| During the late Ming Dynasty,the literati in Jiangnan area,represented by San Yuan of Gong An,Li Yu,Zhang Dai and Wen Zhenheng,put aesthetic consciousness into their daily life,adopt an aesthetic lifestyle and attitude,and then get rid of the fragmented and boring life to achieve spiritual freedom and promotion.In the late Ming Dynasty,such works as Tao’an’s Dreamy Reminiscences(Tao’an Mengyi),Xian Qing Ou Ji,and the Superfluous Things show the aesthetic tendency of the time in the aesthetic practices of the literati in Jiangnan area,such as home diet,recreation in the study room,garden construction,and travel.This paper takes the aesthetic life of literati in Jiangnan area in the late Ming Dynasty as the research object,summarizes the spiritual characteristics of the aesthetic life in the late Ming Dynasty by case study and overall study,and shows the aesthetic value of the aesthetic life in the late Ming Dynasty.Under the influence of multiple factors,such as the depressed political environment,the rapid development of commodity economy,the active cultural trend and the rise of the citizen class,the late Ming society,especially the Jiangnan area,showed different characteristics from other dynasties.The literati in Jiangnan area intentionally avoided the noble spirit and personality of Confucianism.They put a lot of energy into their daily life,and their daily life developed to the peak of art and aestheticizing.During this period,the life sketches which did not show moral cultivation but purely for entertainment aesthetic rose up,fully displaying the aesthetic characteristics of the late Ming Dynasty.The first characteristics of literati’s aestheticized life in Jiangnan area,manifested as the pursuit of personality and laxity.Driven by the ideological trend of personality liberation in the late Ming Dynasty,the inherent emotional desire of individuals was strongly advocated,and they began to rebel against rigid Neo-Confucianism and Retroism,paying attention to expressing themselves and expressing their true feelings.While expressing their individuality,literati in Jiangnan area pursue a "leisure" life and attach great importance to the construction of an aesthetic context of "leisurely appreciation".The second characteristic of literati’s aestheticized life in Jiangnan area,is expressed in the treatment of the relationship between elegance and vulgarities.With the development of commodity economy,the aesthetic consciousness of literati and citizens in the late Ming Dynasty gradually converged,and the taste for both refined and popular became the aesthetic turn of literati’s life in the late Ming Dynasty.The investment in worldly life,such as the city life,leisure in the study,practical furniture,diet,etc.,is the most typical performance of Jiangnan literati’s aesthetic fashion from elegance to vulgarity.The third characteristic of literati’s aestheticized life in Jiangnan area,is their affinity and love for nature.They built gardens,and the monographs represented by Ji Cheng’s Yuanye showed the literati’s thinking on the art of garden construction.At the same time,they like the sense of freedom brought by natural mountains and rivers.They regard enjoying the beauty of nature as an important way to get rid of the city’s noise,the dim officialdom and the trifles of the world,and obtain aesthetic enjoyment and pleasure in the communication with natural landscapes.The phenomenon of aestheticized life in Jiangnan area during the late Ming period deserves our in-depth reflection.In the process of pursuing aestheticized life,due to the revival of emotion and the emergence of a large number of things,a certain degree of indulgence and hedonism was manifested,and the spiritual pursuit was slightly lacking.Nevertheless,the aestheticized life of the literati in Jiangnan area during the late Ming Dynasty still has certain aesthetic value,and their return to individual life feelings,harmony between material and spiritual,and artistic attitudes towards life are useful for modern society. |
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