A Probe Into The Artistic Thought Of "The Book Of Mountains"

Preface of Painting Landscape is a masterpiece written by Zongbing who livedin Liu Song time of the Southern Dynasty, which started the first discussion ofmountains-and-waters aesthetics in the Chinese history of painting aesthetics. Thecore points of the work are the purity of mind, the ease of mind and mind travel,which deeply influenced upon the posterity about aesthetic conception and thepainting theory concerning with the nature. In contempt of rules and in pursuit ofhumanistic awareness, people of Wei Jin Dynasties had a great impact on Zongbing.Under the influence of Confucianism, Buddhism, Metaphysics and Taoism, Zongbingwas more concerned with the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi. Havingcomprehended and been moved by the integration of Nature and Human, heexperienced the mountains and waters in a way of free wandering to understand theaesthetic conception of mind travel and the ease of mind. This paper aims to elaboratethe inherent significance of the Preface of Painting Landscape through the impact ofTaoism on Zong’s aesthetic idea and the key points of the work.The first part is apreliminary introduction of Zong’s life and his ideological origin and thebackground.The first is mainly about the infiltration of Taoism into Zong’s mind,which reflected in Zong’s painting theory is that Taoism in the painting guided thesage to please the Providence by the mountains and waters as well as required thesage to be quiet, meditate with pure and free mind so as to communicate with Natureand feel the harmony between Human and Nature.And explains the points of thepurity of mind, pleasing the Tao with the mountains and waters and should sense theProvidence by keeping a tranquil mind. The principle of expressing by portraying theappearance and the farther, the bigger in a way of creative methodology as well as theartistic idea of mind travel and the ease of mind highlighted the aesthetic character ofthe art which completed the aesthetic system of landscape painting. Last theconclusion are mainly about Zong’s aesthetic theory as well as the status andtheoretical value of the Preface of Landscape Painting.This paper expounds the aesthetic ideology within the work of Zongbingbased on the work’s status as the milestone in the history of landscape painting.