Picturesque:A Theoretical Study

"Picturesque" is not only a horsesense in natural aesthetic experience,but also an aesthetic topic,arguing that "the beautiful natural scenery be sure to look like(landscape)painting","the natural aesthetic appreciation of landscape must look as painting" or "We will use the 'as painting' experience and describe the beauty of the natural landscape".There are concept presentations and theoretical studies about Picturesque both in Chinese and Western aesthetic history.The basic connotation of Picturesque lies in that "the beauty of nature is as art".Like Rhetoric simile,Picturesque reveals the oneness of nature and art in the aesthetic from the angle of"nature imitating art"(or the problem of oneness natural beauty and artistic beauty).This oneness can be defined as:natural beauty and artistic beauty are discriminatively unified together in the aesthetic appreciation,which both implies a unity of aesthetic behavior and aesthetic theory,and the natural beauty and artistic beauty are interlinked in a uniform aesthetic appreciation;and the discriminative assembly of nature and art in the aesthetic appreciation,which manifesting as the inevitable association and knot of nature and art in the essence of beauty.The oneness of nature and art based on the oneness of nature and man,which register both as the consubstantiality of man and nature(they are all vested in the same noumenon),and the harmonious coexistence of man and nature.Because of the inevitable linking of nature and art,it's better to say that Picturesque is a basic proposition about the aesthetics than it is a proposition in aesthetics.For Picturesque the chief question is:why the beauty of the natural landscape is bound to look like a painting.The answer to this question is both an illumination of the aesthetic foundation of Picturesque,and the legitimacy-demonstration of Picturesque as an aesthetic proposition,as well as the oneness issues of Picturesque also need to be clarified in this discussion.Picturesque is closely related to the distance,the meaning of which is two-tier,referring to both physical distance and psychological distance.Visual appreciation of the natural landscape must be requested on the double-meaning distance,this will inevitably lead to picturesque,physical distance through visual perspective,the psychological distance by "the form appreciation in disinterestedness" to make the natural landscape looking like a(two-dimensional)picture.The inner basis of the association between Distance and picturesque is the human visual characteristics.The inspection from the point of view of distance is actually an exploration of Picturesque from an angle of the vision.The underlying basis for picturesque is the cultural attributes of vision.The inquiry of Picturesque must transition to the cultural level.Culture is understood in the sense of the externalization of humanity and the self-realization of human nature.Cultural perspective is the thinking from the viewpoint of human.At this level,the"Association of ideas" of British Empiricism,Kant's "Priori Patterns",Anaheim's"Visual Thinking",Gombrich's "The Projection of Schema",,Marx's "Theory on Objectification",Cassirer's "Symbolic Form" and the Theory on Construction of Practice of Human Culture,all these theories work together in a progressive way rather than the layout,to make a demonstration of Picturesque at the cultural level.Cultural illumination and visual inquiry of Picturesque both revealed the oneness of art and nature,man and nature from the perspective of "Humanized Nature".The cultural interpretation of Picturesque is a typical manifestation of "Humanized Nature" perspective.This perspective must bear the scrutiny from the cognition and ethics.Its defect is manifested as the problem of truth in cognition and anthropocentrism in ethics.The defect of the perspective of "Humanized Nature" is solved in the phenomenological explanation.Phenomenological perspective emphasizes the impropriation of the human perception and action by the self-presentation of the beings.Thus the truth of the matter is not man seeing natural,but nature watching man.The phenomenological explanation not only overcomes the defects of picturesque at "Humanized Nature" level,but also proves the legitimacy of"Humanized Nature",that is the "Humanized Nature" based on "Humanization of Nature".From the phenomenological point of view,the virtuality of Picturesque is the self-generation from nature to art and human beings.Therefore,this interpretation reveals the oneness of nature and art,man and nature from the level of "Humanization of Nature".The inquiry in level of the aesthetic feeling is the study in "internal research" of aesthetics for picturesque.From a point of view of aesthetic feeling natural beauty is Purposiveness.According to Kant the essence of natural beauty is the "formal subjective purposiveness" of nature in pure reflection,namely the "purposeless purposiveness" of nature.Because of nature and art respectively represented the"purposelessness" and the "purposiveness",so "natural beauty must look like art",which is to say that the beauty of natural landscape is inevitably picturesque in visual appreciation.From a pint of view in the moral theology the natural beauty comes from the intentional creation for the purpose of the human moral mission(freedom)of a moral Original Being.Nature is understood as a works of art which is created by a Superman artist for the purpose for the freedom of man through an intellectual analogy.The natural landscape because of this reason must be picturesque in aesthetic seeing.The study of the Picturesque in aesthetic feeling reveals the oneness issue at levels from both aesthetics and moral theology.Through the argumentation and illumination,The Picturesque would to be an aesthetic proposition,in other words,a basic proposition about the aesthetics.The aesthetic significance of the oneness of nature and art which revealed by Picturesque lies in:For natural aesthetic,natural beauty and artistic beauty can and should learn from each other,As a challenge,Picturesque would actually promotes the picturesque natural aesthetic theory in a positive way;As for aesthetics,Picturesque demonstrates the complete morpha of the Aesthetics(that is Unified Aesthetics),and thus can be said that Picturesque has important theoretical significance to Aesthetic and the Reconstruction of Contemporary Aesthetics;Finally,Picturesque reveals the essence of beauty in a certain level,that beauty is a combination of form and formlessness in light of the oneness of nature and art.The cultural significance of Picturesque is the theoretical enlightenment to the historical survival of mankind,which presents as:Picturesque reveals the harmonious coexistence between man and nature,which would be very important for the historic survival of mankind;as a measure and guide for the true historic survival for mankind,picturesque could provide theoretical enlightenment for the contemporary ecological problems,environmental planning,environmental improvements(such as the beautiful Chinese engineering)and even the entire redemption of modern history,of salvation aesthetic theory on inspiration,as well as opened the light of Truth outside the "Cave" for all kinds of social and cultural criticisms to a certain extent.