| After the Second World War,the map of western art had shown a big difference.New York,instead of Paris,became the new centre of arts all over the world.Abstract expressionism,pop art,installation art,performance art,new media art and other avant-garde arts were emerging constantly.If inspecting carefully,we can find a deep cultural reflection of western society hidden under the grotesque and diversified surface of the development of American postwar art.In the face of the emerging malpractice of western rationalism after the Second World War,the westerners were searching for other cultures,especially eastern culture,with Eastern Zen Buddhism being one of the very popular kinds.Eastern Zen Buddhism was very popular.For the American postwar art,identity of object and self,body and mind alike and the wisdom of harmony between man and nature in Zen Buddhism has broadened performance space and language styles for art creation and also provided a new theoretical basis for artistic aesthetics.The interaction and integration between heterogeneous cultures cannot be separated from the specific cultural context,and the influence of Zen aesthetics on western postwar art is no exception.Zen was officially introduced to the west in 1893.The world religious conference,held in Chicago,USA,brought Zen to the west.However,for a long time before the mid-20 th century,there was little knowledge of Zen in the west,it was in the middle of the twentieth century that the situation began to reverse,Zen heat subsequently rised.It affected the various areas of American society,including cultural elite and common people.Meditation centers were constantly emerging,and the number of Zen participants had increased sharply.It should be said that this Zen heat is in the cultural context of the eastern turn of western philosophy.After the Second World War,with the appearance of the malpractice of western rationalism,the criticism of rationalism was very strong,and finally the counterculture movement broke out in 1960 s.Western societies need to be self-medicating with the help of an exotic culture,and passion for Zen can be attributed to this.On the other hand,in terms of thought foundation,it is because of the western tradition of irrationalism which is covered by rationalism.Actually,transcendentalism,represented by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry DavidThoreau,is the embodiment of the western non-rationalism trends in the United States.Transcendentalism's affirmation of intuition and human nature is similar to Zen Buddhism.In addition,Christian mysticism and Zen Buddhism also have something in common.The above two are the ideological basis for the spread and acceptance of Zen in the United States.As a religious thought with Chinese local characteristics,Zen came into being and developed gradually in the ideological journey between different cultures.The cultural travel of Zen mainly experienced the process of being introduced into China from India,into Asian countries such as Japan from China,and then to western countries such as Europe and America from Japan.The Zen Buddhism in India,in the semantic sense,refers to meditation,which is the main practice method.The Zen Buddihism was introduced into China by early progenitor Bodhidharma.With successive continuity until the sixth generation Zen partriarch Huineng,the basic thoughts of “concentration”formed,and on this basis,the unique Chinese Zen thoughts system established.In the field of Chinese cultural thought,the aesthetic value of Zen is particularly outstanding.The ethereal Zen state based on the theory of mind is an important embodiment of the aesthetic character of Zen.The propositions of "mind is Buddha","unreasonable and wonderful","prajna view" and "abnormal combination of Tao" construct the unique aesthetic realm of Chinese Zen thought.After the sixth ancestors Huineng,zen developed a number of schools.In the period of late Tang and Five Dynasties,Zen finally developed into seven schools.After Zen was introduced into Japan in the 12 th century,Rinzai and Soto were the most prosperous,and the two main sects of Zen were introduced into western countries through Japan.The spread and acceptance of Zen thought in the United States is also the interpretation of Zen with western local color.Suzuki Teitaro Daisetz's translation of zen was widely spread after the war.The Zen thought explained by Suzuki Teitaro Daisetz was called Suzuki Zen,and Suzuki Zen especially emphasized the mystery of Zen,highlighting the mysticism of Zen.With the deepening of the understanding of Zen in the west,the Towon Zen master has aroused the interest of the western academic circle.Compared with the mysterious Suzuki Zen,the silent contemplation of the Towon Zen is more easily understood and accepted by the west.In the middle and late 20 th century,theTowon Zen gradually replaced the core position of Suzuki Zen.In addition,writers of the beat generation had a personalized interpretation of Zen,Beat Zen has the aesthetic characteristics of unbridled indulgence.Just as gadamer said,"all translation is already interpretation",westerners misread various interpretations of Zen according to their own cultural traditions,and the spread and acceptance of Zen in the United States is actually a theoretical reconstruction of eastern Zen thoughts.Under the upsurge of Zen in the middle of the 20 th century,American avant-garde artists came into contact with Zen thoughts through various ways,and the spirit of zen was very popular among artists.The main way for avant-garde artists to understand Zen is to read and appreciate all kinds of Zen texts(including English translation of Zen classics,Zen literature works,Zen calligraphy and painting works,etc.).In addition,the publication of mass media for Zen(including magazines,radio,television,etc.)also provides channels and opportunities for this understanding and acceptance.The acceptance of Zen by avant-garde artists did not stop at the level of text.They actively participated in the practice of meditation and proved the practice of Zen by meditating.Avant-garde artists such as Mark Tobey,Robert Laushenberg,Isamu Noguch and Bill Viola even went to Japan,China and other places in person to visit Zen temples and follow Zen masters to learn Zen calligraphy and painting in the east,so as to deeply experience and comprehend the realm of harmony,emptiness and solitude of Zen.Through the avant-garde artists' understanding of Zen from various perspectives,Zen Aesthetics has exerted a profound influence on American post-war art,which is reflected in both the theoretical construction of art and the practice of artistic creation.In the level of art theory,American contemporary art theorists,represented by Arthur Danto and Richard Shusterman,obtain inspiration through the emphasis of “three realms of Zen”,“body and mind alike in Zen Buddhism” by Master Qingyuanweixin,put forward the “art” and “aesthetic” concept,and on this basis,interpret the western avant-garde art theory and open a new situation to contemporary western art theory faced with interpretation crisis.Not only that,the art of Zen aesthetics also influenced the cognition of the American avant-garde artists.Represented by John Cage,Ad Reinhardt,and Mark Toby,the American avant-garde artists explicitly put forward the theoretical concept like“empty and poetry”,“ethereal space” and “the undercurrent of emotion”.Under the pushof these three artists,avant-garde artists transformed Zen's spirit into art creation and formed consensual creation concept like “art is life”,“nothing is something”,“selfless self”,and presented in the form of pioneer music,pop art,contingent art,installation art,performance art,video new media art and other art forms.In terms of artistic creation practice,the aesthetic characteristics of Zen influenced the theme expression,creative techniques and image selection of American postwar art.The avant-garde artists in the United States have provided a new theme for artistic creation through their proto-realization of the meditative state in the practice of meditation.Through artistic creation,they express their understanding of the meditative state and the spatio-temporal unity under the body perception.In terms of creative techniques,avant-garde artists abandon traditional western artistic expression and emphasize the process,randomness and minimalism of creation.In the aspect of image selection,Jasper Johns,Robert Owen and other artists regard light as a symbol of energy,and create a spatial effect beyond the limitation of physical space and time through the expression of light image.Images of natural elements frequently appear in the works of Isamu Noguch,Bill Viola and other artists.Avant-garde artists get inspiration from the presentation of natural scenes in dry landscape gardens and oriental ink paintings,and creatively use natural elements to convey the understanding of the universe,nature and the living state of human beings.The image of “ordinary things” is a very common expression content in pop arts.Through the direct presentation of ordinary things in daily life,it interprets the creative concept of avant-garde art that “art is life” and eliminates the boundary between art and life. |
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