Language And The Concept Of Transmutation

With its own expression style and unique connotations, classical Chinese paintingtheory is a language system which demonstrates the notions, mode of perception, andmental structure of the Chinese painters and painting theorists in ancient time, andwhich reflects the unique ideological characteristics of the culture in ancient Chinesesociety. Between the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century, artand culture in China underwent an immense radical change. During thistransformation period of social culture, the inner structure of the language system ofclassical painting theory changed tremendously in order to promote the developmentof art, when "modernity" and "cosmopolitanism" became new trends. The greatchange in painting theory was not simply some partial modification, but structural andessential decomposition and reconstruction, from which derived a "modern" newlanguage system. I name this phenomenon as modern "transformation" of Chinesepainting theory. The word "transformation" refers to the essential change in thelanguage system of Chinese painting theory, which occurred during the particularhistorical period mentioned above.This thesis employs both linguistics and sociology as its studying approaches, such asanalyzing the origination or change of language under certain social background, thestructural relations in language, the expression of ideas in language, and the sociologyand cultural studies of language, etc. By adopting these studying methods, I haveexplored the origination of classical Chinese painting theory, its linguistic characters,and its modern transformation, etc. In this way, I have outlined the linguisticcharacteristics of modern art theory and the notions conveyed in the new art theory.