Refers to the Confucian thought and theoretical system represented by Confucius and Mencius.

Pre-Qin Confucianism, represented by Confucius and Mencius, put forward a series of important aesthetic thoughts, which constituted an important source of China's aesthetic thoughts. The basic aesthetic thought, aesthetic orientation and attitude laid by Confucianism in the pre-Qin period have been enriched and developed by absorbing and assimilating various theories, thus forming the mainstream of China culture. It not only nourishes China's thousand-year history of aesthetic art, but also creates the basic cultural and psychological structure of the Chinese nation. 1, Confucius' aesthetic thought Confucius is the founder of Confucian school and the pioneer of Confucian aesthetics. Confucius' aesthetic thought is mainly embodied in three aspects. First of all, Confucius' aesthetics advocates the thought of rites and music. The so-called "ceremony" and "music" are the further development and differentiation of ancient totem songs and dances and witchcraft etiquette. Zhou Gongdan summarized and developed a set of fixed systems about "ceremony" and "music". The reason why Confucius and Confucianism admired Duke Zhou was that later generations also called him Kong Zhou was related to this. Duke Zhou was the main maker of "rites and music", and Confucius was a staunch supporter of "rites and music". "Rite" and "music" are both related to aesthetics. First of all, at that time, "ceremony" was a set of etiquette from sacrifice to daily life, from military politics to daily life. In fact, this is an unwritten law. In the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, this ceremony was mainly to maintain the ruling order of the hierarchical system, which is what Confucius said. At that time, "ceremony" played a supreme role. It is the ceremony itself that directly shapes and cultivates people. People are consciously separated from the animal kingdom in the "ceremony", and the Confucian "ceremony" shows sacred significance in the standardized secular life. Since "ceremony" is a set of order norms in behavior activities, there are aspects related to "beauty" such as appearance, action and procedure. The so-called "ceremony" includes the establishment and requirements of various movements, expressions, costumes, colors and other orders. For example, Confucius is described in The Analects of Confucius and The Land of Hard Work. "Confucius in slavery township, seems to be unable to speak. In the imperial court of the ancestral temple, he speaks casually and only respects you. The doctor said that Kan Kan is the same; With the doctor, _ _ such as also "; "A gentleman doesn't dress in clothes, and red and purple don't think it's lewd" and so on. All these show that "courtesy" upholds the social function of respect and inferiority, and strictly regulates individual actions, language, emotions and so on. In other words, people must go through "rites" to truly become human beings and acquire humanity. "Rite" not only regulates people's physical activities and external aspects, but also plays a huge role in people's inner feelings and psychology. The Book of Rites, The Doctrine of the Mean, says: "There are joys and sorrows in it; This is all in the middle of the festival, which is called summer. " Here, it means that people's various emotional psychology should also accept the normative requirements of "ceremony". The shaping effect of "ceremony" on people's body and mind is imposed from the outside and mandatory. It has no direct and inevitable connection with people's natural senses and lust venting. The real expression of people's inner feelings can only be undertaken by "music". The textual research on Oracle Bone Inscriptions's "music" is said to mean that the grain ripens and bears ears, which is related to people's joy in harvesting crops and extended to the emotional and psychological feelings of joy. "Music" is different from "ceremony". It maintains and consolidates the harmony and stability of the established order of the group through emotional communication and cooperation. It is not external compulsion, but internal guidance. It constructs inner humanity by cultivating sentiment and shaping emotion. "Happiness without lewdness, sorrow without harm" is the standard to measure "happiness", that is, the inner feelings of emotions should not be excessive, which is harmful to health and social stability. The value of music and various arts is to establish such a universal form of emotional harmony. The idea of "rites and music" has been dominant for thousands of years, which has influenced temple aesthetics to folk aesthetics, thanks to the contribution of Confucius. Secondly, Confucius' aesthetics especially advocates the idea of "benevolence". In the Analects of Confucius, Confucius talked about "benevolence" more than a hundred times, each time it was different. Some researchers believe that "benevolence" itself is aesthetic, that is, it has fuzziness, vividness and infinity that can be determined by non-concepts. As far as "benevolence" itself is concerned, there are also levels. First of all, Confucius' "benevolence" is based on clan consanguinity, and filial piety is the direct expression of this foundation. Confucius said, "Today's filial piety means that it can be raised. As for dogs and horses, you can raise them. If you are disrespectful, why not? " Therefore, fundamentally speaking, "benevolence" is a kind of consciousness based on animals and different from animal humanity. The "respect" emphasized by Confucius here refers to the state of mind expressed in certain manners and expressions. In Confucius' view, it is the emotion shaped and cultivated by "rites and music" to distinguish it from dogs and horses or people who treat them. People's "benevolence" must be based on the natural biological blood relationship of parents and children, but it is important that this natural biological relationship is humanized through "rites and music", so it is different from dogs and horses. Confucius believes that the core of "rites and music" is "benevolence", and "benevolence" is precisely the virtue and demeanor that an ideal gentleman should possess, which shows the construction and pursuit of the ideal personality pursued by Confucius. Confucius' "benevolence" and "rites and music" are inseparable, which shows Confucius' aesthetic feelings of "harmony is precious". Another important feature of Confucius' aesthetics is "perfection". In Confucianism, beauty is often opposite to evil, evil is ugly, and beauty is good. Confucius said in The Analects of Confucius Yan Yuan: "The beauty of a gentleman as an adult is not the evil of an adult. The villain is the opposite. " Beauty and evil here are good and evil now, that is, good and evil, beauty and ugliness. In Confucius' view, beautiful things are good things. Of course, the meanings of beauty and goodness are not exactly the same. Good things must be beautiful, but beauty is not necessarily good, because good is mainly an evaluation of the utilitarianism of things, and beauty requires not only utilitarianism, but also beauty of content and form, which is the unity of content and form. This is manifested in the relationship between literature and quality, and the relationship between morality and literature. In The Analects of Confucius Yongye: "Quality is better than literature, and literature is better than quality. Gentleness is a gentleman. " According to the Confucian point of view, only by unifying the qualities of literature, morality, speech and morality can we meet the requirements of gentleness. Therefore, "The Analects of Confucius August _" said: "Confucius said Shao was both beautiful and kind. It is said that Wu is perfect, but it is not perfect. " From this we can see that the beauty and goodness of Confucius are inseparable. 2. Mencius' Aesthetic Thought Confucius endowed the tradition of rites and music with kindness, and Mencius first established the sublimity in China's aesthetic category: the beauty of masculinity, which is the vitality of a moral subject. In Mencius' aesthetics, the most important thought is to admire the beauty of personality full of awe-inspiring spirit. In the Analects of Confucius Taibo: "Dayao is king! Only the sky is big, only Yao is big. Wandering around, people are in trouble. Great, it succeeded; Huan Hu, it has an article ",which means that there is no language to describe Yao's great achievements." But Mencius did not attach much importance to the status of external achievements. In Mencius with all his heart, he said, "When you say adults, you are shy. Don't treat them as lofty." No longer emphasize the external "grandeur", but from the outside to the inside. Mencius regarded this "majestic" greatness as "magnificent" and discussed it directly on the level of individual personality completion. There is such a passage in Mencius with all my heart: "Who is Le Zhengzi?" Mencius said, "Good people also believe in others." "What is good? What is a letter? " As the saying goes, "What you can desire is goodness, what you want is faith, what you enrich is beauty, what you enrich and glorify is greatness, what you magnify is holiness, and what you don't know is God. Le Zhengzi, two, four. " Here, Mencius divided individual personality into six levels: goodness, faithfulness, beauty, greatness, holiness and divinity, and clearly distinguished "beauty" from "goodness" and "faithfulness" which belong to the ethical category. And put' beauty' above' goodness' and' faith'. Good can be taken, that is, individuals pursue desirable things in their actions, that is, things that conform to righteousness. "Faith" means "having oneself", that is to say, a person is guided by the principle of benevolence and righteousness inherent in his own nature everywhere in his actions and never deviates from it. Beauty' is' enrichment', that is, the individual not only follows the moral principles of' being kind' and' trusting people', but also extends to his whole personality, making his external appearance and coping with advance and retreat. Nature embodies moral principles such as benevolence and righteousness everywhere. Therefore,' beauty' is the goodness fully realized in the whole personality of an individual, which contains goodness and transcends it. "Big" is connected with "beauty", "Saint" is connected with "big", and "God" is connected with "Saint", one is higher than the other. But they all start from' beauty', so they are both the category of moral and ethical evaluation and the category of aesthetic evaluation. "Big" is the spectacular beauty of "full and brilliant". "Saint" means "to be great". The characteristic of "Saint" is that it not only has a magnificent beauty, but also combines the achievements of the previous generation, makes an epoch-making creation, shows a power that can not be achieved by ingenuity, and has become a model for hundreds of generations, with great infection and educational power. "God" means "holy and unknowable", that is to say, when we reach the realm of "holy", we can't see how it is achieved. "Sage" succeeded by manpower, but "God" didn't seem to do it by manpower. Mencius' distinction between beauty, greatness, sacredness and divinity includes the observation and distinction of various situations and properties of beauty, all of which are aimed at personality beauty. Mencius' "noble spirit" is a heroic state of mind dominated by a strong sense of morality, which has a positive and important influence on shaping the spiritual temperament of the Chinese nation. Source: file