Characteristics and Causes of Chinese and Western Traditional Arts

From a philosophical point of view, there are differences in the understanding of the concept of beauty between orientals and westerners.

Beauty in the eyes of westerners is closely related to truth. Westerners' idealism is often related to the pursuit of truth. The two elements of truth are truth and reason, so it gradually evolved into modern western positivism science. Positivism is characterized by the inevitable deduction and demonstration of the cause and effect of things, excluding contingency, so it lacks mysticism and obscurity. Typical examples are western medicine and western classical physics. They rely more on what the eyes see than the imagination of the brain (of course, it is not that western art lacks imagination, it is a matter of priority).

The relationship between beauty and goodness in the eyes of orientals is closer. Beauty advocated by Confucian classics is goodness, while poor legalists have never become the mainstream of China's philosophy. Moreover, a large part of the scientific system in the East is non-positivism. Typical examples are Chinese medicine and the meridian theory of Yi-ology. Most of them sum up experience from accidents, skip the deduction process and directly get the internal relationship of things (so-called "Tao"). In this way, more obscure things with mysticism will inevitably appear in the academic system of the East.

It can be said that the internal differences between eastern and western art exist in the fields of science and philosophy.