Art Notes 02: Debate on the Nature of Art

People face many works of art, and besides appreciating their artistic expression, there are always people who want to explore the essence of art.

Before the emergence of quantum theory, if it is a physical phenomenon, we generally don't have much explanation for the nature of a phenomenon, which is the result of the establishment of Newton system.

In the face of art, because we are dealing with human perceptual activities, it is inevitable that we cannot reach an agreement.

As Zhu Liyuan said in Aesthetics, the editor-in-chief, in the 20th century, more and more aestheticians thought it impossible to find the essence of universal beauty.

This sentence is also true in art.

At present, there are several main theories on the essence of art: objective spiritualism, subjective spiritualism, imitation theory and reappearance theory.

The so-called objective spiritualism means that art is the embodiment of "idea" or objective "cosmic spirit".

Plato thinks that the rational world is the first, the perceptual world is the second and the artistic world is the third.

That is to say, only the rational world is real, the perceptual world is a copy of the rational world, and art is a copy of the perceptual world, so art is called "copy of copy" and "shadow of shadow". Plato rejected and belittled art, especially poetry.

Hegel of Germany also holds a similar view. He believes that the essence of art lies in idea or absolute spirit. However, he believes that concept is content and the expression of art history. Content and form are complementary and inseparable parts with dialectical thinking. In other words, people can see infinite universal truth from limited art forms.

The same is true of China's ancient thought of "writing carries Tao". Literature is the expression of Tao, and Tao is the foundation of literature. Of course, it should be noted that there are both natural ways and sage ways here. Whether it is the way of nature or the way of saints, this is an objective spirit.

According to the theory of subjective spirit, the expression of self-consciousness in art history is the impulse of life ontology.

Kant in Germany believes that art is purely the genius creation of writers and artists, and this kind of art has nothing to do with interests or any purpose.

So Kant regards freedom as the essence of art, which is exactly the case. He thinks that art and games are interlinked.

Kant's theory of artistic freedom later developed into the theory of will freedom, and then became the source of Nietzsche's voluntarism.

There was also a view in ancient China that literature and art were used to express feelings and desires. This view attributed feelings and desires to the expression of the artist's personal heart and desires, and denied the connection between art and society. The "theory of spirit" of the public security school in Ming Dynasty is one of the representatives.

Representative theory is similar to objective spirit theory, but imitation is not rough imitation.

Aristotle thinks that art history imitates the real world, and he affirms the authenticity of the real world, thus affirming the authenticity of imitating the reality, and even thinks that the imitated world is more real than the real world.

He said, "poets and painters should not imitate things as they are, but should imitate things as they are."

Starting from "beauty is life", Russian Chernyshevski thinks that the "reproduction" of life by art history is the "reproduction" of objective reality.

He believes that art reflects real life, including nature and human society.

Reproduction theory affirms that beauty can't be divorced from human ideals, that real life is the source of art, and that artists must give full play to their subjective initiative when interpreting and judging life.