Characteristics of China's Aesthetics

The diffusion of China's aesthetics reflects the inherent characteristics of China's thought. Confucius said, "Knowing is not as good as being kind, and being kind is not as good as being happy." If we compare this sentence with the relationship between truth, goodness and beauty, we can say that aesthetic activities include cognitive activities and moral activities. But in fact, in China's traditional thought, truth, goodness and beauty cannot be completely separated, but belong to Tao. The focus of China's aesthetic discussion is not "beauty", but the profound experience of "Tao". The ancients in China should grasp the pleasure of ideology and morality in the art highly related to body and mind, and turn the process of artistic creation, the process of appreciating natural scenery and even ordinary things and behaviors in daily life into the exhibition place of Tao. "Happiness of Tao" and "Happiness of Confucius and Yan" are one of the important topics in China's philosophy and one of the core issues in China's aesthetics. It is precisely because of this that China's philosophy, art and aesthetics cannot be clearly divided-the vividness of China's philosophy and the profundity of China's art are the most valuable and distinctive features of China's aesthetics.

The "beauty" of China's aesthetics is generalized, and the penetration of "aesthetics" as a discipline in academic sense is determined by the ideological trend of academic division in modern western countries. Generally speaking, western philosophy before the 20th century paid attention to truth, goodness and beauty, and the corresponding branch of philosophy was aesthetics. At the beginning of the 20th century, aesthetics was translated into "aesthetics" by the Japanese and entered the vision of China intellectuals. The ancient scholars with profound knowledge and broad vision, represented by Wang Guowei, paid enthusiastic attention to it and actively introduced it. From then on, China's aesthetics began a process of being rooted in China's cultural soil and growing in Europe. However, the process of China's modern aesthetics from its foundation to its development presents a unique appearance: the discussions that started in the field of aesthetics often "cross the border" and go to the fields of literature, history, daily life and even society and politics. Today, this is not necessarily an academic "immature" performance, but just reflects the uniqueness of China's traditional aesthetics and aesthetic education thought.