A Study Of Aesthetics In The Old Testament

As is known to all,Old Testament is a religious book of fundamental significance to the whole western culture.The study of this book has emerged from ancient times to the end,but the article explored from the aesthetic angle is relatively rare.Therefore,starting from the texts of Old Testament and taking the modern aesthetics as the basic framework,this article incorporated the thoughts related to beauty and aesthetics in Old Testament into our research scope,summarized them,and made a basic description.Specifically speaking,the aesthetic concept revealed by Old Testament was discussed in terms of the beauty of God,the beauty of human,the beauty of nature,and the beauty of art.The beauty of God referred to the beauty of God’s glory,which was the creation and manifestation of God.Creation referred to God as the origin of beauty to create the world through wisdom.This was the unique power of God and the embodiment of God’s sacredness.The appearance that God’s presence was always accompanied with many visions.This easily leaded to the loftiness of the people.The light,as a typical representative of vision,had gradually become the core concept of glory.It had almost become a alternative noun for God in the process of development of the Christian faith.There was no doubt that beauty existed in God.This was the most fundamental and most instructive aesthetic concept of ancient Hebrews.The beauty of human discussed the aesthetic concept in Old Testament from the three aspects of human perceptual aesthetics,rational wisdom,and morality.Through careful reading,it was found that the ancient Hebrew nation showed a positive attitude in the aspects of smell,hearing and vision.The emphasis on rational wisdom also highlighted the rational tradition of the ancient Hebrew people who used wisdom as beauty and knowledge as beauty to constantly seek righteousness.At the same time,OldTestuament also used its lofty status as the norm of daily life of the ancient Hebrew nation.It took the requirements of piety,humility and love to regulate people’s behavior at the moral level,and formed a stable and effective code of action.The beauty of nature started with the vitality and the wholeness of nature,and explored the ancient Hebrew people’s aesthetic conception of nature.It showed that life,vitality,harmony and proper appreciating attitude had become one of the ancient sources of contemporary natural beauty.The beauty of art mainly discussed the art of beauty in Old Testament.It captured the beauty of art of Old Testament from the three aspects:the source of art,the function of art,and the form of art.In Old Testament,artistic inspiration came from God.It was the spirit of God that brought art.Therefore,the main role of art was to eulogize the gods.In addition,art also had the functions of admonish,entertainment and etiquette,and played a role in daily life.The forms of Old Testament art mainly involved poetry,music and architecture.They not only played an important role at that time,but also promoted and influenced the development of later Western art to varying degrees.But the promulgation of"the Prohibition of Images" had really hindered the progress of Western sculpture and painting.Therefore,we can say that Old Testament art itself was not only colorful,but also had a more complex influence on later generations.To sum up,Old Testament was indeed a treasure house with rich aesthetic thoughts,which should occupy an important position in the history of aesthetic thought.