A Study Of The Effect On Chinese Painting Theory Put By Language-Meaning Debate

Although language problem and language-meaning debate became popular topic until 20^Th century in the west, it is an ancient topic in china. Chinese traditional culture not only discussed that language can exhaust meaning or language cannot exhaust meaning- the two opposite propositions, but also brought out a series of propositions such as getting XIANG by watching things, using language to exhaust XIANG, building up XIANG to exhaust meaning; tracing words to understand XIANG, tracing XIANG to understand meaning; forgetting words after getting meaning, forgetting XIANG after getting meaning, expressing ideas by use language, searching meaning from the surface of words; tracing the finger to look for the moon, forgetting the finger after seeing the moon, discarding the boat after getting up to the bank , only can understanding by sensibility but cannot expressing by words. Language-meaning debate and the special idea on this debate put great effect on Chinese traditional culture, especially on its literary and art theory. This dissertation emphasizes to discuss the great effect on Chinese traditional painting theory.The proposition of language-meaning debate can be divided into two levels according to the different object "meaning" points, which is that when "meaning" points the spirit, idea, thought or feeling a man wants to express, the debate discusses whether or not can the words, signs or forms convey them to others exactly, at this time, the debate is a proposition of linguistics, the main question it wants to answer iswhether or not can a kind of language convey meaning and how does it convey; when "meaning" points the essence of the universe, such as "dao","wu","fa sheng'V'zheng ru", the debate is a proposition of epistemology, which concerns about whether or not the world could be known and how the world could be known. In China, the traditional language-meaning debate concerned the both levels, but the second level is more important and puts greater effect on traditional painting theory. Chinese traditional epistemology is different from the idea that thinks man can know the universe exactly and language can express the knowledge exactly, and is different from the idea that thinks man can never know the world too. Chinese traditional culture thinks that man should recognize the universe by the means of tracing words to imagine XIANG and tracing XIANG to gain the meaning, and after understanding the meaning, man should forget both words and XIANG, this kind of epistemology emphasizes intuition and subjective perception, And differs from epistemology of the West in which the main body is in a dominant place.The special idea of Chinese traditional culture on the language-meaning debate affected the attitude of Chinese painters to nature, landscape, birds, fishes, flowers and so on, affected their methods of making sense of the world, the universe, and then raised up special art spirit such as that main body and object could response to each other and communicate with each other, and main body could get pleasure and experience the essence of the universe. From words to XIANG, and then from XIANG to meaning, this method of perception made XIANG became a critic conception in creation and appreciation of Chinese art, and contributed to a series of aesthetical conceptions. Additionally, method of perception of from word to XIANG, from XIANG to meaning caused the literary forms such as poet emphasize to build up XIANG with words, and the art of painting pay attention to express idea which is outside of the forms and shapes of the painting, and then literature and painting were interlinked naturally. Except that the language-meaning debate as a kind of perceptional method put macroscopic and indirect effect on painting theory, some concrete subjects of this debate such as reposing meaning on XIANG and forgetting XIANG after getting meaning affected painting theory directly, the first subjectcaused the development of painting theory from initial painting forms to painting spirit by painting forms, from conveying the spirit of target to expressing painter's subjective feelings and ideas. The second subject made Chinese traditional painting go beyond depiction of shapes and forms only and lay stress on having meaning before starting to paint and lack of form but full of meaning. These subjects contributed to characters of subjective expressional and abstract of Chinese traditional painting.