Beauty Appreciation And Ugliness Appreciation

This dissertation, mainly through literature research, survey and theoretical analysis, re-defines aesthetic education connotation from the Intuitive Perspective. i.e. aesthetic education has two basic dimensions including beauty appreciation and ugliness appreciation. It scrutinizes the existing problems in the theory and practice of aesthetic education under a lack of the Intuitive Perspective, presents a reconstruction of Chinese education ideals and frame. The basic writing thoughts are like this: First, aims to propose a new approach to the study of Chinese aesthetic education, i.e. the Intuitive Perspective. It suggests a contemplation over aesthetic education through both beauty appreciation and ugliness appreciation. We put forward this standpoint under the background of the rise of the Intuitive Perspective in Aesthetics. And then, the dissertation has a realistic inspection at theory and practice of aesthetic education. As to the more specific guiding principle of this course, it ignores ugliness appreciation due to the traditional undue emphasis of beauty appreciation and leads to frustration of the objectives of aesthetic education in middle school Chinese teaching. Lastly, the present paper puts forward an ideal construction of Chinese education new ideals and frame including beauty appreciation and ugliness appreciation. In the conclusion, we postulate that we should maintain education of beauty appreciation and strengthen education of ugliness appreciation for the sake of accomplishing the goals of Chinese aesthetic education.Besides an introduction and a conclusion, this dissertation is divided into three parts.Part I "A New Perspective: the Intuitive Perspective for Aesthetic Education " contains four chapters. Since 1980, the Intuitive Perspective, which builds on the traditional Aesthetics, has gradually gained momentum in Aesthetics and literature theory. Researchers consider "Intuitive" to be the original connotation of Aesthetics, and agree that Aesthetics, as the narrowed down definition of a discipline, should be contained, supplemented and moistened by the Intuitive Perspective and should embrace both beauty appreciation and ugliness appreciation. The proposition of the Intuitive Perspective has its special social and cultural backgrounds and philosophical foundations. Under the background of social transformation and cultural multiplicity, ugliness becomes an inevitable objective existence in life, literary and artistic works; therefore, ugliness appreciation as well as beauty appreciation has its realistic meaning. The English translation of "meiyu", aesthetic education, partly overlaps the word "Aesthetics" and, generally defined to be education of Aesthetics, nurturing a sense of beauty and education of appreciating beauty, "meiyu" or aesthetic education is almost exclusively associated with beauty. The translation is obviously influenced by Zhu Guangqian's translation of the term Aesthetics. However, Zhu himself has early realized the impropriety of the translation and added in 1981 that ugliness is a part for appreciation and expounds Aesthetics from the Intuitive Perspective. This dissertation suggests aesthetic education should embrace both beauty appreciation and ugliness appreciation.Part II "A Realistic Inspection: A lack of the Intuitive Perspective in Theory and Practice of Chinese Aesthetic Education" includes four chapters. Under the backgrounds of rapid social transformation and cultural multiplicity, many ugly phenomena and artistic works that are concerned about "ugliness" have sprung up but unfortunately, education of ugliness appreciation is totally absent from Chinese aesthetic education. The present deviation in the theoretical guidance of Chinese teaching and the negative effects of being one-sided in aesthetic education are embodied in three aspects: the ontological status of Chinese aesthetic education affected by beauty appreciation; the desired objectives of the Chinese course aesthetic orientation frustrated by beauty appreciation; and an overflow of poetic sentiment in the theories on instructional process resulted from beauty appreciation. Under the guiding principle of beauty appreciation, the Chinese teaching process is regarded as one in which the students enjoy and appreciate beauty of life. It is supposed that whatever the realistic condition is, the only correct life attitude should be artistic. This overflow of poetic sentiment, ignoring the diversity of life experience and choices, can be impractical and misleading. The remarkable discrepancy between the educators' value guidance and the students' initiative self-instruction, with the students fully aware of both beauty and ugliness while the instructors dwelling exclusively on the beautiful, the decent and the classic, results in a decline in teachers' positive influence and a corresponding increase in negative influence, which in turn leads to the frustration of the objectives of Chinese aesthetic education. To be more specific, this discrepancy will finally amount to a perverse aesthetic interest, a dubious aesthetic sense, an inadequate aesthetic personality and a receding aesthetic life.Part III "An Ideal Construction: Chinese Aesthetic Education from the Intuitive Perspective" has four chapters. This part proposes a way out of the plight for the present aesthetic education: to carry on beauty appreciation and to promote ugliness appreciation. Ugliness appreciation as well as beauty appreciation is important to help cope with the severe social condition, the alienated life and imbalanced inner heart. While both are indispensable in the nurturing complete persons, ugliness appreciation is especially vital in enhancing students' ability to sustain pressure and pain and in cultivating their humanistic spirits of tolerance and generosity. This part suggests the ideal construction from four aspects. First, it reflects upon the objectives of Chinese aesthetic education. The ultimate objective of Chinese aesthetic education being the cultivation of a sensitive heart, there are three specific goals—to form a knowledge structure which gives equal emphasis to literature and Aesthetics; to cultivate the habit of balancing classic reading and popular reading; to train both imaginative and dialectic thinking. Secondly, it ponders over Chinese course resources by dwelling on three points: classification in the process of editing; tolerance in the process of interpretation; and transformation in the guidance over outside reading. Thirdly, it discusses yuwen teaching process. The teaching process is a process for communication between people and reality in which the students can experience beauty and abundance of life through communication and are supposed to foster a worldview of confronting the reality and self-development. Lastly, it presents qualifications for teachers in Chinese aesthetic education. The qualifications include keen aesthetic perception, preeminent diplomatic wisdom and an educational ideal aimed at beauty.