From Chaos To Order

With the development of Cultural studies, context theory emerged as a prevalent method of Art Studies which put in question the context of art generously. However, we found that the word of 'context' used to be used as an ambiguous representation though it appears here and there in Arts Studies. In fact, when talking about the conceptions of context, such as text, context, context theory or research on art context, and so on, few people can interpret them explicitly. Most of them are used as a kind of fashionable statements. There is no guarantee that the consciousness of art context studying will be either theoretically correct or effective. So if context theory seeks to contribute to finding the way out of the contemporary crisis of art, it must itself develop a new perspective.To provide an antidote to the frequently non-ontology art context studying, we must ascertain the theory itself firstly. As a kind of theoretical method, context theory is itself flawed, namely, nihilism, relativism and agnosticism. As a result, it's hardly conceivable that this theory can help us to resolve many of the critical problems that we currently faced in Arts Studies. Nevertheless, by researching on the history of context theory we are informed that the boundary of context can be limited, it's structure is also relatively stable, unambiguous and self-organized, these features make it available in study, then the dilemma of context theory is eliminated fundamentally.Every one knows that as better tomorrow depends on building on the best of yesterday and new theories should appreciate the most valuable legacies of the heritage of contemporary context theory in arts studies. So in the second part of this paper, we observe the various context theories (and contextualism) which proposed by different aesthetics groups, and distinguish each of their contributions and limitations. Therefore, we organize them logically into a studying system. Now the paper designed a three layered homocentric circles as the mode of art context studying. Applying this mode, we historically investigate the structural features of art context at various periods, so that we summarize the law of the development of art history in a contextualized perspective.Furthermore, by inspecting the structural characteristices of contexts of daily life things shift into arts and art for daily life (art for daily life embraces the aesthetics of practical craftsmanship as well as of the aesthetics of land use patterns and collaboratively designed and created human-nature interfaces) which emerged in contemporary art practicing more exactly and specifically, the paper attested the validity of this very mode. Finally, the paper explained the phenomenon of context interlacing and re-contextualizing in art practicing by applying the mode.All in all, to fulfill the goal of rediscovery a rational ordering for Art Studies, the paper takes an in-depth study on context theory and deploys it to interpretation the problems of contemporary art reasonably. Studies have proved that the mode of three-layer structure for art context studying is not only necessary but effective. In fact, we believe that, in the great wave of cultural globalization, this procedure would be in accord with the logic of the development of art theory as well as with the direction of future arts which demands artists keeping local context while concerning the world outside of him. In addition, using context theory to solve the theoretical and practical problems which confront art today would be also full of the most valuable theory for the enlightenment of the Chinese art.