics about whether "Ming Jiao" is consistent with "nature" and whether "speech" and "image" can be "perfect" are closely related to aesthetics, although they are not directly directed at aesthetic issues. The former involves the relationship between ethics and aesthetics, while the latter involves the difference between aesthetics, art and theoretical understanding. In addition, under the influence of metaphysics, specialized aesthetic papers with rigorous theoretical speculation have appeared, such as Ji Kang's On Sound without Sorrow and Music, which systematically demonstrates that the essence of musical beauty lies in "the harmony of nature". The late development of metaphysics in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties was related to Buddhism introduced from India, which had an impact on aesthetics in Eastern Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. For example, the relationship between spirit and flesh, that is, the debate between "spirit" and "shape", directly affected the painting theory at that time; The word "vivid" put forward by Gu Kaizhi comes from Buddhism; Zong Bing (375 ~ 443), who advocated the immortal theory, put forward the viewpoints of "landscape luring Tao by shape" and "God is dead, born with a sense of class, and reason enters the shadow" in his Preface to Painting Mountains and Rivers, trying to make a philosophical explanation of the nature of natural beauty.
The upper intelligentsia attached importance to aesthetic and artistic issues, and the development of people, things and metaphysics strongly promoted the evaluation of various literary theories in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. During this period, a series of theoretical and systematic works were produced, such as Lu Ji's Wen Fu, Liu Xie's Wen Xin Diao Long, Zhong Rong's Shi Pin and Xie He's Gu Hua Tu Lu. The concrete theory of China's ancient literature and art was basically established in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. These theories put forward many important aesthetic principles and deepened and developed the ancient aesthetics of China by explaining and summarizing the artistic phenomena such as creation, appreciation, skills and techniques.