What are the basic characteristics of artistic beauty?

Like other major issues in aesthetics, the classification of beauty has not been standardized in the history of aesthetics. It is common in China's aesthetic textbooks to classify aesthetic objects according to their own nature, such as natural beauty, social beauty, artistic beauty, formal beauty and so on. The biggest defect of this classification is that it turns the classification of "beauty" into a mechanical classification of "beautiful things", and it does not and cannot reveal the different generating characteristics and laws of beauty itself, thus it is not helpful to understand, analyze and grasp the objective beauty. This is related to the mechanical understanding of the essence of beauty in traditional aesthetics. From the perspective of systematic aesthetics, beauty cannot exist independently without the system of aesthetic relationship, and beauty is only the system of objects in aesthetic relationship. In reality, without a specific aesthetic correspondence and aesthetic subject, without a specific aesthetic distance and aesthetic environment, the object is not beautiful or beautiful; Beauty is by no means the inherent nature or social function of an object. Therefore, the classification of beauty is inseparable from the aesthetic system. Of course, if we set the human subject as the aesthetic subject according to the principle of scientific abstraction, and at the same time "suspend" the elements of the aesthetic system-aesthetic distance, aesthetic environment and so on. The aesthetic value or beauty of an object or an object factor can still be relatively determined and analyzed and classified. But obviously, this abstract classification of beauty is not based on the characteristics and nature of the object itself, but on the nature generated by aesthetic relations. Based on this, I divide beauty into three categories: pre-cultural beauty, cultural beauty and compound beauty. The author thinks that this new classification not only contributes to the standardization of aesthetics, but also helps to deepen our understanding of aesthetics and artistic phenomena.

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The subject in the aesthetic system is human, and human life is subordinate to "dual relationship: on the one hand, natural relationship, on the other hand, social relationship". ④ The duality of the essence of human life makes the generation of aesthetic relations divided into two categories with different natures, namely, pre-cultural aesthetic relations and cultural aesthetic relations. The so-called pre-cultural aesthetic relationship is an aesthetic relationship established by the isomorphism or satisfaction of the subject's physiological, physiological and psychological structure or needs; The so-called cultural aesthetic relationship is an aesthetic relationship established by the subjective consciousness consciously grasping and affirming the cultural and social value factors contained in the object. In most cases, these two aesthetic factors exist in the realistic aesthetic relationship, so the third kind, namely the compound aesthetic relationship, is formed. These three aesthetic relationships have produced pre-cultural beauty, cultural beauty and compound beauty.

The so-called cultural beauty is the beauty discussed in traditional aesthetics, that is, the beauty produced by the objectification of human essential strength, and the cultural aesthetic value embodied in the object. The cultural aesthetic relationship occurs in the long evolution process of human beings and animals, and comes from the formation of human class consciousness and the free creation of class consciousness-"labor"; Cultural aesthetics is not only accompanied by the emergence of human nature, but also embodies the cultural characteristics of human beings. Animals can instinctively seek advantages and avoid disadvantages and build nests and caves, but they can't actively create a newer and more beautiful living environment for themselves like humans. Therefore, animals have no "culture" and will not have any interest in the "culture" contained in the object-the "Yangguan" site in Gansu, and even birds don't want to live. However, for human beings, the cultural traces painstakingly created by our ancestors are incomparable with any exquisite architecture in nature and animal kingdom, and are the most beautiful existence in the world. This is the cultural charm of "Yangguan"-it embodies thousands of years of civilization history in China, and it awakens the homesickness complex handed down from generation to generation by China literati. Cultural aesthetics is a "patent" of human beings, and it is also the essential composition of aesthetics.

The so-called pre-cultural beauty refers to the aesthetic value obtained by the object because it meets the instinctive demand of the subject's potential. Of course, this pre-cultural beauty can only be obtained under the condition that the human aesthetic system exists as a whole. Because strictly speaking, if we only stay at the physical, physiological and psychological levels, there will be no relationship between subject and object or aesthetics, only the adaptive relationship between animals and nature. Animals and nature are directly the same, and there is no objective relationship between them, let alone an "aesthetic relationship" to enjoy their own potential and instinct. Butterfly love is definitely not aesthetic; It is definitely not aesthetic for a female monkey to like another male monkey. However, in the long process from passively adapting to nature to actively transforming nature, human beings constantly transform their sensory structure, producing "ears with a sense of music and eyes with formal beauty", and at the same time enriching and developing their feelings, making them "feelings enjoyed by human beings". ⑤ As a result, people's instinctive potential needs have risen from the passive adaptive animal level to the active human level, accompanied by the formation of a cultural aesthetic relationship that affirms their own essential strength and obtains aesthetics. 6. Therefore, it is also a love for colors and flowers, and people's love for flowers has become an elegant aesthetic activity; Although "the same family" as monkeys, the relationship between people and the opposite sex is of aesthetic significance. Even as Bulgarian scholar Vasileff said, human sexual instinct is the root of life that provides intangible nectar for colorful beauty. ⑦

What is embodied here is the principle of system integrity: before the whole system is generated, the components or subsystems themselves cannot obtain the system attributes; After the system is generated, the elements or subsystems of the system are taken as the components of the system to obtain the system attributes. Therefore, although from the perspective of biological natural history, the pre-cultural relationship of human beings came into being first, but from the perspective of human cultural history, the pre-cultural aesthetic relationship can only exist after the cultural aesthetic relationship occurs, because only the formation of cultural aesthetics means the establishment of human aesthetic system, and the pre-cultural aesthetic relationship can exist relatively independently as an organic part of human aesthetic system.

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One of the important reasons why traditional aesthetics does not distinguish between pre-cultural aesthetics and cultural aesthetics is that they have no difference on the surface, and they are both a structure corresponding to subject and object. It is difficult to see the difference between one person appreciating a flower and another person appreciating a stone axe. However, if we look deeply, we will find that there are significant differences between the subjective and objective factors in these two aesthetic relationships and their mutual structural motivations.

In pre-cultural aesthetics, the aesthetic relationship is established by the image form of the object, such as "flower", in order to stimulate the physiological and psychological mechanism of the subject and meet the potential or instinctive needs of the subject. Whether an individual can establish a pre-cultural aesthetic relationship with the object depends entirely on whether the physical and psychological mechanism of the subject is sound and whether the image form of the object can attract or arouse the good feelings of the subject. If the subject's physiological and psychological functions are incomplete, such as color blindness and deafness, then any gorgeous flowers and harmonious melody have no beautiful charm for him; If the image of an object is ugly and unbalanced, such as blind or lame, then it will not have a beautiful charm for any voice subject. In this pure pre-cultural aesthetic relationship, any rational concept of beauty is meaningless. Even if people praise each other, color-blind people are indifferent to flowers; Even if a blind person is outstanding in character, his external image is not commendable. This shows that in pre-cultural aesthetics, the internal physiological and psychological mechanism of human's different preferences and feelings for beauty and ugliness can only be found in the evolutionary history of human animals; Human's pre-cultural aesthetic ability is obtained without cultural literacy or aesthetic education, and its corresponding aesthetic feeling is not essentially different from the mechanism of animal pleasure generation. Of course, generally speaking, pure pre-cultural aesthetics is not dominant in realistic aesthetics. Like the so-called "meaningful form" in art, it contains rich cultural factors and does not belong to pure pre-cultural aesthetics.

Pure cultural aesthetics is the opposite of pre-cultural aesthetics, and its aesthetic relationship transcends the level of physiological and psychological senses, and has nothing to do with human potential and instinctive needs. It is constructed purely by observing the cultural and social values contained in the subject's cultural consciousness and rational consciousness, such as "stone axe". Whether an individual can establish a cultural aesthetic relationship with the cultural object depends entirely on the social consciousness of the subject's cultural literacy and whether the cultural factors contained in the object have enough value attraction to the subject. If the subject lacks the necessary cultural and scientific literacy and can't read, then any cultural relics with cultural and scientific value have no beautiful attraction to him; Similarly, if objects do not contain rich cultural values, such as stones that are usually visible, then they will not have aesthetic appeal to cultural subjects. In this pure cultural aesthetic relationship, the external image of the object has no direct significance. Fake antiques and cultural relics, even if they have gorgeous or quaint appearances, will lose their cultural beauty once they are identified as fakes by experts. This shows that in cultural aesthetics, the internal mechanism of human aesthetic interest in cultural objects can only be found from the consciousness of human nature; People's cultural aesthetic ability is not innate, but acquired through cultural accomplishment or aesthetic culture education, and its corresponding aesthetic feeling is essentially a sense of pride or pleasure full of class consciousness. Relatively speaking, pure cultural aesthetics is rare in realistic aesthetics. Even the rusty weapons of the Warring States and Qin Changcheng in the ruins always have some emotional charm, which cannot be attributed to pure cultural aesthetics.

When we compare pre-cultural aesthetics with cultural aesthetics, we can see the differences between them more clearly: from the object point of view, pre-cultural aesthetics focuses on external image forms, such as "flowers", and its image forms have relatively independent aesthetic significance; Cultural aesthetics focuses on internal content, such as "stone axe", and its image form has no independent aesthetic significance. From the subject's point of view, the pre-cultural aesthetics mainly activates the senses, which is the subject's perceptual intuition about "flowers"; What is aroused in cultural aesthetics is mainly consciousness, which is the rational response of the subject to the "stone axe". Although the rational response of human beings to some value factors in cultural aesthetics (such as the response to human nature and human values) has been repeated thousands of times in the process of "class" generation, and it has been transformed into a cultural instinct or social conscience, accumulating into a group of cultural unconsciousness, so that this rational response will also be manifested as a perceptual intuition and an aesthetic intuition, but it is only superficial. Here, an obvious reason for the division is that in pre-cultural aesthetics, the likes and dislikes of the subject can not be analyzed and explained by rational concept except the instinctive structure of the subject's potential, while in cultural aesthetics, the cause of this relationship can be explained by rational concept. For example, when we admire flowers for no reason, we have a "purposeful" analysis of the biology of flowers, which is even harmful to the appreciation of flowers; However, we need a reason to appreciate the stone axe, and the "purposeful" analysis of the stone axe in archaeology is definitely conducive to the appreciation of the stone axe. This reflects the different characteristics of the two types of aesthetic relations: in pre-cultural aesthetics, the aesthetic value of the object directly exists in its perceptual image, and the subject's entry into the aesthetic role is often a perceptual and intuitive reaction process without rational judgment. Therefore, pre-cultural aesthetics is direct aesthetics, irrational aesthetics, passive aesthetics and image aesthetics; In cultural aesthetics, the aesthetic value of an object lies in the cultural value and social value contained in its structure, which are not directly equivalent to its perceptual image. Only when the subject rationally confirms the existence of cultural and social values and is attracted by them can he enter the aesthetic role. Therefore, cultural aesthetics is indirect aesthetics, rational aesthetics, dynamic aesthetics, intermediary aesthetics and internal aesthetics.

This difference between two different aesthetics has been involved by some philosophers in the history of aesthetics. For example, the so-called absolute beauty and relative beauty of Hutchinson, a famous British aesthetician in the18th century, is actually trying to summarize the different characteristics of pre-cultural aesthetics and cultural aesthetics: the former refers to the beauty felt by something itself, and the latter is the beauty felt through conceptual association. ⑧ Kant's division of pure beauty (free beauty) and subordinate beauty: "The former is the inherent beauty of things, but the latter depends on a concept", and ⑨ is also an approximate division. However, because "beauty" is a vague concept in traditional aesthetics, it is impossible to give this division a scientific basis from the analysis of the internal structure of aesthetic relations. Therefore, we can only rely on experience or transcendental theory to make subjective judgments. Such subjective division can not only reveal the inherent laws of aesthetic phenomena, but also make aesthetic theory fall into a maze or paradox.

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Based on the essence of aesthetic occurrence, it is very important for us to distinguish between cultural aesthetics and pre-cultural aesthetics for understanding aesthetic phenomena, especially the generation laws of some so-called "natural beauty" and "formal beauty".

A big misunderstanding of traditional aesthetics is to raise all low-level aesthetic phenomena to the cultural level and attribute all natural beauty to "objectification of human essential strength". For example, to explain the beauty of the moon, we should first associate it with a "white jade plate" and so on, then attribute the "white jade plate" to the creation of workers, and finally make the moon indirectly "humanized". The result of this is to complicate simple problems and make the laws of beauty confusing and difficult to grasp. When talking about the understanding of human physiological structure and function, Darwin once said that if necessary, "we should go up and down the evolutionary ladder of feeding animals to the lowest level." Attending the explanation of many pre-cultural aesthetic phenomena is the same. When we attribute it to the lower level of human structure, it is actually very simple: the so-called beauty of the moon lies in its brightness and pleasing to the eye at night, which is suitable for people's potential needs; Like the full moon, there is also the most easily accepted simple visual form-circle. This is why people who are not familiar with Tang poetry and lack of humanistic cultivation appreciate the beauty of the moon. A similar situation is the beauty of flowers. Thanks to plekhanov's introduction, the fact that primitive tribesmen are indifferent to flowers in Gross's The Origin of Art is widely known: they "never decorate themselves with flowers, even though they live in a place full of flowers". (1 1) It is easy to draw a conclusion that the beauty of flowers comes from labor, which makes the beauty of flowers have the attribute of cultural beauty. In fact, this is also an illusion caused by confusing aesthetic genesis with aesthetic ontology. From the genetic point of view, the fact that human beings appreciate flowers does occur in humanized natural labor practice, but people's love tendency and appreciation ability for flowers are inherited from their ancestors and naturally possessed by animal people in the process of species evolution, but in the long process of human generation, they temporarily sleep and become potential because of difficulties in survival. Once these potentials are liberated by labor practice, they exist as the aesthetic needs of pre-culture, and correspondingly, the beauty of flowers also exists. Therefore, modern people do not need to think about any labor, harvest or fruit when enjoying flowers. On the contrary, those flowers cultivated and loved by human beings are almost all "flowers" but not real.

In fact, many visual or auditory formal beauty elements that form the basis of human aesthetics also belong to this pre-cultural aesthetic phenomenon. Such as "symmetry". The important position of "symmetry" in formal beauty is unshakable. The so-called "antisymmetry" and "asymmetry" are still based on the existence of "symmetry". However, the fundamental reason why people affirm the beauty of symmetry lies in the symmetry of people's own structure. Plekhanov had already guessed this: What is the "root" of the law of symmetry? Probably the human body structure and the animal body structure: only the disabled and deformed bodies are asymmetrical, which will always make people with normal constitution have an unpleasant impression. So the ability to appreciate symmetry is also given to us by nature. "(12) We might as well do this fantasy. If people's bodies, especially their eyes, are not horizontally symmetrical, such as being aligned up and down or their eyes being pushed aside like a flounder, then people will definitely not have such a persistent preference for symmetry. Another example is the "golden section". The law of "golden section" is a universal and mysterious law in nature. As far as the "golden section" rectangle of vision is concerned, it is a good figure that people are willing to accept, so that it is almost everywhere from the shape of ordinary books to various architectural structures, because it corresponds to the structure of human static vision. If people's upper and lower horizons are wide and their left and right horizons are narrow, this horizontal golden section will never be so popular. This structural "vibration" phenomenon also exists in human auditory system. For example, single-frequency "monotonous" sound or chaotic "noise" is unpleasant, and the reason why harmonious music makes hearing comfortable is related to the physical structure and acoustic characteristics of human ears. According to some research data, Bel Canto singers' voices are pleasing to the ear because their loud voices from vocal cords can enter the "best listening area" of human auditory organs, making them bright and loud. (13) Therefore, the so-called "bel canto" is essentially a singing method in which the singer consciously trains the vocal organs according to the acoustic laws.

This pre-cultural aesthetic law is produced by the adaptation or isomorphism of the object to the subject's sensory structure. If expressed in a popular way, we can borrow a sentence from Edison: "Maybe this material has more real beauty and ugliness than another material, because if we are constructed in another way, what we don't like now may make us like it." (14) As a materialist aesthete, Diderot also discovered and emphasized this seemingly simple but often overlooked truth. He clearly pointed out the structure and arrangement of the object relationship of beauty. "This is only for those possible creatures whose physical and psychological structures are the same as ours, because for other creatures, it may be neither beautiful nor ugly, or even ugly." (15) Although we can perceive or explore the physiological instinct and potential needs arising from the physical or physiological structural constraints of our own bodies, this structural relationship itself is obviously beyond our own consciousness or changes and is independent of our subjective will. Isn't this the most solid cornerstone of the theory of objective beauty or materialistic beauty?

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However, it needs to be emphasized again that although pre-cultural aesthetics and cultural aesthetics can be clearly distinguished in nature and characteristics, pure pre-cultural aesthetics and cultural aesthetics are rare in realistic aesthetics. The so-called formal beauty mentioned above is only the aesthetic factor that constitutes the object. Because most of the objects faced by human beings are "humanized" objects, which contain corresponding social and cultural factors, even pure natural objects such as the moon and the sun are often contaminated with humanistic colors; Because most social and cultural objects created by human beings have "material" bodies, they all show a certain image structure, even pure cultural objects such as words and symbols have a certain natural form without exception; At the same time, as human being is the unity of sensibility and rationality, reason and consciousness, any perceptual response is under the supervision of rationality, and any rational response needs to be expressed through sensibility; Therefore, as long as the aesthetic subject "discovers" the existence of cultural implication from the former cultural object and "awakens" to some cultural and social value attraction, cultural aesthetics can coexist; In other words, as long as the aesthetic subject is attracted by some kind of perceptual charm or form of the cultural object image, pre-cultural aesthetics will appear immediately. This is why compound beauty usually prevails.

The characteristics of compound aesthetics are also a summary of the characteristics of pre-culture and cultural aesthetics: the aesthetic object is the unity of image form and essential content; The sensory sensibility and conscious rationality of the aesthetic subject are mobilized in all directions; The relationship between subject and object is both direct and indirect, with and without intermediary, and so on. In reality, the most typical feature of compound beauty is artistic beauty. Artistic beauty includes artistic content beauty and artistic expression beauty. In the composition of artistic content, there are not only cosmic images absorbed as reflectors, but also pre-cultural aesthetic values, social ethics, cultural aesthetic values and other factors contained in realistic images, which have the outstanding characteristics of compound beauty. However, because this kind of compound beauty is only a concentrated expression or expression of the factors of real compound beauty, it is not the essential composition of artistic beauty after all. The essence of artistic beauty lies in the beauty of artistic expression. To borrow an old saying, the essence of art is not "what to show", but "how to show", that is, the artist's artistic creation. Under it, we will focus on this to give some examples.

Although the art media in different art categories is different, the symbol system is different, and the aesthetic characteristics of artistic culture are also different, all kinds of artists should make full use of the factors of pre-cultural aesthetic form (color, music, symmetry, balance, etc.). With the help of special art media and artistic symbols, his works can not only have rich perceptual forms, but also create rich artistic images and convey rich cultural and social information. For example, modern painters in China not only have seven methods (yellow) in ink, but also use seven colors to create vivid pictures, beautiful mountains and rivers and beautiful flowers. The picture scroll not only has the traditional taste of pen and ink, but also has the symphony of color and pen and ink, which is full of modern flavor and contains the painter's lofty interest and philosophical meaning. Obviously, it is in this art media operation, artistic language application and artistic expression that the wisdom of the creator, the talent of the artist and the cultural aesthetic value of the works of art are reflected. The so-called expert looks at the doorway and what works of art "see" is the secret of how to make an artist's image easy, relaxed, flexible, bold and novel, that is, how to make it "difficult to be beautiful". Just like appreciating Chinese painting, there are endless secrets behind the painter's brush strokes, mountains and valleys, flowers and leaves. Some of them even let people see the painter's pen and ink kung fu for decades and the inheritance track of China literati painting for hundreds of years. But for the ordinary audience, color is color and image is image. Their eyes are blocked by the artistic image formed by natural material media, and their attention is attracted by the perceptual charm of art. Therefore, what they appreciate is mainly the pre-cultural aesthetic value of art, the punishment of good and the promotion of evil. The so-called amateur watching, "watching" is the composition of artistic image or form, whether it is novel, beautiful, exciting, fascinating or the happy ending of good and evil retribution. I can't understand or have no interest in the difficult skills and rich connotations of the artists behind the images. Therefore, it is difficult to unify the standards of experts and laymen in art evaluation because of their different starting points and standards, and their emphasis on artistic beauty appreciation is also different: one focuses on cultural beauty and the other on pre-cultural beauty.

Like architecture. Architects' aesthetic standards for new buildings certainly include the decorative function and use function of the building, but their main focus is on the language style of the building, the treatment of the internal structure and external environment of the building, the application of new building materials and technologies, and the coordination and unity of the decorative function and language style of the building. For the public, these standards are unknown, or even never want to know. They only judge whether the building is beautiful, novel or even large-scale-how can this converge with the expert scale? Like a movie. Film is the most popular but also the most technical art, including screenwriter, director, actor, photographer, artist, costume, props, special effects, makeup, lighting, sound, composition, performance, dubbing, recording and editing. Which department doesn't have its own set of technical requirements? Which department's technical level does not affect the overall artistic effect of the film? In other words, editing, no expression, no performance, can only rely on "cutting", but it may "cut" a thrilling picture effect! But how many viewers know the technical form rules in these categories, that is, their aesthetic significance? For example, how many viewers can see the unique narrative rules of movies, which are composed of movie languages such as scenes, actions, angles and combinations? People pay attention to the entertainment function of movies: whether the plot is exciting and touching, whether the stars are beautiful, sexy and young, and so on. Sometimes, a movie that meets the needs of the audience can be said to be almost effortless. Just make up a sad story and add a few famous movie stars in the corner-Hong Kong and Taiwan pop movies are enough to prove it. Of course, there are also films that are applauded and hit the box office, but that requires the director to take into account two kinds of objects and two different aesthetic laws, so that the works have rich compound beauty, which is of course difficult to do.

In fact, in classical art, artists pursue the highly harmonious compound beauty of pre-cultural beauty and cultural beauty, and the focus of artists' artistic innovation lies in giving people a harmonious enjoyment from the senses to the soul. Famous classical artists have creatively explored, discovered or applied the artistic potential of human beings, almost reaching an amazing degree of perfection, and with the help of this almost perfect art form, they have demonstrated human pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty. Leonardo da vinci's Mona Lisa and Beethoven's Symphony are the pinnacles of human classical art, and the conscious separation between pre-cultural beauty and cultural beauty in art mainly comes from modernism. The anti-tradition and anti-harmony of modernism means reducing the proportion of pre-cultural beauty and strengthening the cultural and social value connotation of art. Those ugly and fragmented visual images are designed to stimulate the audience's vision and shock their hearts. Those abstruse literary works make readers unable to read instinctively and smoothly, but have to ponder and understand repeatedly, so that critics can only bite the bullet and read comments during the day and lie down at night to rest their brains by reading "pre-modern" or post-modern popular novels. As a kind of backwash, or as a product of the era of electronic industry, postmodernism's "mass culture" or "audience culture" (16) focuses on the pre-cultural level of art, specifically to please the public, and to produce a large number of cultural fast food that lacks ideological depth, is not rich in nutrition, and is puffed and soft to meet the sensory needs of the public. Some young scholars call this "sensualization of happiness", which is very vivid and to the point. (17) How to prevent this "audience culture" from hurting the real aesthetic culture and how to improve the artistic taste of this "culture" that can "melt" the public is an important topic in the study of contemporary "aesthetic culture". Logically or historically, facing the 2 1 century, I think we should usher in a new "post-postmodern" or "neoclassicism" art and pursue the beauty of harmony and compound.