On Zhong Kui 's Psychology Of Chinese Traditional

There is a huge difference between Chinese and Western aesthetic habits since ancient times. Beauty and ugliness is entirely different in western society. Beauty means pure, absolutely perfect, while ugliness is the symbol of catastrophe, evil, witchcraft and all things that are imperfect. In China, by contrast, people believes in naturalness and harmony, they think beauty and ugliness depend on each other. There has been a lot of imperfect but widely spread and loved artistic image, including God, elves and ghosts. One of the most famous of them is Zhong Kui, an honest,staunch and ugly man.The earliest text record of Zhong Kui is "Qieyun", Tang Dynasty, it recorded: "Zhong Kui, the name of God." Some hundreds years later,Shen Kuo,Northern Song Dynasty, described the details of Zhong Kui in his book "Bubitan". It recorded the story of Zhong Kui appeared in Tang Ming Emperor’s dream for the first time. The descendants had used their imagination to enrich the stories and experiences of Zhong Kui. According to the investigation, Zhong Kui can be traced back to an ancient ceremony,Fangxiang’s Qu Nuo. Then, thousands years later, Wu Daozi created the image of Zhong Kui, after that, we can found many stories of Zhong Kui, and Zhong Kui’s image changes centuries by centuries. It tells the features and changes of Chinese traditional view on "ugliness".Compared with western contemporary subversive change on "Ugliness", Chinese view on "Ugliness" was an important part of aesthetic long time ago. To study on the Chinese traditional view on "ugliness" will inspire us on contemporary Chinese art.