Napoleon's negative actions made Courbet famous, which can be said to be a negative incentive.
2. Complex feelings about aesthetics.
I suggest you read this paper in detail:
From Courbet's A Bathing Woman —— Notes on Literary Aesthetics
From: Lucifer (May justice never stop)
A review of literary aesthetics
Before commenting on this book, please allow me to tell a story: 1853, the painter Courbet's oil painting "Woman in the Bath" was exhibited in a Parisian salon. According to legend, when Charles Louis Napolé on Bonaparte, the emperor of the Second Reich, visited the salon, he was deeply angered by the stout naked woman in the painting. He felt an indescribable "vulgarity" and whipped the frame to show his anger. This well-known case in the history of western art has been repeatedly mentioned by later generations. In my opinion, this story illustrates the fact that "beauty" has never been a simple factual judgment, but a very complicated value judgment and moral judgment. From a technical point of view, the bathing girl who angered Charles Louis Napolé on Bonaparte was actually very similar to the artificial bathing girl popular among the Parisian bourgeoisie at that time: strong light focused on the plump back of the peasant woman, just like a beam of lights on the stage of drama. The peasant woman's wriggling posture is like a dancer, which is no different from those common oil paintings in salons. However, the only peasant woman's fleshy body in this painting deeply offended the emperor, just as people saw a strong man like Li Kui jy determined to learn from Lin Daiyu's flower burial, and realized that the flower burial itself was morbid and vivid, which was even more blasphemous. In the19th century, there were many talents rejected by Sharon. Both Angel's The Silent Maid and Delacroix's The Passionate Death of Dapas received rave reviews, but it was only Courbet who made Charles Louis Napolé on Bonaparte lash the picture frame-it was not Courbet's incomprehensible painting skills or fierce political views that angered the emperor, but the interest contained in his oil paintings and the "beauty" he hated. When we see this painting again today, it seems that we can still imagine Courbet's impudent expression.
Then, let's talk less and go back to my theme-literary aesthetics. Here comes the question: Where is the conflict between Charles Louis Napolé on Bonaparte and Courbet? Is it the natural hostility of one class to another? Courbet is a poor painter who once participated in the Paris Commune personally, but imagine that if he portrayed rural women in another way, such as Miller's Gleaning, I don't think it would attract Charles Louis Napolé on Bonaparte to whip the picture frame. This makes Courbet different from Miller. The woman who bathes is different from gleaning, and gleaning is where the god of art lives. However, the classic Marxist aesthetics of the former Soviet Union divided artistic works into two parts: content and form. Form serves the content, and "beauty" is only the lace for decorating ideas. After the founding of New China, our aesthetic research almost completely adopted the theory of the former Soviet Union and continued to follow the dichotomy of content and form. However, from the analysis of the last article, we can see that "beauty" is not simply included in the form and technique of the work, nor is it simply attached to the content and thought. The painter thinks that beautiful things are so "not beautiful" in the eyes of the emperor, so "beautiful" is a very personal experience, which can neither be induction and deduction nor integrated. Whether we dissect the form with formalism and psychological scientific analysis, or analyze the ideas of works with sociological methods, we can't touch the essence of beauty, which is the difficulty of aesthetic research.
After the Cultural Revolution, domestic aesthetic research urgently needs to break through the old and rigid Soviet model and find a new research direction for itself. If literary aesthetics is a subject [1] with the whole aesthetics and poetics as its research basis and frame of reference, then why "literary aesthetics" is "learning" is the first question that Mr. Hu Jingzhi should answer as the pioneering work of two disciplines. There is no doubt that literary aesthetics is not a data collation of all discourses on literary beauty at all times and in all countries-this is neither possible nor beneficial, because these discourses are often self-contradictory. For example, Plato thinks that beauty is pleasure, while Aristotle claims that beauty is virtue. The ultra-historicity of aesthetic problems makes it impossible for researchers to treat the research object with pure data like the study of ancient literary theory; Literary aesthetics is not a quantitative and qualitative scientific analysis of aesthetics, because aestheticians even dispute whether beauty is objective or not, and can only end up with the vague statement that "beauty exists objectively, but only for people" [2]. Beauty is a value judgment, not a factual judgment. When talking about the difference between art and non-art, the author quoted Lu Xun's famous saying: "A story in the news, a poor novel, that novel is not literature." Mr. Hu himself thinks that "a conceptual work shows an idea, which has both ideas and images, but it is not an artistic image, just like a poor novel, which has no artistry." [3] There is no purely objective beauty, and there is no purely objective aesthetic research. The study of literary aesthetics itself also contains the judgment of choice. In this sense, I appreciate China's traditional aesthetics of caring about things, and treat every individual as an individual.
"Beyond Liuhe, does it exist?" Science stops here and is the starting point of philosophy. Therefore, I think aesthetics is not science, but philosophy. For emperors and painters, aesthetics is a highly personalized psychological experience. The basis of aesthetics is not the political and economic class interests asserted by Marxism, but the personalized life experience and philosophy. The focus of aesthetics is the relationship between individual existence and the world.
There is a fundamental difference between philosophical research and scientific research. Scientific theorems can be applied everywhere, but philosophy cannot. Philosophy must be a "profound prejudice". The depth and individuality of philosophy determine the depth and individuality of aesthetics, which must be based on philosophy-Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger ... These famous aestheticians in history are all lonely philosophers, including Marx's dialectical materialism aesthetics. As a kind of "ism", they are not satisfied, but as a profound insight into Marx's personal life aesthetics.
If aesthetics originates from philosophy, it means that aesthetics cannot be copied to some extent. Students majoring in modern physics don't need to know Aristotle's views on material movement, while students majoring in literature and art don't know Aristotle's Poetics, which means that he gave up some valuable ideological resources. "There are some great philosophers in history ... but their initial idea is not to completely abandon the basic problems of philosophy, but to put forward revolutionary opinions on these problems." [4] Why not use "aesthetics" instead of "philosophy" here? Today's people's understanding of beauty is not necessarily deeper than Kant and Zhuang Zhou's, and their aesthetics can't be followed by today's people, because Kant and Zhuang Zhou have developed their lives to the extreme respectively, and also branded their aesthetic thoughts with profound personality. Do children and non-fish know the happiness of fish? So later generations had to start a new stove. But all roads lead to Rome, and personal aesthetic experience is not final, but all roads lead to the same goal. The greatest pride of an aesthetic researcher is not that he has proved an irrefutable and eternal conclusion, but that he has added a brand-new perspective on the world for future generations.
Regrettably, Mr. Hu Jingzhi's literary aesthetics failed to achieve the goal of "seeing the world from a new perspective". The eleven chapters of this book can be roughly divided into four parts: the first chapter of this book discusses the unity of subject and object of aesthetics, which is the general part; The second to fourth chapters discuss the condensation and mastery of aesthetic experience, which is the part of creation theory; The fifth to tenth chapters discuss symbols, images, artistic conception and artistic forms, which belong to ontology (works) theory; Chapters 10 and 11 discuss the acceptance of works and aesthetic education, which belong to the theory of interpretation (acceptance). From the chapter setting, almost all topics related to literature and art are involved, and from the theoretical resources, it spans Marxist aesthetics, ancient China literary theory and western literary theory. Mr. Hu's literary aesthetics still follows the Marxist aesthetic view since the former Soviet Union, but the core of his philosophy is Marxism, and western literary theory and classical literary theory are only tools for the author to interpret Marxism.
Mr. Hu Jingzhi's aesthetic ontology holds that: "Aesthetic activities arise from practical activities, which form the aesthetic relationship between man and reality, restrict practical activities and stimulate people's aesthetic needs, thus requiring practical activities to be upgraded to aesthetic level." [5] "In free practice, aesthetic activities have been produced. In free practical activities, people gain the freedom of practice, so that they can make aesthetic evaluation of objective things, judge beauty and ugliness, show the aesthetic attitude of the subject to the object, and gain aesthetic experience. " [6] and freedom "is an inevitable understanding and practical mastery. "[7] People must know and obey the law to be free." Aesthetic activity is a self-regulating activity to achieve harmony and balance between subject and object, man and environment. " [8]
Arguments about classical concepts such as subject, object, practice, thinking and typicality in Marxist aesthetics run through the book, not to mention whether these rigid concepts can touch the essence of artistic aesthetics. Theoretically, Mr. Hu Jingzhi's argument failed to get rid of the inherent defects of Marxist aesthetics. In Mr. Hu's view, aesthetics is a kind of practice, the aesthetic object is objective, the aesthetic subject is objective and the aesthetic activity is objective. According to Aristotle's "four causes", the movement of things is driven by material cause, formal cause, motive cause and purpose cause, among which "purpose cause" is the most important and regarded by Aristotle as his own original creation. [9] According to Marxist aesthetic point of view, aesthetic practice, like scientific practice and political and economic practice, is the subject's understanding of the object: "The aesthetic relationship between the author and the object is in line with the inevitable requirements of historical development and is a reasonable existence and normal human relationship. Absurd thoughts are the product of abnormal relations, and correct thoughts are the product of normal social relations. " [10] Aesthetics, like other practical activities such as science, politics and economy, serves the social laws that govern everything, and cancels the difference between "purpose reason" and "motive reason", leaving only the difference between "material" and "form".
Then let's look at it from the perspective of "material reasons": Mr. Hu Jingzhi thinks that the characteristic of aesthetic activities lies in taking its special aesthetic object as material, but we should also see that everything can be an aesthetic object, and there is no special aesthetic object, so "what is an aesthetic object" must be defined by "what is aesthetics", and to understand "what is aesthetics" must be answered first.
Look at the problem of "formal karma" again: aesthetic activities are different from scientific thinking, and it is said that a kind of nonlinear "image thinking" opposite to conceptual thinking is adopted. Mr. Hu Jingzhi made a detailed analysis of the characteristics and principle of this mysterious "thinking in images": "In artistic thinking, the processing and transformation of perceptual images is a long process: the complete representation is transformed into aesthetic images. This journey is equivalent to the concrete rise to abstraction in scientific thinking, but here, representation is not a concept, but an image associated with (or combined with) concepts ... "[11] But whether this mysterious and mysterious" thinking in images "completely different from" conceptual thinking "really exists is a question in itself, otherwise, even if this kind of" thinking in images "really exists, Mr Hu Jingzhi also emphasized that "science does not exclude thinking in images" [12]. The only difference between them lies in their position, function, nature and method [13]. The more serious problem is that we can't actually further explore and demonstrate this kind of "thinking in images". Just like the "ether" in physics, the concept of "thinking in images" seems to be all-encompassing, but it is meaningless. In fact, the deepest impression this book gives me is that if we stick to the traditional Marxist aesthetics, we will not only be unable to capture the essence of beauty, but even be unable to distinguish between aesthetic practice and general practice forms!
In a word, Mr. Hu Jingzhi's view in the book Aesthetics of Literature and Art is that aesthetics is an emotion, which contains both knowledge and emotion and condenses into an image. [14] To be honest, this conclusion makes me feel very dry.
Ironically, when Gestalt psychology regards aesthetics as a complete psychology, and art and life are a kind of "heterogeneous isomorphic relationship", instead of artificially dismembering the whole psychological phenomenon into factors such as emotion, image and intuition, Mr. Hu Jingzhi actually applauds him for "undoubtedly grasping the key of aesthetic psychology" and affirms that "when appreciating art, it is not only for pure imagination, or not just for emotion and perception, but for all psychology." I don't mean to offend Mr. Hu Jingzhi's judgment. I think it is precisely because he regards Marxist aesthetics as science, tries to analyze highly personalized aesthetic experience by scientific means, and lacks an internal and complete philosophical vision that Mr. Hu Jingzhi ignores this obvious inconsistency.
Objectively speaking, within the scope of traditional Marxist aesthetics, Mr. Hu Jingzhi's research is not without progress. His most outstanding contribution is to affirm the important position of individual feelings and rationality in aesthetics. However, adding human factors, especially emotional factors, to the Marxist formula of "appropriate form+correct reflection of historical laws" can not draw a good conclusion. Because both emotion and reason belong to the category of "material reason" and "image" belongs to the category of "formal reason", which does not touch the fundamental problem of traditional Marxist aesthetics. The fundamental problem of traditional Marxist aesthetics lies in the neglect of "motive reason" and "purpose reason", that is, the neglect of "why people pursue beauty" and "where beauty will lead" related to human subjectivity and initiative. Ignoring these two problems and only admitting that aesthetics is an emotion will inevitably reduce people to things: either they will become a tool of historical philosophy or an independent garden outside the curled-up ideology. Therefore, even if we make great efforts to study the characteristics of aesthetic thinking, we can't see the real connection between internal beauty and individuals, and the connection between external beauty and the world and history. How pathetic!
Confucius said, "In the prosperous times, poetry is the foundation of ceremony and joy." In fact, in all human activities, only aesthetics can make people get rid of alienation and become real people. There are mediocre poets, mediocre singers and mediocre painters in this world, but there is no mediocre art and beauty. Beauty is a challenge to mediocrity. Charles Louis Napolé on Bonaparte flogged Courbet's oil paintings not so much because one class flogged another, but because one aesthetic interest flogged another, and one philosophy of life collided with another. In front of the painter's philosophy of life, the emperor saw the humbleness and great anger of his soul. Art or aesthetics, in the final analysis, belongs to individuals. In history, art, politics and religion had a brief marriage. As long as the latter develops to a certain extent, we must regard the former as a thorn in the side and try our best to destroy the former. Therefore, books are burned in the west and books in the east, which is also the reason why the two cannot be unified. Art makes people become people rather than things, which is different from all other ideologies and superstructures-this is too important, let's talk about it next time.
This book was written in 1980s, when the academic construction in China was still in a very urgent state. Needless to say, China's contemporary literature and art have opened their own boundaries in constant bargaining with ideology, so there is no need to criticize the pathfinders in the 1980s. However, we should also see horizontally that the theoretical circle has lagged far behind literary and artistic creation in the speed of development. To put it bluntly, ignoring the philosophy of aesthetics and blindly grafting western modern and contemporary literary theories into the branch of Marxist aesthetics, regardless of whether their internal theories are interlinked or not, is a common problem in domestic aesthetic research. If we can't get rid of mechanism and reflection theory and find a philosophy that is truly rooted in our own life, there will be no new pattern in aesthetic research.
[1] Hu Jingzhi's Literary Aesthetics, Page 3, Peking University Publishing House, 1999.
[2] Hu Jingzhi's Aesthetics of Literature and Art, p. 405, Peking University Publishing House, 1999.
[3] Hu Jingzhi's Aesthetics of Literature and Art, p. 207, Peking University Publishing House, 1999.
[4] Zhang Rulun's Fifteen Lectures on Modern Western Philosophy, Page 3, Peking University Publishing House, 2003.
[5] Hu Jingzhi's Aesthetics of Literature and Art, p. 28, Peking University Publishing House, 1999.
[6] Hu Jingzhi's Literary Aesthetics, p. 30, Peking University Publishing House, 1999.
[7] Hu Jingzhi's Aesthetics of Literature and Art, p. 29, Peking University Publishing House, 1999.
[8] Hu Jingzhi's Literary Aesthetics, p. 33, Peking University Publishing House, 1999.
[9] Aristotle's metaphysics, 993a 12-24.
[10] Hu Jingzhi's Literary Aesthetics, p. 174, Peking University Publishing House, 1999.
[1 1] Hu Jingzhi's literary aesthetics, pp. 155~ 156, Peking University Publishing House, 1999.
[12] Hu Jingzhi's Literary Aesthetics, p. 158, Peking University Publishing House, 1999.
[13] Hu Jingzhi's Literary Aesthetics, p. 159, Peking University Publishing House, 1999.
[14] Hu Jingzhi's Aesthetics of Literature and Art, page 2 16~223, Peking University Publishing House, 1999.
[15] Hu Jingzhi's Aesthetics of Literature and Art, p. 373, Peking University Publishing House, 1999.