According to Engels's thoughts in "Feuerbach and the End of German Classical Philosophy", higher ideology is connected to the economic foundation through "intermediate links". Therefore, it can be sai

According to Engels's thoughts in "Feuerbach and the End of German Classical Philosophy", higher ideology is connected to the economic foundation through "intermediate links". Therefore, it can be said that art, a higher social ideology, is different from the "intermediate links" such as politics, law, and morality, but it is closely related, especially the relationship with politics is more direct and close. In the past, the "Gang of Four" distorted the relationship between art and politics to mean that art should serve their specific counter-revolutionary policies, which was extremely absurd and harmful in theory and practice. However, if we deny the close relationship between art and politics and say that "when the Communist Party takes power... the slogan that literature and art serve politics will gradually be exposed as the next unscientific and dangerous slogan", in It is equally absurd and harmful in theory as in practice. A large number of facts in the history of Chinese and foreign art prove that in any class society, progressive and revolutionary art is always determined by rising economic relations through progressive and revolutionary politics, and in turn gives a positive influence to its political and even economic foundations. Influence; while backward, reactionary art is determined by backward economic relations through backward, reactionary politics, and in turn serves its political and even economic foundation. This is an inevitable and internal connection that occurs repeatedly between the various phenomena of the two social ideologies of art and politics. It is also a basic principle that we must pay attention to when examining the nature of art. As a higher social ideology, art also has some inevitable internal connections and essential differences with philosophy and religion. It is these internal connections and essential differences that show the essence of art. Art, philosophy, and religion always influence each other. As a world view, philosophy always plays a certain guiding role in artistic creation activities. Today, there are artists who create under the guidance of the Marxist worldview, there are artists who create under the guidance of Chernyshevsky’s humanistic worldview, and there are also artists who create under the guidance of Croce’s intuitionistic worldview or Sartre’s existentialism. Artists who create based on their worldview. The "subconscious" theory of the Freudian school of psychoanalysis, as a philosophical thought or world view, guides some artists to strive to express "a strange dream" and "mysterious mixed phantoms". There is probably no art that is not guided by a certain worldview and does not reflect certain philosophical thoughts. Religion affects art under specific historical conditions, and art also reflects certain religious concepts, such as European medieval Gothic churches, Dunhuang Buddha Jataka paintings from the Northern Wei Dynasty, etc. Hegel once said: "Religion often uses art to make us feel the truth of religion better, or to illustrate religious truth with images to facilitate imagination; in this case, art is indeed doing something different from it. A ministry of service." These words do say something about the relationship between art and religion.

However, art is fundamentally different from philosophy and religion after all. Their respective contents and objects are different, and they understand or reflect the real world in different ways. The way philosophy understands or reflects the world is highly generalized, completely abstract, and fundamentally far away from the actual world. The content of its understanding requires truth (although it may not be true, such as idealist philosophy, which is hypocritical). Although religious ways of understanding or reflecting the world sometimes have concrete images and appeal to sensibility, they are completely false, have no authenticity, and fundamentally reverse reality. Therefore "all religions are but the imaginary reflection in people's minds of the external forces that govern their daily lives, in which the human forces take the form of superhuman forces." The way and content of art understanding or reflecting the world is completely different from the way and content of philosophy and religion understanding or reflecting the world. It is these differences that make art art, not philosophy, not religion. We believe that the essential characteristics of art lie in its authenticity, image and typicality.

First of all, the cognitive content of art requires authenticity, and art requires a true reflection of the objective world or social life. In terms of authenticity or distortion, art is consistent with philosophy or science, but it is fundamentally different from religion.

All idealist aesthetics deny or oppose art's true understanding of the objective world and reflection of real life. French Catholic philosopher Maridan said: "Requiring art to describe reality as its main purpose destroys art... If art is understanding If the method is used, it will be much worse than geometry. "Nowadays, some young comrades are also keen to spread these subjective idealism things, misinterpreting the essence of art as subjective "self-expression", and at the same time saying that art "does not need to be understood". , "It does not need to be like other things to be valuable." It fundamentally denies the cognitive role of art and the truth of artistic cognition, denies that art can comprehensively reflect social life, and believes that art can only express their abstract reality that does not exist. Only "self" has the so-called "value". This is a nonsense thought, which actually confuses art with religion (subjective idealism leads to religion). On this issue, the objective idealist Hegel seems to see it more clearly than they do: "The form of religious consciousness is the idea, because it absolutely leaves the objectivity of art and turns to the inner life of the subject, which is presented in a subjective way. Concepts, so mind and emotions, that is, inner subjectivity, have become the basic elements. "As for some people who want to replace Marxism with Sartre's existentialism, they use "the essence of human beings, the meaning of existence, and the value of existence must be determined by people's own actions. It is not just a matter of artistic thought to use the theory of "to prove and determine" to correct the theory that "human essence is not an abstract thing inherent in a single person. In its reality, it is the sum of all social relations." We acknowledge the cognitive role of art and that art should truly reflect social life or describe real life. This is based on the Marxist theory of the relationship between the economic base and superstructure of society. Without the actual social life of human beings and the objective world itself, the so-called essential meaning of art is as illusory and nihilistic as religion. We do not deny the self-expression in art. Art is created by people based on their understanding of beauty in reality and in accordance with the laws of beauty. This naturally involves the issue of artistic expression. What we call artistic expression means that the artist uses material expression tools to convey his understanding of the art of real life as well as his feelings and emotions when he understands it. Of course there is a "self" here, but this "self" comes from real life and has a rational understanding of the nature of real life.

Secondly, the way art understands or reflects the world is always concrete, appeals to sensibility, individual forms, and is essentially similar to the form of the actual world. In terms of imageability, art and religion have both differences and similarities, and the situation is relatively complicated. Although some Buddha statues in the Dunhuang Grottoes have physical forms, they are just the materialization of abstract religious concepts. Although they have historical value, they have no artistic value; while some Bodhisattva statues or donor figures are quite vivid and have a high artistic level. But this does not mean that religion can be equated with art. Just as Feuerbach said: "For a person who regards Mary as the object of his art, Mary is no longer an object of religion, but an object of art." Otherwise, he would not have the courage, strength and freedom to release her from the iconography of his religious emotions and religious ideas, to separate her from himself, to leave her from that very mysterious place that has no clear outlines and clear shapes. , moved within the scope of secular and perceptual intuition. "

Imagery is an important essential feature of art. Without concrete and perceptible images, there is no art. The fundamental difference between art and philosophy or science is that philosophy or science uses abstract conceptual thinking (abstract thinking) to understand or reflect the real world in the form of a theoretical system; while art uses concrete conceptual thinking (image thinking). Understand or reflect the real world in the form of an image system. As for scientific illustrations, specimens, models, etc., although they have images, they are not an understanding of the image of the world. They are just using images as abstract illustrations of understanding. All conceptual works are not lacking in images, but they are not art in essence, and this is the reason why. There is a popular saying recently called "abstract beauty", which is probably subjectively made up by the author, because so far we have not seen concepts like "abstract beauty" or "abstract beauty" in Chinese aesthetics or Western aesthetics.

Beauty does not equal art, but art cannot be without beauty. The essence of beauty is related to the essence of art. If the theory of "abstract beauty" can be established, that is to say, art can be abstract, can be "imageless", and "do not express the image of a specific objective object." Beauty must be figurative in nature. No matter social beauty, natural beauty or artistic beauty, there can be no beauty without resorting to perceptual images. Any abstraction that is far away from the actual form cannot arouse people's sense of beauty. Conceptualists in the history of aesthetics such as Hegel also admitted that in order to achieve beauty, his so-called "idea" must be a "perceptual manifestation". All materialist aestheticians have never retreated from the aspect of the image of beauty. The "vivid charm" proposed by Xie He, an esthetician of the Six Dynasties, is indeed an expression of the essence of beauty, but it has nothing to do with "abstract beauty", but is closely related to the concrete image of objects. As for art like calligraphy, which uses lines, structures, etc. as its main means of expression, it is not a "base camp of abstract beauty". It is also obvious that it appeals to sensibility. Achieved calligraphers often draw from the images of real life. Nutrition, with its artistic twists and turns, expresses these images or images that evoke associations. Of course, there are many formal factors in the art of calligraphy. We can admit the beauty of artistic expressions, and we can also admit that the beauty of artistic expressions has its relative independence, but we cannot agree with the fallacy of "abstract beauty".

Typicality is the third essential characteristic of art, and it is also the most important one. The typical problem is one of the core issues in aesthetics. No matter whether "typical" and "beauty" are equated or not, the essence of beauty (at least the essence of artistic beauty) is always linked to the typical problem. This is a domestic problem. It is recognized by all the major aesthetic schools and has documented evidence. Exploring typical issues in art can help us further understand the nature and characteristics of art.

The understanding or reflection of the world through art, relative to its subjectivity, is on the one hand a perceptual understanding of world phenomena, and on the other hand a rational understanding of the nature of the world through understanding. Understanding is the unity of the two. In the entire process of artistic understanding, these two are always indispensable. Without the former, the concrete image will be lost (philosophical understanding will eventually abandon the former); without the latter, the truth of understanding will be lost. (The understanding of religion lacks the latter.) The latter is always synthesized, summarized, concentrated, and improved on the basis of the former. This way of understanding the world through art is a typical way of understanding, and the result of understanding is the formation of the concept of beauty, that is, the formation of typical images. It is different from "aesthetic understanding" or "aesthetic evaluation" in both the connotation and extension of the concept.

The authenticity of art, relative to its objectivity, is on the one hand the reality of phenomena, on the other hand it is the reality of essence, and the reality of the unity of phenomenon and essence. Without the former, art would not be a concrete perceptible image; without the latter, art would not be able to grasp the essential laws of real life. Only art that fully expresses the essence of things with very prominent phenomena and powerfully embodies the universality of real life with very distinctive images can be highly real art. This is the typicality of art. Some people try to deny typicality and regard it only as a characteristic of realist creative methods, and use this as an argument to prove their argument that "realism is not the only correct way." This view is completely wrong. Typology is universal in art. Whether it is realist art or romantic art, by its nature, it is typical. Isn’t the romantic art masterpiece “The God of Liberty Leading the People” typical? Isn't it the very prominent image of "freedom in reality" that fully reflects the essential significance of the French Revolution of July 1830? The typicality of art is determined by the inevitability of art reflecting real life. Art reflects reality and pursues truth, and the truth of artistic images is the model of art. This is also the fundamental characteristic why art is art and why it is different from philosophy and religion.