In the late19th century, Konrad Fiedler had noticed the significance of pure visibility of painting and sculpture language, and emphasized the independent position of visual language. Federer distinguished two different ways of experience: understanding of feelings and understanding of concepts. The former is mainly based on visual experience, and the latter is obtained through the process of abstraction and conceptual arrangement of perceptual data. He believes that the creation of real works of art is independent of conceptual activities and is based on the independent and free development of a sensory experience, especially visual experience. However, the prejudice of positivist scientific orientation in the19th century distorts this relationship, the essence of which is to mistakenly regard perceptual cognition of the world as less than conceptual or abstract cognition. He criticized Hegel's monism based on Christianity, that is, putting art in the lower stage of its human spiritual evolution model, that is, thinking that art (sculpture, painting, etc. ) is the early form of human spiritual evolution, and philosophy is its mature form, which is in an advanced stage. Therefore, the visual thinking of art is lower than the conceptual thinking of philosophy and is in the primary stage. Federer found and pointed out that the cognitive style based on visual experience is completely different from the cognitive style based on concept, which does not belong to the lower stage of the latter, but has its own independent significance and is the basis of artists' creation. Visual thinking, or imagination, and conceptual thinking belong to different systems and have their own logic. However, due to people's misunderstanding, the former is regarded as the lower stage of the latter, which has done harm to education, especially art education. In school education, with the growth of students' age, visual thinking has not been effectively cultivated and developed, but has been gradually suppressed, destroyed and stifled. In traditional art education, a set of so-called academic training methods based on scientific rationality is implemented, so painting becomes a graphic means to tell stories from history, religion and mythology, and a formula to imitate three-dimensional realistic effects on a plane, which hinders the independent development of visual thinking and the free development of plastic arts based on visual thinking. Federer firmly believes that visual thinking and conceptual thinking belong to different systems and have the same value, which challenged the art education at that time and affected the understanding and criticism of art. Federer's thought predicted the great development potential of visual thinking (thinking in images). From 19, it began with the artistic transformation at the turn of the 20th century, that is, it turned to attach great importance to the subjectivity of artists and the depth of human spirit, witnessed the symbolism movement at that time and predicted the later expressionism and transcendence.
Reference:/gb/jschina/culture/node19885/node19889/node37140/node37142/node37360/userobject1ai200.