On Aesthetic Compensation In Preface And Postscript Of Paintings

Preface and postscript inscribed into the paintings enriches and compensates artistic conception, helps to express emotion and strengthens the way of artistic expression. Great importance has always been attached in academic research, but more than ever on a literature textual research and calligraphic and painting appraisal. Although outstanding achievements have been reached,it seems to be slightly defect compared to the large volumes of ancient prefaces and postscripts. The shortcomings will not guessed and judged in the present theses owning to my limited knowledge. The present theses is to focus on the preface and postscript and explore the profound historical cultural connotation and philosophical aesthetic thoughts inscribed into the paintings. More emphasis will be put on the general aesthetic conception in prefaces and postscripts inscribed into the paintings of ancient Chinese paintings.Prefaces and postscripts inscribed into the paintings can be traced back to the Han dynasty---"The Western Han dynasty (202B.C.-the9years) and" the Eastern Han dynasty "(A.D.25years-220AD), which bears the practical function of the human enlightenment. It is the development and nourishment of itself at the very beginning, during which the exquisite poetic language expressions reached to its acme from practical use to aesthetics. After the Song dynasty (960-1279), painters were conscious of inscribing prefaces and postscripts into the paintings in painting, the prominent importance of which arising as one kind of icons in the paintings. The double properties were endowed in this stage:text nature and painting language schema attributes.From the point of view of literature, Chinese language is multi-dimensional with multi-meanings. Although ancient literati had the tradition of well-behaving and glory-writing, it was inevitable losing authenticity for the need of political opinions, diction modification and avoiding offending others. Prefaces and postscripts was also shared the same fate. It resulted in the difficulty in interpreting the prefaces and postscripts due to its large number as well as the difference between ancient and modern languages. Natural dialogue should be peculiar to prefaces and postscripts, there is no exception to the prefaces and postscripts in paintings. Paying attention to the hidden factor "discourse context" will provide new idea to differentiate the advantages and disadvantages through tracing back the real history.The aesthetic of prefaces and postscripts in paintings is manifested in two aspects---literariness and painting. Poetry and painting have their respective advantages. As ancient people elaborated in a poem " painting brush is good at describing and expressing substances with colors changes, using it skillfully, you can not tell the ingenuity hidden behind it. There do exist different outlooks for different painters, but they shared the identical aesthetic essence. Chinese paintings and literatures are directed at the nature of human mind, poetry and painting are well combined with parallel development. In traditional philosophy, some aesthetic concepts such as image, vigor, masculine, refinement exerted influences upon the formulation of prefaces and postscripts in paintings, all of which will be explored in the present theses.The introduction of the calligraphy art of painting has a powerful influence on prefaces and postscripts in paintings. Historically, the mature of the art of calligraphy is far earlier than paintings. It has been a rationalized course introducing the writings to the paintings. Introducing the calligraphy into painting is not simply bringing writing skills into it, but reflects the aesthetic orientation of the painter’s creation, furthermore, it is the identity of the aesthetic values of calligraphy for artists.The present theses is a tentative study on the prefaces and postscripts in paintings with the iconology method. As for the method, there is currently lack of the ready-made theoretical foundation to refer to, so deep concern of poor language diction will result in the losing of the essence.It is generalized from the above topics discussed that such art form or cultural phenomenon is originated and developed with the traditional Chinese culture, philosophy and aesthetic concepts. The deep aesthetic implication is the result of the enrichment and compensation in its development and evolvement. Only compensating association and imagination in the course of reading, can we contemporary people understand the true meaning embodied in it.