A Study On Liu Haisu's Aesthetic Thought

Liu Haisu is one of the most controversial and influential artists in Modern art history.As a pioneer and one of the founders in China's modern art and art education in modern art history, he had made significant achievements in three areas: art education, art creation and art theory . However, people hadn't paid sufficient attention to his aesthetic thought, because the thought of his aesthetic ideology had been overshadowed by the contribution of his painting and art education. In fact, beside that, Liu Haisu had made great contributions to construct the theoretical framework of China's modern paintings theory as well.Liu Haisu had put forward the view of "Art is the expression of life" as the core point, and presented the Emotion Expression Theory, which based on Chinese and Western art history. Presently,most of the studies did not probe deeply. This situation was not only caused by historical reasons, but also the theory itself, for his aesthetic thought is unsystematic and lack of rigorous theoretical framework. Therefore, this article tries to analyze the aesthetic thought of Liu Haisu, not by building a system of aesthetic theory but discussing the characteristics of Emotion Expression Theory.This article discusses the theory of the truth and creation in the arts, according on the view of "art is the expression rather than representation". As a part of his aesthetics theory ,the thought of body aesthetics of Liu Haisu is special but indispensable.This article can be divided into four parts: the first part is the introduction. It is mainly to introduce the artistic life of Liu Haisu, and describe the problem as well as the status of the current study.Liu Haisu explained emotional expression from the perspective of artistic creation ,and discussed the essence of art, aesthetic empathy, artistic realism, artistic creation and many other issues.In the first chapter intend to explore Liu Haisu's view of Emotion Expression Theory from the four aspects : Firstly, it tried to prove the view of the essence of art is the expression rather than reappearance from three aspects: 1, pure realism is not holded; 2, the aim of art is the expression of emotion;3, show personality and life perspective through art forms. Secondly, it focused on the relationship between artistic expression and beauty .thirdly ,it intend to explain his view of realism of "Unsimilar Similarity" from the perspective of form and verve.the last part tried to explore theory of artistic creation.Chapter two intended to explore the body aesthetic thought of Liu Haisu from four aspects. Liu Haisu analyzed the causes of the loss of body beauty from historical perspective ,and put forward the view of "The human body is the most beautiful " . He believed that human body had perfect physical form and good spirit ,which was the unity of its forms and representation. It was the entity of the form of truth and the good performance, which mapping the flow of life in the universe, embodies the "rules"of life. In the last part, explain Liu Haisu's aesthetic education thought of "Art saves the country". Liu Haisu had always taken aesthetics education as his responsibility. His aesthetic education thought permeated in both of art creation and art education . It can not be ignored the theoretical background of his aesthetics education thought.