The author of this article is Wang Aishi, excerpted from the book "Definition of New Art"
Section 1 Redefining the Historical Inevitability of Art
First, reconstructing art is a historical need
At the level of individual artists, many people face the same problem: they cannot break through tradition, they cannot break through themselves, and their creative direction is confused.
At the level of art appreciation, it is difficult for most ordinary people to understand real art, let alone appreciate the art of perception.
The root cause is that the old tradition is no longer in line with the new era, and the ideas of creators and appreciators are framed or blindly subsumed in the traditional structure, such as technique, skill, pen and ink, structure, etc. Therefore, we must break down the barriers of traditional art, take tradition as the foundation, and reconstruct a new art system that conforms to the times.
Let's look at traditional art, which arises from the cognitive model under the traditional senses, and the traditional cognitive model arose from the knowledge system of early human beings constructing space and time in the universe with the senses. In layman's terms, tradition is an early model of the worldview that humans built by seeing for believing.
In the 21st century of the intelligent era, the amount of human information has increased unprecedentedly, and the atoms, particles, quanta, genes, high-dimensional and other elements of the new cosmology cannot be directly recognized by the traditional senses such as sight, hearing, touch, and smell, marking that the knowledge system constructed by traditional sensory organs has long collapsed completely, and the art system constructed under the traditional sensory model has also collapsed, and redefining art has become the inevitability of history.
Second, reconstructing art is the need of social development
The main purpose of redefining art is to build a new art system in the 21st century, to educate people with art, from "being a perceptual and rational person" to "being an artistic person", giving play to the leading and opening functions of art to human spiritual life, social aesthetics, and innovative consciousness, correctly establishing a world outlook and values, and achieving a perfect spiritual world of life.
1. The social needs of art education
Art education is different from aesthetic education, art education comes from the prescriptive human nature of the universal law of survival, and aesthetic education is the prophetic solution of the concept of art education by thinkers and educators of all generations in the social context of low information at that time.
When we look at aesthetic education, from Plato, Aristotle, and Schiller in the West to Confucius, Cai Yuanpei, Zhu Guangqian, etc. in China, they all attach great importance to aesthetic education and form a traditional aesthetic education idea on its basis.
So, what is the nature of traditional aesthetic education? Different scholars give different interpretations, which are roughly divided into emotional education theory, perceptual education theory, personality education theory, humanistic education theory, art education theory, aesthetic theory education, fun education and so on. From the above theories, it is not difficult to see that the traditional theory of aesthetic education is still an interpretation of the aesthetic education ideas produced in the social context of low information. Standing on the basis of today's high-information cosmic existence, traditional aesthetic education does not fully involve the ultimate needs of human nature, and belongs to the one-sided or apparent level. Therefore, we need to return the upgrading of aesthetic education to the level of artistic education from the perspective of cosmic laws and the ultimate human nature. This is like planting a tree, aesthetic education is to plant the tree in a pot, pruned beautifully for ornamentation; art breeding is to plant the tree on the earth free and natural growth. The pot is not the ultimate destination of the tree, it needs to return to the earth.
Why is aesthetic education one-sided and superficial? We can find a clear answer from Cai Yuanpei's aesthetic education ideas.
Cai Yuanpei believes that one of the orientations of aesthetic education is spiritual life, which is the spiritual enjoyment needs of people after solving the problem of food and clothing. Obviously, Cai Yuanpei's view of food and clothing and spirit is too superficial. In fact, all activities to ensure the existence of life, such as solving food and clothing, belong to the cosmic cycle of survival, the ultimate task of survival points to the conservation of life of human species, the conserved goal points to the spirit, the spirit is the soul of human individual life, providing support for the existence of individual life, without spirit, people have no meaning of life. Therefore, the existence of individual life is the key to the conservation of human life, which is a yin-yang cycle relationship and an inevitable law of cosmic progression. Because man is a pile of cosmic matter, and human life is the result of the biochemical and electrical reaction of cosmic matter, all phenomena that violate the laws of the universe will never exist for a long time. At this point, you will find that spiritual life is actually the innate need of human instinct under the prescriptive nature of the universe, not the need to enjoy after food and clothing.
However, the spiritual needs of human beings have always been suppressed on the one-sided appearance of sensibility and rationality, suppressed by slave owners in slave society, suppressed by feudal ruling classes, the mainstream society in modern world is capitalism, and the human spirit is framed by money capital in the value basis of money and materials. Today, we have seen that the social criticism based on monetary capital as the basis of value marks the completion of the historical life of capitalism in its human process, and the society is transitioning towards a new communist shared society with China as the leader. In the new communist and shared society, the original spirit of mankind is the core of values, and the state's proposal to "enrich the spiritual life of the people" is a prelude. Nevertheless, the spiritual life still has to face many uncertainties. Because the new co-creation and sharing society is still affected by human factors, the spirit in such a society, like a deer released from the zoo to the forest, the spirit is high, but also faces a lot of uncertainty problems. This requires the art at the top architectural level of conscious thinking to be guided by the essence, and art education naturally becomes an inevitable demand for social development.
2. Art determines the culture of social innovation
At the social level, the mainland put forward the slogan of being an innovative country. The fundamental decision of an innovative country is the national awareness of innovation, and the level of innovation consciousness depends on the people's degree of recognition and acceptance of art.
Because human social activities are "born of beauty".
"Beauty" here does not simply refer to beauty and beauty, it is a tool for the survival of life, a value orientation, an objective subjective expression, and a concept of art that serves "art". That is to say, artistic innovation is a prerequisite for a national innovation culture.
We know that contemporary social development is driven by scientific innovation, and the mother of science is philosophy, the mother of philosophy is art, and the leading philosophical discipline of the West is inevitably related to the innovation of Western art.
Today's Chinese art is in the transition period from tradition to new art, and it needs a more clear and unified "guiding direction" to accelerate artistic innovation, guide the people's aesthetic orientation from "aesthetic tradition" to "aesthetic innovation", and enhance the awareness of innovation of the whole people.
This "guiding direction" must be based on the new era's model of worldview, as well as on the basis of inheriting traditions. What needs to be explained is that inheriting tradition is by no means to stick to and copy the traditional form, it is to inherit the spirit of art and culture of tradition. In the West, artists will regard copying traditions and copying others as a great shame, and people will also scorn works of art that are not innovative. Many of the current authoritative art theories and aesthetic education in our country still stay at the traditional level, such as the art theories of scholars such as Zhu Guangqian and Li Zehou, and the views on aesthetic education put forward by Confucius, Cai Yuanpei and others, all of which were produced in the historical context at that time and are no longer in line with today's new communist shared society, and their ideas are still used by today's academic circles, the reason is that our sense of innovation is weak. Therefore, the mainland must redefine the art system in line with modern and future society, change the traditional artistic cognition of the Chinese people, build a new art education system, and create an innovative culture of the Chinese nation.
Third, redefining art is an inevitable law
If we look at it from the macroscopic perspective of the universe, we will clearly find that artistic progress is regular, directional, and artistic (morality is the tao and virtue of cosmic laws, not the morality of the code of conduct that people understand every day), and it is divided into broad and narrow senses. The "law" here is the law of the universe; the "orientation" here is the direction of the universe; the generalized art here includes the creation of a cultural system, a religious system, an ideological system, etc.; and the narrow art here refers to the single artistic creation behavior of ordinary artists.
Art in the narrow sense follows the morality of art in the broad sense and has a generalized direction. For example, the creation of narrow art is to find something transcendent, leading, and can open the soul of the appreciator and call the appreciator in an environment without direction and without qualitative laws, and to meet the "principle of creation and progression" of art, providing comfort and spiritual guidance for human beings in this imaginary world.
What is the "Progressive Principle of Creation" in art? For example, Duchamp's artistic masterpiece "Spring", we all know that it is an ordinary urinal. When Duchamp first moved it into the exhibition hall, it was characterized as art and played a powerful artistic function. If Duchamp had come up with a second urinal exhibition afterwards, the second urinal would no longer be art. It is not art if other artists imitated Duchamp's exhibition of urinals, or exhibited with other objects similar to urinals and Duchamp's behavior. Only a completely new artistic idea that fundamentally transcends or distinguishes Duchamp's urinal can be called art.
Let's look back at the history of artistic progression from the perspective of art. Before the advent of the camera, the world's mainstream painting art was realistic, and painters reproduced the natural people, animals, landscapes, etc. very realistically, which was recognized as an artistic act in society at that time. Because only a painter with high skill and technology can paint what people want to reveal and record, and in terms of sight and feeling, it is pleasing to people's hearts. When the camera is popularized, everyone's mobile phone is also a camera, shooting and recording all objects in nature anytime and anywhere, realistic and realistic painting loses its pleasant function, and also loses its artistry, and art will inevitably move forward. It can be seen that after the popularization of cameras, Western schools of impressionism, abstraction, and expressionism rose up. The current Western schools such as Impressionism and Abstraction and Expressionism have long completed the artistic mission entrusted by their history, and art is instinctively moving towards a higher level of ideological leadership, and we are in this period.
Finally, it is necessary to clarify that it is not social progress that forces art to follow, but that art follows to lead society forward.
Section 2: Overview of the Definition of New Art
The book is written in a defining summary in the first chapter, and a fragmented reference in the later chapters. Because this topic is very large, very widely involved, and the perspective is very high, if you write according to the usual logical method, a hundred thousand words can only express the tip of the iceberg. Therefore, we have adopted a fragmentary writing method and strive to express more ideological content, so that readers can fully understand the definition of new art.
First, a brief description of the definition of new art
We believe that art is not a physical work, it is an ideological and spiritual product processed from the high-end architectural level of conscious thinking, and it is the original form behind the object work, with the unity of generalized and narrow senses, the unity of metaphysical and metaphysical. She can open up the human spirit, guide the direction of thought, lead the future of the times, and achieve the perfect life spiritual world.
The objects that people see in their daily lives are the apparent results of the transcendental and objects presented by art. In this result, art plays the role of soul and spirit.
When we look at the word art, "art" mostly refers to skills and techniques; "art" refers to the center of the Tao; "Tao" is the center of all things in the world, the center of all spirits and thoughts. Therefore, people use skills and techniques to elaborate on the relationship between people and the Tao, which is called art.
The skill technique here does not only refer to the technical nature of traditional apparent art, its main body is expressed in the artistic consciousness dimension at the level of thought processing, for example, the way and method of thought processing is a kind of artistic skill technique.
The word "art" here is only an expression of the evolution of the times. Because true art is the most advanced and abstract form of life activity carried out on the axis of the "law of optimal existence of life", the purpose is to clarify the natural meaning and substantive meaning of life existence, and ultimately complete the ultimate task and substantive task of art.
1. What is the ultimate task of art?
The ultimate task of art is to optimize the quality of human life, optimize the existence of human genes, and ensure the eternal existence of human life from ancient times to the present. This task is again a service that follows the prescriptive laws of objective rationality of the universe, so we define it as the "law of artistic survival." That is to say, all ideological and spiritual activities and behavioral forms that serve the eternal existence of mankind belong to art, and play the role of the chief dispatcher of human life activities, playing the role of laying the foundation, opening, organizing, guiding, and soothing human life activities, and having the characteristics of god, soul, qi, and courage.
2. What is the practical task of art?
The practical task of art is to come out from the level of cosmic laws, enter the real life of human beings, guide human beings to fully follow the sacred value system of truth, goodness and beauty, bring people into the transcendent and holy ideological realm, and be able to make people naturally enslave art on the surface, actively and consciously embrace art, integrate art into the process of life, optimize and enhance the quality of human nature, build the aesthetic orientation of human values, achieve the perfect spiritual world of life, and ensure the conservation of human life.
3. Special instructions
1. The art of this book mainly refers to the original form of art above the ideological level, and the things behind the artistic objects do not represent the apparent craft with traditional craftsmanship as the main body.
2, we say the ultimate, is not the ultimate in the sense of the universe, it is the ultimate in human nature, the universe has no ultimate.
3. Whether it is an art practitioner or a connoisseur, if you cannot look at art from the perspective of human origin and art ultimate, all art theories, art creation, and art appreciation are blind.
2. Brief description of the definition of artwork
From the perspective of art, art is the leakage of human life thoughts and emotions. This leakage is the apparent result of the unity of secondary sensibility and secondary rationality under the rational premise of the survival of life.
Works produced under the law of non-optimal existence, as well as works under a single rationality or sensibility, cannot be called works of art, but can only be classified in the category of crafts. For example, all handicraft works with traditional technical skills as the core, all realistic works that imitate nature and objects, and all traditional works that are copied and imitated without personal innovation and creation belong to the craft category, also known as imitation art, or pan-art, which is not art in the sense of today's society.
Why emphasize tradition, because many people misunderstand tradition, and the concepts of inheritance and anti-tradition are also misunderstood, and the root cause is that the eyes only stay on the surface of traditional doctrine. There are many traditional doctrines with universal influence, such as the logic and rational aesthetics proposed by Socrates, the artistic spirit theory proposed by Nietzsche, the perceptual theory of Hegel's concept, the perceptual theory of Rodin's art, the three causes of Danner' theory... Wait a minute. From the perspective of today's law of artistic survival, these traditional doctrines are no longer in line with this ever-changing, innovative and creative society. We are not criticizing the above scholars, whose doctrines occurred in the historical context of the low amount of social information, which only meet the historical needs of the time and do not represent the present and the future. It's like the dialogue between Shang Martin and Qin Xiaogong: "Today's people guard the old system, which is a stupid act." The spirit of tradition is also the result of the innovation and creation of the ancestors, and we cannot only stay at the level of the results of the predecessors.
To be precise, the definition of new art rejects the artistic nature of works without ideological and spiritual substance, such as traditional apparent forms, craft forms, and imitation forms, in today's or future society.
Special instructions:
We are not rejecting tradition outright, nor are we disparaging traditional or craft arts. There is no distinction between noble and inferior in art, but only "different divisions of labor" and different functions in society. Just like the grass and the big tree, there is no difference between high-end and low-end, only the functional form is different.
3. Brief description of the definition of artist
If an art practitioner thinks that he is creating art, then he must not understand art, and he must not be an artist in the true sense.
The real artist is not the one who creates art, but the comprehender of art, the comprehension and expression of the spiritual and emotional feelings of human life under art. Popular understanding is that art creates the artist, and "thinker" is the basic condition for the artist to accept the creation of art.
To be a good thinker, one must have a deep understanding of philosophy, literature, science, history, religion, natural science, anthropology and other disciplines.
To put it bluntly, art practitioners who do not reach the realm of thinkers, and art practitioners who do not have their own form of art theory, are all classified as craftsmen, or craftsmen.
Therefore, an artist in the true sense must be a pioneer of the times, a talent to open up the territory, and a sense of mission to explore the unknown world, lead the future of the times, and appease the human soul.
Because we are accustomed to calling the "understanding expression" of art in real life artistic innovation and creation, this "understanding expression" in this book is always called innovation and creation.
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