What is the point of view that everything that can be characterized is there, everything that is there is an image, and everything that is an image is an air?

The view of the universe.

Zhang Zai of the Northern Song Dynasty said, "Everything that can be characterized is there, everything that is there is an image, and everything that is an image is an air."

Translation

Anything that has a form that can be seen with the naked eye is objectively existent; and anything that is objectively existent is a manifestation of some phenomena of nature; and such phenomena can be interpreted as the result of the drive of the aura, i.e., all things have the meaning of having a spirit and a nature, a kind of plain materialist view.

This quote is from the Northern Song Dynasty's Zhang Zai's "Zhengmeng - Qianjian", in which Zhang Zai discusses in detail the Yuanqi as the origin of all things, an understanding that is consistent with the ancient doctrine of cosmic evolution, which is one of the reasons why it has been able to penetrate into people's hearts and minds.

Later Influence

Zhang Zai's greatest influence on traditional culture was the creation of Guan Xue (关學), which had a great impact on later Confucian scholars, and was studied and inherited by successive generations of Confucian scholars from the Northern Song Dynasty (北宋時) to the Qing Dynasty (清代). Among them, Lv Dajun, Lv Dalin, Su Li, Fan Yu, Li Fu and others in the Song Dynasty played an important role in the formation and development of Guanxue.

Feng Congwu, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, fully inherited the tradition of learning from Zhang Zai's thought, and summarized the history of the development of Guanxue for more than 500 years, and successively founded Guanzhong Shuyuan and Shushan Shuyuan, and Guanxue resumed to present a prosperous scene under his efforts.