The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition
The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition

Author: Zehou Li

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2009-11-12

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0824833074

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Li Zehou (b. 1930) has been an influential thinker in China since the 1950s. Before moving to the U.S. in the wake of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Li published works on Kant and traditional and contemporary Chinese philosophy. The present volume, a translation of his Huaxia meixue (1989), is considered among Li’s most significant works. Apart from its value as an introduction to the philosophy of one of contemporary China’s foremost intellectuals, The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition fills an important gap in the literature of Chinese aesthetics in English. It presents Li’s synthesis of the entire trajectory of Chinese aesthetic thought, from ancient times to the early modern period, incorporating pre-Confucian and Confucian ideas, Daoism, Chan Buddhism, and the influence of Western philosophy during the late-imperial period. As one of China’s As one of China's major contemporary philosophers and preeminent authority on Kant, Li is uniquely positioned to observe this trajectory and make it intelligible to today’s readers. The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition touches on all areas of artistic activity, including poetry, painting, calligraphy, architecture, and the "art of living." Right government, the ideal human being, and the path to spiritual transcendence all come under the provenance of aesthetic thought. According to Li this was the case from early Confucian explanations of poetry as that which gives expression to intent, through Zhuangzi’s artistic depictions of the ideal personality who discerns the natural way of things and lives according to it, to Chan Buddhist-inspired notions that nature and words can come together to yield insight and enlightenment. In this enduring and stimulating work, Li demonstrates conclusively the fundamental role of aesthetics in the development of the cultural and psychological structures in Chinese culture that define "humanity."

Asian Aesthetics
Asian Aesthetics

Author: Ken-ichi Sasaki

Publisher: NUS Press

Published: 2011-01-01

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 9971695006

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While the artistic traditions of the various countries of East, Southeast and South Asia display distinctive aesthetic features, this volume examines the qualities of each area, and seeks commonalities that define the aesthetics of a broader Asian civilization. Contributors includes specialists in philosophy, literature, art history, religion and the comparative study of cultures. Some of them are writing from within their own cultural traditions while others approach their subjects as outside observers. The book is divided into five sections, dealing with Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Indian and Southeast Asian aesthetics. Individual chapters provide in-depth investigations of specific traditions, embracing both classical as well as modern aesthetic forms. The author suggest that Japanese culture is characterized by an openness to diverse cultural influences, Korean culture by "peninsularity," Chinese culture by parallels with the West, Indian culture by "rasa" (a kind of "cosmic" feeling that is distinct from one who feels), and Southeast Asian culture by dilemmas of modernization. The volume as a whole integrates these studies, clarifying essential elements of each aesthetic culture and drawing on this material to characterize an Asian civilization that transcends individual countries and cultures.

Chinese Aesthetics
Chinese Aesthetics

Author: Zong-qi Cai

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2004-08-31

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0824861841

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This singular work presents the most comprehensive and nuanced studies available in any Western language of Chinese aesthetic thought and practice during the Six Dynasties (A.D. 220–589). Despite a succession of dynastic and social upheavals, the literati preoccupied themselves with both the sensuous and the transcendent and strove for cultural dominance. By the end of the sixth century, their reflections would evolve into a sophisticated system of aesthetic discourse characterized by its own rhetoric and concepts. A prologue details the historical context in which Six Dynasties aesthetics arose and sketches out its major stages of development. The ten essays that follow bring fresh perspectives to bear on important writings on literature, music, painting, calligraphy, and gardening. Grounded in close readings of primary texts, they reveal the complex, dynamic interplay between life and art, the sensuous and the metaphysical, and the artistic and the philosophicaleligious that lies at the heart of the aesthetic thought and practice of the time. As a whole, the collection demonstrates that Six Dynasties achieved a sophistication in aesthetic thought comparable in many ways to that of the West: The discussion of disinterestedness in art, aesthetic judgment, and how mental images mediate between the supersensible and the sensible are reminiscent of Kant. The findings of various Chinese critics provide much food for thought in the broad fields of comparative literature and aesthetics. Chinese Aesthetics will fill a gap in Western sinological studies of the period. It will appeal to scholars and students in premodern Chinese literary studies, comparative aesthetics, and cultural studies and be a welcome reference to anyone interested in ancient Chinese culture. Contributors: Susan Bush; Zong-qi Cai; Kang-i Sun Chang; Ronald Egan; Robert E. Harrist, Jr.; Rania Huntington; Wai-yee Li; Shuen-fu Lin; Victor Mair; François Martin.

Literary Gestures
Literary Gestures

Author: Rocio G Davis

Publisher: Temple University Press

Published: 2009-08-31

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1592133665

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Form as function in Asian American literature.

Aesthetics and Marxism
Aesthetics and Marxism

Author: Kang Liu

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2000-03-10

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 0822380536

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Although Chinese Marxism—primarily represented by Maoism—is generally seen by Western intellectuals as monolithic, Liu Kang argues that its practices and projects are as diverse as those in Western Marxism, particularly in the area of aesthetics. In this comparative study of European and Chinese Marxist traditions, Liu reveals the extent to which Chinese Marxists incorporate ideas about aesthetics and culture in their theories and practices. In doing so, he constructs a wholly new understanding of Chinese Marxism. Far from being secondary considerations in Chinese Marxism, aesthetics and culture are in fact principal concerns. In this respect, such Marxists are similar to their Western counterparts, although Europeans have had little understanding of the Chinese experience. Liu traces the genealogy of aesthetic discourse in both modern China and the West since the era of classical German thought, showing where conceptual modifications and divergences have occurred in the two traditions. He examines the work of Mao Zedong, Lu Xun, Li Zehou, Qu Qiubai, and others in China, and from the West he discusses Kant, Schiller, Schopenhauer, and Marxist theorists including Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, and Marcuse. While stressing the diversity of Marxist positions within China as well as in the West, Liu explains how ideas of culture and aesthetics have offered a constructive vision for a postrevolutionary society and have affected a wide field of issues involving the problems of modernity. Forcefully argued and theoretically sophisticated, this book will appeal to students and scholars of contemporary Marxism, cultural studies, aesthetics, and modern Chinese culture, politics, and ideology.

Art and Aesthetics in Chinese Popular Prints
Art and Aesthetics in Chinese Popular Prints

Author: Ellen Johnston Laing

Publisher: U of M Center for Chinese Studies

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13:

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Traditional woodblock prints preserve a Chinese folk art that has now nearly vanished. This book explores and explains the artistic and aesthetic bases of popular prints revealed in eighty-four late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century prints belonging to the London-based Muban Foundation. Woodblock printing was the principal method of producing inexpensive and colorful single-sheet images for mass consumption in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China. Prints of this type are known today as "New Year pictures" because the demand for them peaked at New Year's time. However, the term "popular print" more accurately describes these works, whose subjects include deities and tutelary spirits, illustrations to stories and operas, and even contemporary political or revolutionary messages. The emphasis on the artistic aspects of these prints makes this publication uniquely appealing to Chinese art historians but also to those interested in Chinese anthropology, popular religion, Chinese and other folk art, and traditional crafts. Ellen J. Laing received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. She was Maude I. Kerns Distinguished Professor of Oriental Art, University of Oregon and is currently Research Associate at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan. She has published numerous scholarly articles, books, and reference works on Chinese art.

Tradition, Culture and Aesthetics in Contemporary Asian Cinema
Tradition, Culture and Aesthetics in Contemporary Asian Cinema

Author: Peter C. Pugsley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-02-24

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1317008472

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From the critically acclaimed Malaysian film Sepet to the on-going box office successes of the films created by Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai, cinematic texts from the nations of Asia are increasingly capturing audiences beyond their national boundaries. Tradition, Culture and Aesthetics in Contemporary Asian Cinema explores the rise of popular Asian cinema and provides an understanding of the aesthetic elements that mark these films as 'Asian cinema'. Incorporating examples of contemporary films from China, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and India, Peter C. Pugsley gives readers a fresh insight into the rapidly developing discourse on popular Asian media. The book's chapters focus on the aesthetic features of national cinemas and the intersections of local/global encountered in the production, distribution and consumption of contemporary Asian films. By tracking across some of the most influential countries in Asia the book is able to offer new perspectives into the visual and aural features that create greater understanding between East and West. As distribution and technological advances make Asian films more readily available, an understanding of the different aesthetics at play will enable readers of this book to recognise key cultural motifs found in cinematic texts from Asia.

On The Meta-category Of Chinese Music Aesthetics
On The Meta-category Of Chinese Music Aesthetics

Author: Sai Yang

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2021-07-02

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 9811225214

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This book opens with the emergence and development of the discipline of aesthetics in western countries, specifically the history of Western Music Aesthetics, to study and delve into the development of Chinese Music Aesthetics. The book provides a clear timeline throughout the writing — from the history of Chinese Music Aesthetics, to the construction of a theoretical framework, and the intersections and conversations between Western and Chinese Music Aesthetics. This academic piece is fundamentally consistent with the developing field of Chinese philosophical and literary research.This book also discusses important music aesthetic categories of Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, and metaphysics, and uses critical thinking to analyse the relationship between these categories and relevant schools of thought, reflecting the author's academic vision and thought process.