| Chinese ancient art is significantly distinct from Western art in that it is "art of lines", representative of linearity thinking. Embodied in all forms of art, linearity is the most striking formal feature of Chinese ancient art, into which this paper aims to make a comprehensive examination from the perspectives of both aesthetics and art philosophy. This paper tries to define the "art of lines" from two aspects, one of which is "line", referring to a means of modeling based or mainly based on lines, and the other of which is "linearity", meaning the "line" extending both temporarily and spatially. Discussion in this paper will be particularly focused on the "line".The paper starts with a discussion of primitive thinking, placing particular emphasis on primitive art, which, as the author argues, was characterized by linearity and considered as the origin of the "art of lines" in ancient China. It is also argued that the feature of linearity of Chinese primitive art was first of all influenced and determined by the similar feature possessed by Chinese primitive thinking; in the witching production activities of the primitive people, the linearity feature of primitive art formed gradually with the people's replicating profiles of objects through deferred imitation by using the techniques and depicting tools at that time.With a comparison between the creation methods of Chinese and Western art, i.e., deferred imitation and sketch imitation respectively, and on the basis of facts about Chinese and Western art, the paper then proceeds with an analysis of their different formal characteristics, with that of the former being lines and that of the latter being conglomeration. However, neither the creation methods nor the formal characteristics are isolated artistic facts, because they are affected and determined by the cultural roots of their own. In the West, ever since ancient Greek, the scientific methods used and the aesthetic tendency for seeking truth combined to help shape the development of the creation method of realism. In ancient China, by contrast, due to the culture and social psychology formed out of the social structure under the ancient patriarchal clan system and the self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy, more were inherited than wereinnovated in the art, which came down as a natural extension and development of primitive art.Chinese ancient art was a historical product, and the making and development of its feature of "linearity" were closely related to the social surroundings, fashions, customs, philosophy, ideology, aesthetic tendency and the physical media of art in ancient China. It is the author's argument that ancient China's social structure under the patriarchal clan system bonded by blood made it possible for the witchcraft and the totemism with a primitive flavor prosper, providing a breeding ground for the survival and booming of the "art of lines". Besides, there was a necessary connection between the "art of lines" and ancient China's philosophy and aesthetic ideologies, especially the aesthetic taste of emphasizing "simplicity", "meaning" and "spirit". Meanwhile, those artistic media used only by Chinese people, including brush, ink and paper, served as important physical basis of the "art of lines".Since the "lines" of Chinese ancient art had such rich cultural connotations, they should be, supposedly, "Significant Form" of art. The author proposes that the "lines" of Chinese ancient art had a wide variety of aesthetic features, including mainly the emotional, decorative, temporal and national ones as well as their relevance to times. Meanwhile, the "lines" acquire their meanings in their evolution from prototype imitation through geometrical decorative patterns to abstract symbols in their natural historical development from crudity to delicateness, from simplicity to complicatedness, till the splendid sight of rich vocabulary of lines.After this theoretical argumentation and elucidation, this paper makes a careful examination into the changes of lines th...
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