The Ancient Chinese "and" The Aesthetic Interpretation Of Areas With Modern Significance

"Harmony" was one of the important elements in the field of aesthetics in ancientChina. It mainly reflected the aesthetic taste and ideals of ancient Chinese men ofletters and scholar officials. The Chinese nation has a long history of advocating ofthe awareness and concept of "harmony". People pursued "harmony" because of theneeds of diets and art. The harmony of five tastes in food and drinks satisfied people'smaterialistic needs and the harmony in art met people's spiritual needs.After Shi Bo, an official who holds astronom and calendar at the end of theWestern Zhou Dynasty (11th century – 771 B. C.), advanced the concept of "harmony",our forefathers studied and discussed "harmony" unceasingly. The extensiveknowledge and profound scholarship they discussed and explained about "harmony"provided many precious materials for our present research. If we make a generalsurvey of the predecessors' studies on "harmony", though the achievements attractedattention, we still feel regrets about the defects. The preceding studies on "harmony"were mainly limited to either a certain field, or expounding the significance of"harmony" from the angle of appreciation of the beautiful, or discussing the socialvalue of "harmony" from archaeology, or studying the social significance of"harmony" from philosophy and ethics. In a word, the previous studies on "harmony"were not systematic and profound enough, which is a vulnerable spot in the presentacademic research.The thesis manages to begin with the interactive cultural facts of the Confucianschool, Taoist school and Buddhist school, aims at the present studies on "harmony",applies the combining method of systematizing vertically and comparing horizontally,combs and discusses the historical evolutionary trail of the cultural origins andintensions of "harmony", concentrates on the explanation of the inner relationbetween some Chinese traditional aesthetical concepts and "harmony", analyzes themodern meaning of "harmony" dialectically, strives to unroot the modern vitality of"harmony" and searches for the possibilities of the connection between "harmony"and modern aesthetics.The thesis consists of six parts:The preface summarizes the modern discussions on "harmony" in documents andmaterials.The first part expounds "harmony" from the viewpoint of aesthetics, mainly dealswith the remarkable differences among the Confucian school, Taoist school andBuddhist school in the aesthetic explanation of "harmony" due to the distinctphilosophical bases.The second part analyzes the inner relation between "harmony" (which belongsto the field of Chinese classical aesthetics) and some aesthetic views such as "theunity of writing form the writing content", "the idea of conveying content by way ofform" and "the unity of sense and sensibility". This is a key text analysis and appraisal,as well as researchers on the traditionally weak link.The third part chiefly analyzes harmony's profound effect on Chinese art."Harmony", as an aesthetic field with the Chinese feature, once had many negativeinfluences on Chinese cultural art, especially, the view of "the golden mean" in theConfucian school, as an ethical aesthetics, focused on "controlling sense throughsensibility" and strangled men's subject nature which directly led to the reunionending of the Chinese ancient tragedy.The fourth part mainly covers harmony's modern significance, which is the lessimportant point of the thesis and the untouched point in the preceding research.Though ancient China and the ancient West laid different emphases on harmony andthe way of expressions was also different, they both sought for "harmony" in art andregarded "harmony" as perfection. In modern times, men's dissimilation appearedwith the rapid development of western industrialized society. The modern western artshifted from ancient harmony to modern inharmony and ultimately to anti-harmony,which is an extremely abnormal phenomenon.As to the Chinese harmony culture, we should analyze it dialectically, carry itforward at the same time develop what is useful and healthy and discard what's not,which has a profound significance in construct socialist harmonious society.The conclusion part summarizes the aim of the thesis.