The 20th Century Construction And Reflection Of The Aesthetics Of Calligraphy

The early 20^th century witnessed the preliminary convergence of Chinese calligraphy and western aesthetics introduced by Wang Guowei. From then on, calligraphic aesthetics developed into aesthetic study with modern western theory as it is now, because of the efforts by such masters as Liang Qichao, Zong Baihua, Lin Yutang, Deng Yizhe and Zhu Guangqian. In the course of development, modern calligraphic aesthetics grows into manhood by constant accumulation on one hand; on the other, it has unsatisfactory points. Development and reflection of the subject have a strong claim to consideration.This paper aims at making an analysis and appraisal of the development of calligraphic aesthetics of the 20^th century and thus finding out the law of its development, both by case study and overall observation. The paper is divided into two parts.The first part centers on studies of those masters who contributed to the calligraphic aesthetics theory. The origin, development and limitations of their theories are involved. The first Chapter and the second one elaborate on the part. The first chapter is an analysis of the development of calligraphic aesthetics during the first half of the 20^th century, especially different aesthetic ideas put forward by Wang Guowei, Liang Qichao, Zhang Yinlin, Zong Baihua and Lin Yutang. The second chapter is an analysis of the development of calligraphic aesthetics during the second half of the 20^th century, mainly different aesthetic ideas of Liu Gangji, Ye Xiushang, Jin Xuezhi, Chen Zhenlian and Qiu Zhenzhong.The second part focuses on the exploration of the development of calligraphic aesthetics of the 20^th century. Knowledge accumulation is involved in the course of the development, which is regarded as a transformation from classical calligraphic aesthetics to modern aesthetics. Finding out the law of the development is the aim of this part, which consists of two chapters. The first chapter deals with the development of the first half of the 20^th century, aiming at an analysis of characteristics of the transformation, the role calligraphy plays, discourse of calligraphic aesthetics. The second chapter is about that of the second half of the 20^th century. It mainly explores the transformation of mainstream academic ideas, the approaches and values of calligraphic aesthetics study, etc.