Aesthetic Function Research On Five Flavors Being In Harmonious Porportion

"Five flavors being in harmonious proportion" is the most essential aesthetic idea of Chinese people on diet. As far back as pre-Qin days, people had already known how to flavor with the five flavors, they also created the dietary idea of "five flavors being in harmonious proportion" according to yin-yang and five element culture which was mainstream at that time. Until now, Chinese people still cannot flavor without the five flavors, which means the idea of "five flavors being in harmonious proportion" has a deep influence on Chinese's diet. As a characteristic aesthetic category of Chinese dietary culture, taste sensation has some particularities in aesthetic function, which means taste sensation is not as intuitional and precise as visual or auditory sense, but taste can evoke more aesthetic imagination than any other sense. Just because the sense of taste is too wonderful for words, people tend to discuss taste in the realm of spirit, which is beyond sensatory perception, in which way, the cultural connotation of taste aesthetics has been enhanced. So far, in the studies of scholars at home and abroad, they usually do research on "five flavors being in harmonious proportion" in its health preserving function, or they discuss the aesthetic category of "taste" in the theory of literature and art, but this thesis will focus on the aesthetic value of taste sensation, do research on the aesthetic function and aesthetic application of "five flavors being in harmonious proportion", discuss the integration and transition of the dietary idea in new times.This thesis begins with historical research, traces the thread of development of "five flavors being in harmonious proportion" according to historical documents, restores the theory to the original state, and separates the process of the development of the dietary theory into three parts:the embryonic stage (pre-Qin period), the formative stage (Qin and Han Dynasty), and the evolutive stage (after the Han Dynasty). By tracing the thread of history, we may find that "five flavors being in harmonious proportion" is a flavoring theory created from the theoretical model of yin-yang and five elements theory in ancient China, and it gets extensive contacts with all things in the world through the model of five elements, even more, it is inextricably tied up with Chinese traditional culture. Therefore, on the theoretical source, "five flavors being in harmonious proportion" is a dietary idea based on Chinese traditional culture, and it is in accordance with the outlook on life, the cultural view and the values of Chinese people, which is a necessary condition of making its aesthetic function come true. The artistic processing of taste makes the aesthetic function of "five flavors being in harmonious proportion" come true, that means it combines the subjective feelings with the objective attribute of food to transform it into a kind of spiritual product beyond the form of natural taste sensation, so that it embodies people's mind, meets people's needs, and is valuable in art. However, when it comes to modern times, the traditional dietary culture has been challenged by science:the production of compound flavoring simplifies the technical practice of "five flavors being in harmonious proportion"; multi-culture and individual liberty fluctuate the dominant position of "five flavors being in harmonious proportion" in the field of food aesthetics; moreover, the rise of modern science and nutriology calls the scientificalness of traditional dietary idea into question. In that situation, the idea of "five flavors being in harmonious proportion" must be adapted to the requirements of the development of the times even better by inosculating new conception and dispensing with its own theoretic shortages. This is the only choice of traditional dietary culture to keep on being vitality.