Transformation Of Discourse

As a drop of the water in the great sea of China 20th century's new literary theses, ZongBaihua's literary theses is still calling for deep thought with the problems reflected.Referring to the transformation of cultures in the transition of the centery, professor JiXianlin worriedly pointed out: "At present the field of world's literary theses is almost absolutelymonopolized by the western discourse, new theories and doctrines surge forward but quicklyvicissitude……isn't it quite peculiar that in those heatinng discourse there is no Chinese voice?The fact was that Zong Baihua didn't suffer from a kind of cultural aphasia, actually he hasconstructed a "real sino aesthetics". Professor Feng Youlan has early pointed out: "In China it isZong Baihua that actually constructed a real aesthetic system".Zong Baihua has actually melted the west with the east, tradition with present. If this kindof meltage turned out to be short of independent creations and without its own system, then itcould only be described as "match of tiles" but not "match of jades". How did Zong Baihua meiltthe west with the east, tradition with present? How did he match the jades with the construction ofhis own discourse system? This dissertion tries to observe the problem in the perspective of thediscourse transformation of Chinese painting theories.The reason why we have chosen the perspective is that, firstly the transformation oftheoretical discourse of Chinese painting in the early stage of the 2oth century is a specific fieldwith so many problems yet waiting to be solved. At present, most of the research of Chinesepainting theory are focus on "what has been said" and it's influence and value, but at the sametime, there are few care about "How to say" with it's meanings and values. That is to say, fewpeople research this subject at the angle of the mode of discourse, which is the exact theme of thisdissertation.Secondly, though Zong Baihua himself attached importance to the artistic aspect of Chineseesthetics, Chinese painting theory was one of the most important researching target(the other onewas Chinese poems)in his academic texts, there is no researches on Zong Baihua's literarytheories about Chinese paintings. This dissertion will discuss the characteristics of thetransformation of Chinese painting theoretical discourse based on his study of Chinese paintingtheory, to express, from the cases studies, the characteristics and essence of Chinese paintingtheoretical discourse during the transformation from traditional formation to modern formation,and looking for the inspiration on how to build the modern Chinese painting theoretic discourse.Within Zong Baihua's discourse construction of Chinese painting theories, his thinkingfeatures can be summed up as: first, the combination of the image thinking with conceptualthinking; second, the combination of personal experience and awakening with logic reasoning;third, the combination of wholly mastering with dissecting analysing; fourth, the meltage of thedialectical thinking using the antithesis "yin"and "yang"with the methiod of argumentation.ZongBaihua's features of discourse style can also be summed up as: first, poetic while at the sametime philosophical; second, personal experiential while at the same time argumentatious; third,superficially walklike but internally systematic; fourth, simple but scrupulous.The methods of thetransformation of his discourse can be summed up as: first, using modern Chingse language andmodern discourse to reexplain in modenrn perspective the contents of the tradition discourse which was still full of life; second, using the Chinese cultural discourse to reexplain indigenouslythe imported ideas; third, creating new concepts that was not only indigenous but modern whenthe original languages was not enough. That is to say, although "walklike "and" experiential" canbe noted as the typical characters of Zong Baihua's thinking about Chinese painting theories ,hisconceptions and his textual structure, yet those conclusions were far more unilateral. ZongBaihua's literary theories were the "match of the jades".Centering on the Chinese local discourse, Zong Baihua tried to link up and melt the westerndiscourse with the Chinese culture in comparatively deep levels. On the base to "assimilate thewest" .Because Zong Baihua himself has creatively realized the modern transformation of thetheory discourse of Chinese painting with his own characteristic, he has made special contributionfor the whole modern transformation of the theory discourse of Chinese painting since the age ofChinese modern time. The achievements on the construction of modern Chinese local discoursereached by Zong Baihua still bestow us ,till today, with a great deal of enlightment.