From Mimesis To Representation-Research On The Transformation Of The Core Concept Of The Theories Of Art From Traditional Aesthetics To Analytic Aesthetics

This dissertation focuses on two concepts:"mimesis"as the basic concept of art theories in traditional aesthetics and "representation" as the basic concept of art theories in analytic aesthetics.By examining the theories related to these two concepts,on the one hand,it reviews the evolvement of the concepts in the art history,on the other hand,it also discusses the new problems brought about by the evolvement of these concepts on the view of philosophy.It tries to present four lines in writting:from mimesis to representation,from ontology to semantic analysis,from theoretical construction to theoretical deconstruction,and from Plato to Wittgenstein.The clue implied by various art theories about mimesis,from Ancient Greek,Renaissance,the 18th century to the 20th century,shows the purpose of constructing the ontology of art following the metaphysical tradition of Western philosophy.However,in the 20th century,with deconstructing the ontology of art,analytic philosophers,analyzed "mimesis" and "representation" further and made them clear in semantics as well as uses.The analytic aestheticians paid more attention to the method of symbolism and theory of visual perception,that not only made clear of the concept of "representation",but also returned to the study of aesthetic experience,rather than the study of ontological meaning of this concept.On the one hand,as Danto said,all the theories on mimesis of traditional aesthetics,can be seen as a response to Plato's theory on "mimesis".On the other hand,Wittgenstein's theory of language game and the distinction he had made between two different uses of "seeing" in daily language have great influence on the other analytic aestheticians.Almost all the analytic aestheticians involved in this dissertation are inspired by these two theories of Wittgenstein.There have been discussions o f"mimesis" since ancient times.It has been proved that this concept was originally used in witchcraft and was related to ritual,dance,music,and so on.In ancient Greece,Demokritos used this term in the sense of bionics.He believed that people often imitate things in nature.Then,Plato and Aristotle took "mimesis" as an important concept in literature and art theory.Plato's theory of "idea" was that literature and art is a copy of the world around us which is illusion,and the real world is a copy of the world of ideas which is real.Therefore,literature and art works can only be a copy of copy,and people cannot get the truth from them.However,Aristotle believes that literature and art works imitate reality following the law of possibility and to the law of necessity,so the world of literature and art is not lower than the world around us.On the contrary,literature and art works should be higher than the world around us because they imitate the universality of things in our world.The theory of mimesis in ancient Greek concerns the relationship between art and reality in order to explore the value of art.During Renaissance a naturalistic theory of mimesis has become the highest standard in the minds of artists in Florence,since people turned their eyes from God to the nature and themselves.Alberti and Da Vinci believe that faithful representation of nature should be the highest standard of artists.This "faithful representation" is still a kind of mimesis based on visual resemblance.In the 18th century,Abbe Charles Batteux grouped painting,sculpture,music,dance,and poetry as"Fine Arts' based on the principle of imitation that result in a modern art system.Since then,imitation has become a subject in the defin:ition of art.The method of classification of art and the definition of art based on the cocept of mimesis become less and less persuasive.Gradually,the concept "representation"has been replacing"imitation"as the basic concept of art theory.There are two different aspects of the meaning of "represent",one is"re-present"which means to make the thing which isn't present be present by the visual resemblance,that is,the art work faithfully represents the object,the other is"referring"and"denoting".In the 20th century,analytic aestheticians who were influenced by Wittgenstein,had more interests in the definition of art andbegan to discuss whether the"art"can be defined,as well as"language games."Weitz,Kennick and some other analytic aestheticians' thought that the "art" cannot be definedbecause the various of art works are merely "family-resemblance",therefore art is an opening concept and cannot be defined.Analytic aestheticians such as Danto and Dickie proposed an interpretative definition of art after the above discussion.They advocated that art should be defined in a certain relationship.Artwork is always "about" something.Kivy called this kind of theory as "Neo-representationalism".Another analytic aesthetician,Goodman,does not relate the problem of art representation to the problem of definition,but believes that the"representation"is the way of artistic symbolization from his point view of semiotics.Other than above analytic aestheticians,Wollheim made a further discussion on Wittgenstein's "seeing" and "seeing as",and made "seeing-in" as a key of his theory of representational seeing.Although the theories of representation of Danto,Dickie and Goodman are different from each other,they all pay attaintion to the the acquired character of the audience.However,Wollheim emphasizes the role of visual perception,which is natural faculty of human being,when viewers face the art works,and he integrates the role of cultural factors into the role of visual perception.In conclusion,on the one hand,the study on the analytic aesthetic theories clarifies the meanings and uses of the concept of representation,on the other hand it provides kinds of possible ways to inquire the philosophy of representation.