The Deng Sting Aesthetic Thought

Deng Yizhe (1892-1973) was born in Huaining county, Anhui province. He was the posterity of Deng Shiru, a famous calligrapher and seal cutter in Qing dynasty. Deng Yizhe and his contemporary aesthetician Zong Baihua were reputed as"south Zong and north Deng", but Deng Yizhe was rendered almost in oblivion. In order to unearth the neglected aesthetics of Deng Yizhe and give it a reasonable evaluation in the history of Chinese modern aesthetics, this dissertation aims to demonstrate his aesthetics through following aspects.The preface is a summary of literature on the status quo of Deng Yizhe's aesthetics studies. It pointed out that Deng Yizhe was a neglected modern Chinese aesthetician and aesthetic historian; it also elucidated the research methodology and main viewpoints of this dissertation.Chapter 1 to 4 is the main body of this dissertation. Chapter 1 probes into the aesthetic ontology of Deng Yizhe's"mind ontology". It holds that the mind includes human mind and Tao mind. Deng Yizhe's mind ontology has three phases of evolution from"ray color"to"emotional life"to"Yijing and Qiyun". Chapter 2 aims at the cultural origin of DengYizhe's aesthetics. His aesthetics was chiefly influenced by the mind theory of Lao Tzu and Zhuang Tzu, the idealistic theory of Hegel, and the Crocean theory of representation. Chapter 3 compares Deng Yizhe and Zong Baihua's aesthetics. The version of"south Zong and North Deng"is not completely baseless, but resided in their theoretical backgrounds. They developed the key characteristics of life and mind in their aesthetics respectively. Chapter 4 compares with Teng Gu's theory of"the evolution of style"in aesthetic history. Deng Yizhe systemized"body-form-meaning"and"creation-interpretation-transformation"to construct his theory of"the dialectic development"in aesthetic history. This is a great contribution for modern Chinese aesthetics.The conclusion extends the multiplicity of the modern construction of Deng Yizhe's aesthetics and Chinese aesthetics, mainly in the perspectives of aesthetics, enlightenment, and revolution.