Sasaki, Kenichi Aesthetic Ideology Research

As a famous modern esthetician in Japan, Sasaki Kenichi is another esthetician that made outstanding achievements in the research on the conflict between tradition and modern, Eastern and Western, after Oonishi Yoshinori, Ueda Juzo, Takeuchi Toshio, and Imamiti Tomonobu. Sasaki Kenichi served as the chairman of world aesthetic association and the president of Japan society of aesthetics. Sasaki Kenichi is a representative esthetician in century transition.The study in his esthetics is still at the beginning stage. In 1st January, 2008, his first book of writings Introduction to esthetics was translated. Until now, a total of five works of Sasaki Kenichi were translated, they are Japan's anti-urban culture of the aesthetic life, Deep rhetoric - as a propaganda mechanism to persuade, Elements of Japanese aesthetics, Cultural sensitivity, and The Long Gaze of the Epic:On Tambours sur la digue by Cixous.The research in Sasaki Kenichi's esthetics bears substantial significance for us to learn the features and do further study of Chinese esthetics. It is helpful for us to study and enlarge the understanding to the basic development of Japan's Contemporary aesthetics. In this study, we tried to show the new idea in the following three aspects: 1. Explain the esthetics of Sasaki Kenichi comprehensively and systematically. 2. The original Japanese data and books were mainly used in this study. 3. We associated the esthetics of Sasaki Kenichi with Chinese modern esthetics and provided experience for the development of Chinese modern esthetics.Based on the intensive and systematic study of western especially French aesthetic theory and combined Eastern aesthetic theory, he has his own unique understanding to Japanese modern philosophy and mental aesthetics. He believes that nowadays the existence of aesthetics is not a absolute element, and we should apply the aesthetics and regard it as our new value. In the Japanese esthetics world, Sasaki Kenichi has been doing research by his especially specific method in the realm of music, painting, sculpture, poem, and modern literature and art.In the research of fundamental concepts of esthetics, Sasaki Kenichi discussed the research levels according to the history of concept. city spirit, Drama aesthetics, and modern literature are the main research contents of Sasaki Kenichi's aesthetical thought. From the comparison of urban construction between Japan and western countries, Sasaki Kenichi discovered the cultural difference between Western civilization and Japanese civilization, found the obeying attitude of Japanese towards the nature. Meanwhile, he summarized that Western art tried to recover the natural things that the city lost. He think that performance itself looks forward by a unique individuality. He investigated stagecraft and argued that the time of the performance is based on cultural conditions, is a outlook of history. The performance itself is a way of perspective, in which the old literatures revived in modern times. Not only affected by modern literature and pioneer arts, the aesthetical thought in twentieth century was also influenced by the ideological conflict between Eastern and Western. Under such complicated academic background, he proposed his own perspective. How can modern literature catch the perceptual problems for most people? Sasaki Kenichi believed that modern literature resort to people's perception not from the visual style, but from the parts containing conceptions and information of the work.Because the inherent culture focused on France, for the research to the western aesthetical thought, Sasaki Kenichi took"Focusing France"as his target. His asserted that the reconstitution of people's real thoughts is unique. Independence of aesthetics is one of the central concepts of early-modern Eastern esthetics. By the concept of"care", Sasaki Kenichi make art and the world value of time related closely. Besides the concept of"care", another core conception of Sasaki Kenichi is the hypothesis that"for all the arts, all the foremost category of thought have their privileges at any time."The aesthetical thoughts of Sasaki Kenichi possess the characteristic of the time, and it is favorable for us to think and explore the subjects of modern esthetics.