After the initial image is generated, the image of the art work continues to correspond to a certain knowledge unit of the schematic structure—the matching effect, which produces the understanding of meaning. Without these internalized units of knowledge, it is difficult to generate comprehension, and it is at this stage that the results of appreciation by different appreciators are most differentiated.
On this issue, Li Zhengxin's article "Simple and Esoteric Beauty", when talking about the relationship between the content and form of plastic arts, is very informative: "If a person who knows nothing about European civilization is allowed to visit the Gothic church, he will not have the feeling that its spire extends straight to heaven; if a person who does not know much about the history of feudal society on the mainland visits the Forbidden City in Beijing, he will not see where it shows the power of the imperial power." ”
For everyone standing in front of them, as long as they have a sound visual organ, the visual information such as the form and structure displayed by the Gothic church and the Forbidden City is no different, but the feelings produced will be very different, and the key reason is the difference in the content of the schema. In the same way, if you don't have a deep understanding of ancient Chinese traditional culture, you will not understand the proportion of the size of the master and slave characters in figure paintings such as "Han Xizai's Night Banquet".
Gu Hongzhong, "Han Xizai's Night Banquet"
People who don't know much about folk culture have become monks who combine lotus, fish, and bats in folk paper-cutting and printmaking. There are countless examples of this in art appreciation, without the visual experience and cultural accomplishment of traditional Chinese painting, I am afraid that when looking at the fish and shrimp of Bada and Baishi, I will still ask - what about water?
Wang Hongjian and Yuan Baolin mentioned in "Introduction to Fine Arts": "The recipient (appreciator) must take the cognition and feeling of the archetypes of things in daily life as a constant frame of reference for understanding and perceiving the image of the art work." ”
Obviously, this constant frame of reference is the schematic structure of the viewer.
In the process of appreciation, different appreciators will seek their own associative destination for the artistic image, match the relevant knowledge and experience in the schema structure with the image of the art work, as the psychological structure of the appreciating subject, the schema is an active framework structure, and its framework is a variable composed of many knowledge units, and the knowledge units within the schema are crucial in this matching process, and the degree of existence of these knowledge units is the key to whether the matching process can be carried out smoothly.
The assimilation process of Piaget's epistemology can profoundly explain the situation of this matching process, and assimilation is one of the important concepts in Piaget's epistemological theory. Piaget believed that people always have a given schema (mental structure) when they know an object, and when the object is close to and consistent with the schema, the "schema" absorbs and assimilates it, incorporates it into the original schema, and enriches and strengthens the original schema. While the schema is enriched and strengthened, the image also obtains the interpretation of the knowledge in the original schema, and the information provided by the image also allows the viewer to retrieve, find, and extract the content corresponding to and in line with his own "feelings" from the schema, and then produce understanding.
The following takes Li Tang's "Picking the Rose" as an example to analyze this process. In terms of the analysis of visual elements, Mr. Chen Zui's "On the Sense of Form" has made a wonderful analysis:
Li Tang "Picking the Rose"
The work is a long canvas with many images of mountains, rocks, plants, etc., but despite this, we can quickly see the two main figures in the painting. In addition to the attraction of the characters' expressions, the formal structure of the work itself also plays its due role. The outer contours of the two figures of the main image form a basic shape that approximates an acute triangle, and its edges and corners appear clearly on the picture with straight lines. In addition, the color of the background is used to highlight the light color of the subject, so that the image of this dominant element stimulates the viewer first. The formal structure of the whole picture is mainly a combination of sharp triangles and oblique buckling straight lines, which cause a sense of visual insoftness, thus playing a certain role in setting off the turbulent and precipitous atmosphere of the picture, highlighting the difficult environment and the indomitable spirit of the characters.
From the above analysis, we can see that all the visual form factors of the viewer's picture constitute such an image, including mountains, stones, plants and trees, and the main image - Boyi and Shuqi. The production of an image does not necessarily mean that the viewer can understand the work, and whether it can be understood depends on whether the viewer has relevant knowledge units in the schema structure. The image already provides the information, and it is necessary to look for the appropriate content in the schema. If the viewer has the corresponding knowledge in the schema, then he will know that this painting is based on the "Historical Records: The Biography of Boyi Lie", Boyi Shuqi was the two sons of Guzhujun during the Yin Shang period, and when King Wu was defeating, the two of them had buckled the horse's head and admonished. After the death of Yin Shang, Boyi and Shuqi swore not to descend to Zhou, "righteousness does not eat Zhou Su", avoided the story of Shouyang Mountain to pick roses and eat, and finally starved to death in Shouyangshan, then you can understand that this painting is to depict the scene of two people picking roses, and the theme of this painting praising Boyi Shuqi has an understanding.
After a preliminary understanding, if the appreciator still has knowledge of the painter's situation at that time in the schematic structure, and knows that this picture was painted in the historical period when the Jin Kingdom invaded and the Southern Song Dynasty was born in peace, he will understand the deep meaning of the work—to persuade the Southern Song Dynasty monarchs and ministers who were reluctant to steal peace, "starving to death is a small matter, and losing temper is a big matter", which is a great irony for the capitulation faction who advocated the reduction of gold and peace. At this stage, the viewer has gone deep into the depths of the work, and then looking at the picture, he can better appreciate the wonder of one pine, one maple and two trees in the painting and the nobility of the two people's temperament, and the viewer has obtained a strong artistic enjoyment, which is obviously the realm that a very clever appreciator can achieve. There are many similar examples, taking Western oil painting as an example, we can refer to Mr. Zhang Daoyi's appreciation of Picasso's Guernica in "The Food of the Spirit": "When people face Picasso's Guernica At first, even if you don't know the theme of the work, you will be attracted by the deep and oppressive atmosphere of the work, but once this infection is formed, it will prompt people to find the idea of the work and the theme it allegorizes: what is the author talking about in this blue-gray picture composed of only black and white, in the image of the unformed bull head and the strange face? At this time, the aesthetic experience has gone beyond the level of intuition and extends to the level of rational activity. When people understand that this work expresses the abhorrence of war and killing, the criticism of dictators, and the praise of mankind's struggle for peace and light, the feeling of the picture will rise to a new aesthetic level, and it is not difficult to imagine that if the painting is faced with a child who has no life experience or suffering experience, then he will not be able to truly understand the real touching of this work. ”
Picasso Guernica
Through the visual elements of these pictures, we can see that the results of appreciating works of art appear in such a multi-level way from deep to shallow, and the differences in the appreciation results of different appreciators are expanded, and this development is the result of matching the schematic structure of the appreciative subject, and the knowledge unit of the schematic structure is the most essential reason for all this. (To be continued)