On the understanding of "landscape is better than morality" in ancient times with prose describing landscape.

"Bide" is a figurative comparison and metaphor of the corresponding relationship between natural landscape, vegetation form and some internal morality or morality of human beings, so as to personalize and spiritualize nature and objectify people's thoughts and feelings. In this way, the natural scenery and human temperament communicate with each other and combine with each other in an appropriate convection movement, forming a unique landscape culture and art in China.

"To compare mountains and rivers" began with Confucius. Although Confucius didn't talk much about painting, he organically combined "painting" with "Tao", "virtue", "benevolence" and "art", and created a precedent of comparing mountains and rivers. Confucius said in The Analects of Confucius, Yongye: "Confucius said,' Wise people enjoy water, while benevolent people enjoy Leshan.' "This includes the appreciation of natural beauty and the praise of benevolence and wisdom, which complement each other and become an organic whole. This is the most important contribution of Confucius to China's landscape painting.

Taoism has a similar exposition on "Bide". Laozi used water as a metaphor for "Tao" to communicate the morality of "water" with the essence of "Tao", so that they reached the realm of mutual virtue. Zhuangzi specially developed the side of "Leshan" and "Happy Water", and devoted himself to nature with the attitude of "benefiting things" and "taking things as spring", which became the spiritual prototype of later landscape paintings.

"Bide" developed again in the Han Dynasty, among which Dong Zhongshu and Liu Xiang were the representatives. Dong Zhongshu said in the Spring and Autumn Mountains and Rivers Fu: "Mountains ... are like people with lofty ideals ... while water is like people with virtue"; Liu Xiang's Shuo Yuan Zayan discusses "Happy Water" from the perspectives of "courtesy", "virtue" and "holiness" respectively. He also has a unique view on Leshan. He once said, "Why is Leshan also a benevolent person?" ? As the saying goes,' Fushan' ... is admired by everyone ...' National success: it is a benevolent person, so Leshan is also.' "

People's understanding of landscape has a developing process. Zuo Si, a famous writer in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, said that "there is no need for silk and bamboo, and the mountains and rivers have clear sounds", which has pointed the "mountains and rivers" in geographical sense to the "mountains and rivers" in aesthetic value. Since then, people's observation of mountains and rivers has become an aesthetic experience of nature. "Landscape is better than scenery" objectifies "nature" and people, so people and natural landscape interact and blend through the intermediary of "landscape is better than scenery", which has a far-reaching impact on the artistic conception of China's landscape painting.

The truly independent landscape painting was formed in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, which has a lot to do with "landscape comparison". The advocacy of humanistic spirit in Wei and Jin Dynasties is marked by human awakening, and the main content of metaphysics in Wei and Jin Dynasties lies in the ontological construction of personality.

In the Cao Wei era, due to the prevalence of metaphysics, more attention was paid to evaluating the spirit of characters from the comparison of natural objects. During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, scholars completed the proposition of the times of "viewing mountains and rivers with metaphysics". With the maturity of cultural psychology, artistic theory and formal skills, and the empathy from "people and things" and "landscape appreciation" to nature, landscape painting and landscape painting theory came into being.

Landscape painters such as Zong Bing and Wang Wei appeared in the Southern Dynasties. They are not only art practitioners, but also art theorists. Zong Bing's Preface to Painting Landscape, Wang Wei's Painting Spectrum and other theoretical works of landscape painting fully embody the idea that "landscape is better than morality". Zhang Xuan in the Tang Dynasty was good at painting pines, and regarded it as the sustenance of his lifelong ambition. He organically linked the looseness in his paintings with people's feelings, and his paintings were related to "Tao", so as to achieve the goal of "morality by virtue".

Tang's brushwork is a painting theory full of "virtue". It inherited Confucius' thought of "mountains and rivers are better than morality", supported by objects, and advocated the spirit of "gentleman's wind", which relied on objects and attached importance to personality cultivation, and had a great influence on the painting theory of later generations and the painter's life.

The theory of "Bide" in painting thought developed rapidly and became fashionable, which appeared in Song Dynasty. Ouyang Xiu used "the joy of mountain people" as a metaphor for the wind of a leisurely gentleman. Su Dongpo succeeded Ouyang Xiu in completing the poetry movement in the Northern Song Dynasty. Scholars in Song Dynasty are best at painting bamboo, and he praised bamboo's "modesty" and "strength" with poems. Su Zhe called bamboo "pale after cold" ... chasing pines and cypresses for self-love and stealing benevolence ". Song people's comments on painting do not focus on artistic objects or objects, but on "Tao", "mind" and "morality", focusing on the inner spiritual world of the subject. Deng Chun also made a Bede-style evaluation of Li Cheng's landscape paintings in Miscellanies of Paintings. He said: "Li Yingqiu's many talents are enough to learn ... his works are cold forests ... to publicize the opposition of gentlemen."

In the Yuan Dynasty, literati painters, represented by Huang, Wang Meng, Ni Zan and Zhenwu, advocated "temperament" and "escape", and advocated "appropriate interest" and "self-entertainment", and painting themes such as "three friends at the age of cold", "four gentlemen" and "five purity" became increasingly prosperous. Scholars and painters attach their feelings to things and to the spirit of "virtue and goodness".

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, there was more talk about "Bide". Wen Zhiming said: "Ancient hermits wrote more about snow scenes, hoping to take vacations to convey the message of the cold old days." ; Wu Li said in the Postscript of Painting Mo Jing: "Bamboo is expensive, so it is necessary to paint its moral integrity ..."; Yun Ge: "Yu Shu Hua likes to be Joe Agugen ... you can be a gentleman ..."; In Quotations from Bitter Melon Monks, Shi Tao quoted Confucius' thought that "the benevolent enjoys Leshan and the wise enjoys water", and compared the spirituality of "mountain" and "water" with the spirit and morality of human beings, thus taking the Confucian thought of "virtue" a step further, revealing the relationship between the natural characteristics of mountains and rivers and human aesthetics, and pointing out that natural mountains and rivers are the greatest nourishment for artists.

From this perspective, "the ratio of mountains and rivers" has profoundly influenced the aesthetic cognition of China's landscape painting, and its main contents are as follows.

Under the guidance of the world outlook and aesthetics of "the unity of man and nature", "the beauty of mountains and rivers" moves people's subjective aesthetic feelings into considerable natural objects, and this "empathy" makes nature assimilate and sing with people. Here, subjective and objective, subject and object are completely integrated, thus forming the aesthetic standard of China's landscape painting-the organic unity of nature and spiritual source.

The idea of "Scenery is better than virtue" permeates landscape painting, which strengthens the freehand brushwork and expressive force of landscape painting art and shows the comprehensiveness and uniqueness of China's landscape painting.

Under the influence of the idea that "scenery is better than morality", China's landscape painting gradually formed a relatively fixed theme and painting theme. The images of "four gentlemen" such as plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum have long been favored by China literati landscape paintings, and the literati painter's "expressing ambition by borrowing things" has become a unique aesthetic expression.

Of course, "the ratio of mountains and rivers", as an aesthetic paradigm, has long been a mindset and creative trend of contemporary painters because of the inheritance and continuation of history. How to carry forward the tradition and transform it into a new artistic concept that conforms to the aesthetic taste of modern people is a problem that contemporary China painters must think about.