“Social Aesthetic Education” And “Art Movement”

Cai Yuanpei and Lin Fengmian were the founders of the system of modern art education of China.Cai Yuanpei advocated “replacing religion by aesthetic education”,tried to “truly achieve the completion of human life by the heart in love of art”;Lin Fengmian advocated the “art movement”,tried to inspire the national mind by “art for life”.As the founders of the China Academy of Art,their expectations for university were different.Cai Yuanpei regarded university “meant for academic study”.On the other hand,Lin Fengmian took the art academy the engine for art movements.Cai Yuanpei was not only a revolutionary but also one of the founders of the Republic of China.His understanding of the responsibility of education was to save the nation,cultivate new citizens,which was not exactly the same as Humboldt's philosophy for modern university in the West.The concept of “replacing religion by aesthetic education”,emphasizing the cultivation of modern nationalism and unifying it in the logic of “university-elite-citizens-state”,was also beyond the tradition of Goethe and schiller's aesthetic theory for western education,shown a more positive meaning and connotation.As an artist and the founder of China's higher art education,Lin Fengmian claimed “reconciliation between East and West” in art school,in respond to the issues of “the eastward of Western Culture”,intended to “re-organize the Oriental art”,“create the art of the time”.He practiced according to the logic of “art creation-art movement-social enlightenment” and “art movement” as his slogan.The traditional research often focused on the relationship between Cai Yuanpei's “aesthetic education” and the practice of Lin Fengmian's artistic education.This paper attempts to analyze the differences and artistic origins of the artistic education of Cai and Lin.This paper is divided into four parts,preface to Cai yuanpei's “social aesthetic education” and Lin Fengmian's “art movement” a brief concept of combing and a literature review.The first chapter explores the strategy and cultural connotation of Cai Yuanpei's educational reform through examples of the educational reform of Peking University,his cooperation with Commercial Press,etc.the second chapter explores the educational practice of Lin Fengmian in Beijing Art college and Hangzhou China Academy of Art.Through the analysis of series of exhibitions curated by Lin Fengmian,this chapter discusses the relationship between art movement and art education.The third chapter tries to analyze the artistic and educational practice of Cai Yuanpei and Lin Femgmian in the context of modern Chinese social history and art history,and analyzes the inner causes and meaning of these two practices.