1, Wang Guowei
Wang Guowei (1877— 1927) played an important pioneering role in the spread of western aesthetics. His masterpiece A Dream of Red Mansions can be said to be the first paper in the history of modern aesthetics in China that conforms to western aesthetic standards, so it can be said to be the founder of modern aesthetics in China.
The reason why we regard Wang Guowei as the founder of China's modern aesthetics is not only because of the consideration of time, but also because of aesthetic types. In terms of time, Wang Guowei is one of the pioneers who systematically introduced western aesthetics in the history of modern aesthetics in China, and also the first aesthetician who made important achievements in the field of aesthetics by using western aesthetic methods.
In terms of aesthetic types, Wang Guowei's understanding of aesthetics is typical of modern aesthetics, and China's traditional aesthetics is classified as "non-aesthetics". Especially in the latter sense, we can say that Wang Guowei is the real founder of China's modern aesthetics.
The reason why Wang Guowei's aesthetics belongs to typical modern aesthetics in type is that his aesthetic thoughts conform to the basic concepts of modern aesthetics. The basic feature of modern western aesthetics is to emphasize the separation of aesthetics, art and real life, which leads to independent and self-sufficient aesthetic concepts such as "uninteresting", "game" and "form".
On the basis of inheriting Kant, Schiller, Schopenhauer and other western modern aestheticians, Wang Guowei fully accepted these concepts with typical modern aesthetic characteristics.
2. Cai Yuanpei
19 12, Cai Yuanpei became the education chief of the provisional government of the Republic of China. In his Opinions on Education Policy, he clearly pointed out that the new education policy should transform the five aspects of loyalty to the monarch, respect for Confucius, respect for the public, respect for martial arts and pragmatism in the Qing Dynasty into military education, practical education, civic moral education, world outlook education and aesthetic education.
As this opinion was published by Cai Yuanpei when he was the director of education, it shows that aesthetic education was explicitly included in the national education policy for the first time in the history of education in China.
During the period of 19 17, when Cai Yuanpei became the president of Peking University, he delivered a famous speech "Replacing Religion with Aesthetic Education". This speech aroused great repercussions in the whole country and became the theoretical basis for aesthetics to gain a particularly important position in China's intellectual and educational circles.
Cai Yuanpei not only gave a speech, but also devoted himself to the research and teaching of aesthetics, and became the founder of the discipline construction of aesthetics in China. 192 1 year1October, Cai Yuanpei personally taught aesthetics in Peking University Institute of Philosophy.
In addition to offering aesthetics courses at Peking University, Cai Yuanpei also established painting research societies, calligraphy research societies and music research societies at Peking University, and helped to establish the first batch of art colleges in China's modern education history.
Cai Yuanpei's aesthetics is basically western aesthetics (especially German aesthetics), Kant's aesthetics provides him with the main aesthetic concepts, and psychological experimental aesthetics provides him with scientific empirical methods.
3. Zhu Guangqian
Zhu Guangqian (1897- 1986) is a representative figure of modern aesthetics in China. Zhu Guangqian studied aesthetics in Britain and France for a long time and has a very comprehensive understanding of modern western aesthetics. He is the first aesthetician in the history of China aesthetics to integrate the basic concepts of modern western aesthetics into a complete system. His masterpiece Psychology of Literature and Art (1933) is actually a modern western aesthetic work with its own system.
In this aesthetic system, Zhu Guangqian drew lessons from Croce's intuition, Kant's boring watching, Blau's psychological distance and Lipps's empathy, thus forming a typical modern aesthetic system.
This kind of aesthetics centered on the concepts of "aesthetic indifference" and "art for art's sake" has long been regarded as the orthodoxy of modern aesthetics in China, so Zhu Guangqian is also regarded as the representative of modern aesthetics in China.
It is no exaggeration to say that the publication of Zhu Guangqian's Psychology of Literature and Art marks that China's modern aesthetics has completed the stage of learning from western aesthetics.
4. Zong Baihua
Zong Baihua: Modern Transformation of China's Classical Aesthetics
In the process of learning western aesthetics, China aestheticians did not stop at the level of copying western aesthetics in an all-round way.
With the deepening of their understanding of western aesthetics, they found that China's traditional aesthetics has its own unique charm. It can even be said that in some respects, China's traditional aesthetics is not inferior to western modern aesthetics, and China's traditional aesthetics can make up for the deficiency of western modern aesthetics, and then play its unique role in establishing real-world aesthetics.
Zong Baihua (1897- 1986) developed his aesthetics under such guiding ideology, and he brought China's traditional aesthetics to the height admired and admired by modern western aestheticians.
Zong Baihua began to study the philosophical and aesthetic thoughts of Kant, Schopenhauer and H. Bergson very early, especially influenced by Philosophy of Life. It was inspired by Bergson's philosophy of life that Zong Baihua discovered the unique life spirit of China's aesthetics and even China's ideology and culture.
Zong Baihua was mainly influenced by western thoughts in his early days, especially Darwin, Rodin and Goethe. He understood life as the potential vitality at the lower level of rationality, the origin of all things in the universe, and "movement" or "movement" was its basic feature.
In 1930s, Zong Baihua explored China's philosophy, especially the life view in Zhouyi, and summarized the characteristics of China's philosophy life view as "vividness". Zong Baihua, after comparing the western-style "dynamic" with the Chinese-style "vivid charm", affirmed that the Chinese-style "vivid charm" is the true manifestation of the universe's life ontology, and affirmed that the value of "vivid charm" is higher than that of "dynamic".
Thus, Zong Baihua got a unique understanding of the spirit of life: cosmic life shows the deepest mystery with the strongest gyration. The deepest and strongest rotation in Xuan Ming is neither an external impulse of life in western culture nor a passive concession in China culture as generally understood.
This is an inward or deep expansion. This vitality is not manifested in the conquest of the external world, but in the revelation of the internal meaning and the creation of the realm of "one sand, one world, one flower and one day".
Zong Baihua's contribution to aesthetics lies in: he believes that this life spirit can't be expressed by any logical language, so neither science nor philosophy can successfully express this life spirit; The characteristics of this life spirit determine that it can only be fully expressed in art and aesthetics, thus giving art and aesthetics a special ontological position.
Zong Baihua further believes that the whole China culture is the highest expression of this life spirit, so China culture is a poetic culture and aesthetic culture, not a scientific culture.
The life spirit of China's aesthetics and art revealed by Zong Baihua has been inherited and developed by Xu (1902- 1982). In his masterpiece The Life Spirit of China Art (1977), he made a detailed study on the historical development of the life spirit of China's art.