Historical Transmutation Of The Prototype Image Of The Sun

The sun, one of the closest natural to human living and existence has arose theancestors'curiosity, concern and exploration, since the mankinds come into being.The sun therein embodies itself more or less in different human civilization, from thegrand Pyramid of Egypt to the abstract rock painting and line-decorations, from godssitting straight inside the altar to the dusky setting sun in the masterpieces of poets andnovelists. Thinkers, philosophers, artists in successive dynasties have all illustratedthe sun in a variety of art forms with great enthusiasm, thus the prototype image ofsun comes into existence with rich content and profound connotation. Even to date,the ancient sun prototype image still has strong vitality, and continuously derives outthe more abundant meaning and features compatible with the corresponding era, withthe changes and development of the ages.This thesis is committed to describing the sun prototype image's rule ofdevelopment and connotation in such artistic forms of expression as rock paintings,mythical legends, architecture, characters, poems, novels and the like, with a clue ofthe sun prototype image's development orbit at the different stages of human civildevelopment in conjunction with the evolution of the relationship between themankind and the sun; at the same time this thesis attempts to probe into the culturalconnotation of the prototype image of the sun and its unique aesthetic features withcomparison, both horizontally-the areas of different countries and vertically-differenthistorical periods.The thesis generally composes several parts as follows:Firstly, it deals in the mythical sun, namely the analysis of historical origin andaesthetic features of the prototype image of the sun. The human worship of the sunbased on the strong reliance on it in ancient times, engenders the formulationfoundation of the prototype image of the sun, therefore, it inevitably determines itsmythical color at the beginning of its existence. Meanwhile, the sun's unique aestheticspecialty itself drives the sun image to appear more extensive meaning gradually inhuman imagination, permeating through various artistic forms of expression. Secondly, the humanized sun analyses in detail the sun prototype image'sformulation reason and characteristics in light of its politic and ethic meaning after thehierarchy society. In the aftermath of the primitive disintegration of natural worshipsand appearance of the hierarchy society, the sun prototype image's personificationcharacteristic is shown especially further. The emperor and the power become one ofthe main contents of sun image as a result of the belief that " The sun is the mostparamount god in the sky " and the emperor's arbitrary power, which are essentiallyidentical. This phenomenon transforms into deep national collective unconsciousnessgradually among the long period afterwards. Also descendants'inheritance andinnovation, produce a series of relevant image and image group constantly. Thirdly, the poetic sun portrays a complete picture of the sun of image's mainmeanings and aesthetic characteristics in Chinese classical poetry at the perspectivesof natural attributes, ethics attributes, emotion attributes and ethics-symbolizedattributes of the sun. Furthermore, it states the similarities and differences in logicalthinking between the eastern and the western by summarizing characteristics of thesun image in the western literary works. Fourthly, the sun of alienation probes into inheritances of the original meaning ofthe sun image and subversion situation of it with today's scientific high development.The thesis also mainly delineates the reasons of so called " red sun " appearing in MaoZedong's personality cult phenomenon during the Culture Revolution especially,therefore demonstrates the catalytic and promoting effect to development of theprototype image done by the image's historically vertical inheritance andpsychological accumulation of traditional national culture. Therein it also reflects theeverlasting vitality of the sun image from another side. With development of scienceand technology and deepening knowledge about the solar science, many aspects of theold meanings of the sun prototype image face challenges and even subversions, whilea lot of novel meanings are presented, enriching the concepts of the sun prototypeimage constantly. Mankind's understanding of the sun goes through from simple to complex, from...