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As the initiator of the concept of "life aesthetics", in recent years, Liu Yuedi, a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has continued to promote the "life aesthetics" movement. "The Aesthetics of Life Chinese" is his new work, launched by Guangxi Normal University Press. Starting from the concept of "heaven and earth people", this book shows a colorful and interesting aesthetic picture of life Chinese.
From the admiration of intuitive, sensual power and beauty at the time of the Shang Zhou Dynasty, to Confucius's "gentleman" expression in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, to Mencius, Zhuangzi and the "Character History", Wei Jin Fengliu, Tang and Song Fengya, the traditional Chinese character aesthetic ideals and their evaluation standards, after several twists and turns, show the ultimate style in different dimensions, and each time the Chinese aesthetic footprints left behind are enough to remember the "beauty process" that this nation has traveled.
"The Aesthetics of Life in Chinese", by Liu Yuedi, World View | Guangxi Normal University Press
Heaven and earth are one
Aesthetics is a philosophy that explores the aesthetics of life and goes back to the source of time and space of life.
The world's most important view of time is roughly divided into two types: one is linear time, time extends and moves forward, and the other is reincarnation time, which goes back and forth endlessly. The British sinologist Joseph Needham believes that the Chinese view of time is mainly linear and supplemented by reincarnation, but Liu Yuedi believes that Chinese combines the two.
The beauty of the four times is the most abundant in the aesthetic world of Chinese. The earliest poems given to the four seasons by the ancients were the Southern Dynasty Lefu folk song "Midnight Four Hours Song", which was included in the "Lefu Poetry Collection" compiled by Guo Maoqian of the Song Dynasty, and it is said that it was created by a woman named "Midnight" in the Jin Dynasty. There are 75 "songs of the four seasons" in this group, including 20 spring songs, 20 summer songs, 18 autumn songs, and 17 winter songs.
Spring, summer, autumn and winter, the four seasons rotate, everything grows and flows in this law, full of rhythm and harmony. The ancients took the five sounds in the music with the four hours and five elements, and distributed the twelve laws in December, so that the life of the year melted in the rhythm, resonating with nature at the same frequency and complementing each other.
Liu Yuedi believes that the aesthetics of Sinicization focus on showing the vitality of life and the brilliant vitality of life. Take the appreciation of flowers, in the general collection of Chinese poetry in the past dynasties, the first flower in the "Pre-Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties Poems" is Lan, and there are 465 Orchid poems; in the Quan Tang Poems, the Lotus is the first of all the flowers, as many as 2071; in the "Song Poetry Banknote", Mei is the flower Kui, and 888 poems appear; the "Selected Poems of the Yuan" in which the Lotus won the championship again, 483; the "Ming Poetry Synthesis" is still the head of the Lotus, down to 352; the Lotus in the "Qing Poetry Collection" has increased to 1097.
Meizhu Double Magpie Diagram page, Song, Collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing
There is "love" in the human world, "affection" in grass and trees, and there is a mainstream history of changes in Chinese chanting flowers and trees. Liu, in the Tang, Yuan, and Ming people's plant poems, the number of the first; bamboo, in the Song poetry, the first place; pine, in the Qing poetry is the most favored. Tang people love willow, Song people love bamboo, and Qing people love pine, behind which is the change of cultural consciousness in different eras.
In addition, the criteria for judging Chinese's treatment of flowers and trees are very different. Flowers are more won with "beauty", while wood is often won by "virtue". This is like the aesthetic difference between winter plum and spring peach, plum is the moral symbol of the noble purity of the scholars, and people love peach blossoms, but also in the fragrance, color, shape and posture of the peach blossom itself, the former is "to store goodness with beauty", the latter is "beauty for beauty".
This is the "aesthetic of grass and wood" that Chinese: one is as an aesthetic of all kinds, and the other is an aesthetic of morality. As a result, the moral aesthetics of bamboo, pine, plum, orchid and other grasses and trees are often highly respected by the literati. Nowadays, people are familiar with the "three friends of the cold year", not how high the appearance is, it is nothing more than the pine bamboo through winter, the plum is hardy, obviously won in the moral judgment.
Time, place, people, in order to taste the joy of flowers and trees, this is the casual aesthetic and philosophy of Chinese life.
From the wind to the elegance
The aesthetics of life Chinese are not static, but gradually formed over the course of thousands of years.
As we all know, Wei Jin is an "era of celebrities", and the aesthetics of life focus on people themselves. The Wei and Jin celebrities are not a unified appearance, but can be roughly divided into three categories: the first is Kong Rong, Ji Kang, Ruan Zhi and others, who constitute the "famous scholars of the bitter and depressed sect" who are worried and cynical; the second is Shantao, Xie An, Wang Xizhi and others, who belong to the "eclectic masters" who have entered the world and traveled to the world; the third is The "naturalistic celebrities" who have escaped from the world and are suitable for the world like Tao Yuanming.
The times are turbulent, and the celebrities in it have a deep understanding of life and death. In their view, there is not much difference between the heavens and the earth of life and the grass, trees, animals and beasts, there are certain laws of life and death, and the knowledge of people as the primates of all things is not necessarily higher than that of grass and trees.
Having affection and wisdom is the foundation for man to become the pillar of heaven and earth, but in the face of the reality that human beings such as life and death cannot change, "this love and wisdom" brings many troubles. Life is inherently prone to aging, coupled with external desires and utilitarian purposes, it is easy to make people physically and mentally exhausted. Because of this, wei and Jin celebrities believed that only by "completely rejuvenating", eliminating all values, concepts and desires attached to life, and conforming to the natural way of life itself, can it be possible to obtain true freedom and happiness.
Tao Yuanming "picking chrysanthemums under the eastern fence", Wang Ziyi "can't go a day without this king", Lu Ji is good at listening to the sound of cranes... Without the uninhibited and unobtainable emotions and interests of Wei and Jin celebrities, the life and art of Chinese would be much weaker. Therefore, Liu Yuedi has a saying: "In the very turbulent historical period of Wei and Jin, these strange people actually carried out various pioneering experiments on the aesthetics of life, and even created a historical sound in many aspects." ”
As the social environment tended to be stable and the material conditions became more and more abundant, after the Tang and Song dynasties, it became more and more rare to express themselves and reveal their personalities like the Famous Men of Wei and Jin. Except for a very few cases such as Li Bai, a poet who sang "Laugh at the sky and go out, my generation is a basil person" and "the ancient sages are lonely, only the drinkers keep their names", the light of the "merry" celebrities has become dimmer and dimmer.
However, the aesthetics of life has also entered a new stage. Taking over the baton of the character aesthetic tradition is the group of literati doctors who are elegant and self-adapting. "Elegance", rather than "wind and current", has become a model for the ideal character image since then, and this historical transformation is of great significance.
"Elegant style" and "wind flow", only a word difference, but the realm is very different. "Chinese Aesthetics of Life" believes that "flow" is external, revealing, indulgent, and unrestrained, and is manifested in mood and sorrow between all kinds of things, movements and movements, revealing true feelings; while "Ya" is introverted, restrained, and humane, and is sympathetic to human feelings, and uses the way of elegance to restrain one's words and deeds, in order to create a gentle and generous image of a gentleman.
Song Huizong's "Eighteen Bachelors' Diagram" (partial) collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei. This picture depicts the vivid scenes of eighteen famous scholars of the Tang Dynasty visiting the garden, writing poems, playing music, feasting, circling horses, and watching cranes, showing the relaxed and pleasant life interest of literati scholars at that time.
After the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the Tang and Song dynasty scholars paid special attention to the quality of daily life, and they poured their spare energy, talent, and affection into creating an elegant and leisurely life situation, which was difficult for Wei and Jin celebrities to reach.
On the one hand, Wei and Jin were in turmoil, and even if the celebrities were of noble birth, the living resources they could obtain were very limited compared to the literati and doctors of the Tang and Song dynasties who lived in the relatively clear politics, social stability, and economic prosperity. On the other hand, the Wei and Jin celebrities denied and disliked the real society, and it was difficult to have a real taste and understanding of daily life, and they tended to live in an indulgent and extensive way, while the Tang and Song literati held a positive attitude towards the present world, so they would have a refined, delicate, and continuous feeling of life.
One of the characteristics of the elegant beauty of the Tang and Song dynasties is that the aesthetic taste of the Wei and Jin dynasties that attaches importance to appearance, clothing, behavior and other aesthetic tastes that focus on the body is transferred and spread to daily life, although its life aesthetics have lost the excitement and freedom that it once had, but it has a different taste. "Ya" is more embodied in a kind of taste and taste of life, which naturally includes the elegance of clothing and behavior, but what is more prominent and eye-catching is the artistry and elegance of a holistic daily life situation.
Tea art, flower art, study room, Qing play, antiques, calligraphy and painting... A variety of material wonders, rich and exquisite daily life and elegant and flashy social atmosphere will only appear after the economic and social development reaches a certain height, and it will inevitably appear.
Especially after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Chinese pursued "Qingfu", "happy" and "true happiness in life" in life, focusing on "sexual spirit", "childlike heart" and "leisure and leisure" in literature and art, and the aesthetics of life went up to a higher level.
Living artist
Why talk about the aesthetics of life today? Liu Yuedi said that in China, the good life that people seek is actually saying two kinds of life: one is a "good life" and the other is a "beautiful life". A good life is a quality life; a good life is a quality life.
The pursuit of a better life is what people want. No matter the changes of the times, no matter the changes of the region, people regard a better life as a good wish, but the key is to achieve it. The aesthetics of life and the good life are only one word apart, and the aesthetics of life has become an important way to enhance the good life.
Liu Yuedi believes that "good life" must constitute the realistic basis of "beautiful life"; in turn, "beautiful life" is the ideal sublimation of "good life". Without the ideal of life, there is no ideal life, and the aesthetics of life is the ideal of a good life.
After years of advocacy, the aesthetics of life has gradually become a hot word in today's Chinese society. Tea ceremony, flower ceremony, incense ceremony, qindao, Hanfu revival, Chinese tailoring, gourmet delicacies, classical furniture, ancient and modern collections, crafts and folk arts, travel homestays, intangible cultural heritage protection, public art, aesthetic education, art licensing, creative industries, game animation, interior design, real estate development, community planning and even urban top-level design, there is a modern people's absorption of classical life aesthetics, which can also be understood as the revival of Chinese's own life traditions.
Hanfu Spring Festival Gala
In Liu Yuedi's view, the aesthetics of life Chinese answers an extremely realistic question; why should we live beautifully? How can we live beautifully? In a word, the core appeal of life aesthetics is to make everyone a life artist.
Only by becoming the so-called "living" artist can life become an artistic life; and only by becoming the so-called "artist" of life can art and aesthetics return to the true state of life. This book, titled "The Aesthetics of Life Chinese", is an attempt to retrieve the great wisdom of Chinese life aesthetics by tracing back history.
Life aesthetics is not only a kind of aesthetic life, but also a way of pursuing happiness for a better life, the former is theoretical, and the latter is practiced. The aesthetics of life is the body of life, that is, the life ontology of the Chinese people's clothing, food, housing, travel, use, and entertainment; this "use" is to apply the aesthetics of life within its life ontology, which is the unity of knowledge and action in the aesthetic sense of Chinese.
Liu Yuedi especially pointed out that the aesthetics of life are not only derived from the local, but also feed the world, which is both local and global. "This is where the great theoretical and practical significance of the aesthetics of life lies, it is already in the ascendant in China, and it is bound to form a new cultural trend."