Liang Qichao Aesthetic Thought

Liang Qichao is one of the pineers and founders of China's national new aesthetics in the modern times. He is also one of the major representatives in the transition of China's aesthetics from its classical phase to its modern phase. Liang's aesthetics, an important part in the framework of Liang's cultural thoughts, is the product of the paticular social reality in the modern times in China as well as its cultural context, reflecting the transaction between a given society and an extraordinary individual. Liang's great contribution to the construction of China's new national culture in the transition of cultures in the present age lies in his advocation of enlightenment of new people, his assertion of academic principle of combination of learning with practice, indepence and freedom in researching study and his insistance of combining and serving-me oriented researching methods. Liang's aesthetics started to come into being in the 19th century and fulfilled itself mainly in the 20s of the following age. His Europe-touring can-serve to divide it into two periods, the early one between 1896 and 1917 and the maturing one between 1918 and 1928. Each period possesses properties of its own, during which Liang's academical sense, meoratical view, insight and dimension as well as his ideas of researching methods developed repectively and rapidly. Meanwhile, each period share the common priciple, maintaining the value of aesthetics in enlightening people and in promoting life. Liang's aesthetics has set up an internal framework which demonstrates great exploring interest in daily life, with "taste" as its core, "emotion" as its base, "effect" as its medium and "enlightenment" as its object. This framework embodies in Liang's aesthetics not only the spirit of the sense of reality, the ideal of taste, and the features of humanity and science but also the characteristics of his ideas of researching methods which focus upon mutual combination, innovation and individuality. Liang's aesthetics is the very practice of combination of his ideas of reality and ideal, the truthful and the practicable. Liang's aesthetics covers a wide range of elements in modern aesthetics,such as its essence and function, its relationship with life, aesthetic psychology, aesthetic education, artistic aesthetics, methods of artistic creation and styles of writers. Besides,it displays Liang's keen insight in variety of artistic forms, even in Chinese ancient classic assays. Liang's aesthetics generally possesses the following remarkable properties: it has established an internally logical framework in its theoratical system; it focuses its values upon optimistic spirit, persuit of happiness in life and sense of beauty, and combination of the truthful and the practicable; it pays more attention to the unity of truth, goodness and beauty which is regarded as the essence of the mind; it advocates the researching methods which is derived upon the base of traditional criticism yet positive in absorbing the logical models in western academics at our own service, with an attempt to unite both into a new system; and at last it has an outstanding academic spirit of Liang his own which is fully emthusiastic and creative. Liang's aesthetics displays a main trend of the combination of western modern aesthetics with China's traditional sense of beauty in the transitional period, which helps its transition and paves the way for the development of China's aesthetics in the 20th century, though its system is not perfect, in addition, there exist both merits and demerits in his research work, yet it contains the essence of new sense of aesthetics, embodies the construction of model of new aesthetics. The process of its development reflects the basic law of the evolution of the main trend of China's aesthetics in the transitional period. Liang's aesthetics has its unusual significance, for it also stresses its academic idea to be devoted to the double reconstruction of academic culture and the society, its opening-up mind in combination of western culture with...