Abstract
The paper claims that the duality mode of Sino-Western comparative aesthetics research and the en vogue mentality in prevailing in China hinders our understanding of the Westernization process of Chinese aesthetics from multiple perspectives. One important thread of development that has been neglected is Zhu Guangqian's expressionist aesthetics. Influenced by the dominating lyrical tradition in Chinese poetics and the Western expressionism prevalent in the early 20th century, Zhu found it hard to buy the mimetic theory in the Western tradition and the Marxist epistemological aesthetics born out of it. Instead, Zhu developed his own expressionist aesthetics by integrating the Western expressionism with Chinese concept of aesthetic vision (yijing). The paper proposes that an adjustment in the understanding of the framework of contemporary Chinese aesthetics should be made so as to redefine the ideologically cloaked multi-dimensional aesthetics in contemporary China. The paper suggests that the redefinition could start with the example of Li Zehou's turn from objective social aesthetics to aesthetics of praxis by renaming Zhu's theory as expressionist aesthetics and Cai Yi's epistemologically focused aesthetics as representational aesthetics.
First Page
112
Last Page
120
Recommended Citation
Dai, Xun. 2013. "Zhu Guangqian and Expressionism: An Alternative Way to Bridge the Chinese and Western Aesthetics." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 33, (2): pp.112-120. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol33/iss2/23
