Sculpture·Art·Spirit

Sculpture is widely accepted as a kind of art in today’s world. But it had no relationwith art at the very beginning. It stemmed from the original activities of human beingsand only developed into art when civilization reached a certain level. Nowadays, rapidmaterial progress and abundant benefits brought by advanced science and technologyhave prompted people to focus more on the practical value of things. Sculpture istreated more as a tool while its purity and spiritual side as art have been largelyneglected.By combing how sculpture became art and how it reflects spirit, the thesis tries topoint out the importance of purity for sculpture. To explain how sculpture became art,the thesis traces back to the origin of human beings and goes over their stages ofexistence to shed light on the development of art and sculpture. The development ofhuman beings is classified into three stages: natural stage, social stage and cultural stage.In natural stage, human beings were biological existence and art just started to emerge,mostly in forms of simple group dances and rough paintings. Sculpture was yet toemerge in materials like wood and stone. In social period, human beings evolved intofunctional existence and correspondently art as well as sculpture existed as artistrywhich was more utility-oriented. In cultural period, human became cultural existence, aswell as intellectual and spiritual existence. Art broke away from utility and became purereality that expresses beauty and other aesthetic contents. In this stage, human becamehuman in the true sense as they are absolute and irreplaceable and the absoluteness ofhuman beings enables sculpture to become pure existence. It no longer exists only forpractical functions but possesses non-functional and pure meaning. This is howsculpture became art. The thesis then chooses specific cases to illustrate how art reflectsspirit. Spirit is a reflection of will which rules actions. Therefore spirit can give absoluteand unconditioned orders so that one can follow his will. In artistic activities, bysticking to purity, one can reject temptations, overcome difficulties and persist in thepursuit of art. So art reflects spirit.