Several doctrines about the nature of art--imitation theory

In the history of Chinese and foreign art, there are three representative views on the nature of art: "objective spirit", "subjective spirit" and "imitation" ("reproduction"). There are three representative views on the nature of art: "objective spirit", "subjective spirit", "imitation" ("reproduction") and so on. "Imitation" is the blueprint of the realist theory of reflection, the principle of literature in European literature for more than a thousand years.

In the relationship between literature and the world, one of the oldest traditions of Western literature is that literature is an "imitation" of the external world. The relationship between literature and art and the external nature and the external world is the most basic and central issue that classical literature cannot avoid, and it is the most natural and direct issue that literature and art face. On this issue, a tradition of Western literary theory is the simple belief that literature and art are "imitation" and "reproduction" of the external world. As early as the pre-Greek period, the philosopher Democritus put forward the "imitation theory", he said: "From spiders we learn to weave and sew; from swallows we learn to build houses, from swans and warblers and other singing birds we learn to sing." On this basis, he proposed that literature and art should emulate good people, good things and should not imitate bad people, his ideas laid the foundation of the western literature and art "imitation".

Both Plato and Aristotle, the originators and masters of Western culture, advocated that literature and art originated from imitation. Plato believed that the source of the world and the ultimate truth is an unchanging "Reason", the external natural world is the imitation of the Reason, and art is the imitation of the natural world, therefore, art is the "imitation of imitation" of the Reason, and is the "shadow of the shadow". Therefore, artworks are "imitations of imitations" of rationality, "shadows of shadows", three times removed from the truth, and do not reflect the essence of things. He said that literature and art are like a mirror, reflecting only the appearance of things, and in The Ideal State he said, "You can try it at once, take a mirror and rotate it in all directions, and you will immediately create the sun, the stars, the earth, yourself, other animals, utensils, plants and trees, and all the things that we have just mentioned," but the reproduction of the mirror is only a reproduction of the appearance of things. Reproduction is only a kind of appearance of the reproduction, can not imitate things "entity", so this imitation is not real, the artist is only an "image maker", so Plato is very disgusted with the poet's imitation, as a great sin of literature and art, to expel poets He wanted to expel the poets from the Ideal State. Although Plato put forward "Imitation" and "Mirror" from the point of view of degrading literature and art, he laid the foundation for the later Western literary theories of "Imitation" and "Mirror". But he laid the foundation for the Western literary tradition of "imitation" and "mirror". Aristotle, a student of Plato, believed that imitation is a kind of human instinct, and literature is also an act of imitation, he said that "epic, tragedy, comedy and ode to the god of wine and most of the double-barrelled pipe and harp music - all of this is in fact imitation", and that tragedy and that tragedy is the imitation of those who are better than the average, while comedy is the imitation of those who are worse than the average.　

All of Plato's thought is based on the central concept of the Idea, and he sees literature and art as essentially imitative of the Idea. Inheriting the spirit of Socrates' imitation, Plato recognized that "poetic imitation imitates those who act - either forcibly or voluntarily - and who, as a consequence of these acts, have good or bad luck, and feel either pain or pleasure. suffering or pleasure. There is nothing else". But he also adapted Socrates' theory of imitation from an Ideological point of view. He argues that the Idea is the ultimate source of the world, that the existence of nature is the result of imitation of the Idea, that literature is the result of imitation of the natural world, and that literature is therefore like the shadow of a shadow, "separated from the reality" of the Idea. The epistemological reason for Plato's rejection of literature is that literature is ontologically too far from the Ideas, and in reality is a copy and transcription of natural objects, something even more inferior to natural entities. Plato took the spiritual entity Idea as the ultimate source of art, and degraded literature and art as something inferior to the real world, reversing the causal relationship between matter and consciousness, which is one of the wrong sides of his theory; however, in this "wrong" theory there are two aspects of "correct" understanding. But in this "wrong" theory there are two aspects of "correct" understanding. Firstly, when Plato emphasized that literature and art are imitations of real things, he did not realize that he was arguing from the perspective of genesis that social life is the direct source of literature and art; secondly, when he insisted on Idea-centrism and the creation of literary reality by literary concepts, he was actually emphasizing that ideality is higher than reality, and that the world of art is the second nature created by human beings outside of the material world, which in turn elevates the significance of literary and artistic activities from the perspective of the theory of value. This in turn elevates the significance of artistic and literary activities from the perspective of value theory.

Aristotle, on the other hand, inherited Plato's view of the imitation of artistic poetry, but radically transformed it into materialism and established his own system of aesthetic thought: he abandoned the concept of Plato's "Rationality", based imitation on real life, affirmed the authenticity of real life, and believed that the imitation of the world by literature is also real. The imitation of literature and art is also real, and this reality of literary imitation is not only the reality of the surface image, but also the universal reality of life reflected by writers under the principles of "law of possibility" and "law of necessity", which is more philosophical than history, thus laying the foundation for the Western concept of "true and dynamic reflection of real life". This laid the foundation of the Western literary tradition, which demanded true and dynamic reflection of real life. He thinks that imitation is human nature, which is common to all people and should not be condemned, and should be given its due status because it can give people knowledge; secondly, he also thinks that imitation, though imitating the reality, is higher than the reality, and is not negated as Plato did; as for the characteristics of imitation, he thinks that the view that literary and artistic creation must reflect the universality of life involves the relationship between universality and individuality in literary and artistic creation; fourthly, he thinks that imitation is not the only way to reflect the reality of life; he also believes that imitation is the most important way to reflect the reality of life in the West, and that imitation is the most important way to reflect the reality of life in the West. Fourthly, the method of imitation, he put forward three methods, namely, imitating "what was or is", "what is legendary or believed" and "what should be"; lastly, the method of imitation, he said, is to imitate "what was or is"; and finally, the method of imitation, he said, is to imitate "what was or is". "Finally, in the imitation of the social role of literature, in addition to inheriting Plato's "utility", he also pointedly affirmed the cognitive and pleasure role of literature.

This imitation of Western literature actually became an imitation of the Greek literary example in the Roman period. Horace emphasized in his Poetic Art that he "plays with the Greek example day and night", and literary creation became an imitation of ancient Greece. In the feudal theological period of the Middle Ages, the theorists represented by Aquinas also advocated the imitation of nature in literature and art, but believed that the imitation of nature was the imitation of God. Aquinas said: "Aristotle teaches us that art imitates nature on the ground that all things are interrelated in their origin, and consequently in their activities and results. Therefore, the process of art must be an imitation of nature, and the product of art must be an imitation of nature. At the same time, before the human mind sets out to create something, it must also be inspired by the divine mind, and must learn the processes of nature in order to conform to them." In this way Aquinas sees the imitation of nature and the imitation of God as one and the same thing, since God is the true Creator of everything.

In general, the doctrine of imitation reveals the nature of man as an imitator, and that imitation may have been the earliest method of artistic creation adopted by man. But by the limitations of the influence of the times, there is a certain mechanical and one-sided, for the primitive art, imitation is only a means, not the end. And the human imitation as a human instinct, but not find the motivation behind the imitation.