Susan Lange Form Of Art, Aesthetic Thought

This paper deals with the theory of artistic form of Susanne. K. Langer who was specialized in symbol aesthetics.Based on the combination of A·Whitehead's logical symbolism and E·Cassirer's human-culture symbolism, as well as her critiques of expressionist and formalist aesthetics, Langer established her aesthetic system of art symbolism, which is a creative breakthrough in the research of artistic form.Art as symbols, in nature, is about the artistic form. Dated from the historical development of artistic form, this paper delineates the formation and development of Langer's aesthetic ideas, and expounds her thoughts on the artistic form: Art is the symbol of human feeling; The task of art is to create such symbols, a dynamic process from artistic abstract to illusion. The artistic form is logically identical with inner feeling or life, hence, art is the expression of life. Finally, this paper stresses the theoretical contributions to aesthetics, of Langer's proposition"Art as the symbol of human feeling"and the inspiration of this proposition for the contemporary Chinese studies on literary theory and aesthetics.