Aesthetic and metaphysical meaning in Lomazzo's writings on painting

'Clarity' as one of the formal conditions of beauty, alone with 'integrity' and 'proportion,' plays an important role in the aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas. It is also the only element from the three conditions that is concerned with 'light' and 'color'-the key to western painting. This essay attempts to investigate and dig into the meaning of 'clarity', and at the same time create the possibility of a dialectic between this aesthetic concept and works of art, by contrasting it to the development of western painting. The meaning of 'clarity' for Thomas Aquinas can be illustrated in two aspects: the physical and the metaphysical. Regarding the physical aspect, Thomas Aquinas' famous quotation -”…'brightness' or 'clarity,' whence things are called beautiful which have a bright color.” (Summa Theologica, Ⅰ, 39, 8c.)-has shown us the surface meaning of 'clarity'. This kind of depiction of 'clarity' is actually related tightly to the whole of medieval cultural taste. In fact, it can be said that the highly developed religious painting of the time is the concrete realization of this physical meaning: medieval artists were excellent at using bright primary colors and distinct stable outlines to present their work, resulting in the brilliant effect of splendor on the canvas. However, the physical aspect of 'clarity' gradually falls short when explaining painting after the Renaissance. We have to go back to the metaphysical meaning of 'clarity' to interpret those changes. Regarding the metaphysical, the aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas has declared that 'clarity' contains 'intelligibility', meaning that, ”Clarity is the fundamental communicability of form, which is actual in relation to someone's looking at or seeing of the object. The rationality that belongs to every form is the 'light', which manifests itself to aesthetic seeing.” (Umberto Eco, The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas) Hence, the concept 'clarity' builds up the bridge between the aesthetic subject and the object, and meanwhile it surpasses a limited definition of beauty in a specific space and time (such as the physical meaning of 'clarity'). Therefore, 'clarity' is as the 'light' of art works themselves, which delight in themselves, express themselves and declare themselves. In this way, we can finally understand why even an 'obscure' or 'dim' presentation in a painting (this kind of expression was rare in the medieval period but often appeared afterwards) can be appreciated under a 'knowing eye', which recognizes a real resplendence belonging to the work itself.

На пути к возрождению метафизики: С.Л. Франк и Э. Корет

顧愷之是東晉著名的畫家，世稱「才絕」、「畫絕」、「癡絕」。除了對藝術的熱愛之外，他博學有才，雅好文學，個性好諧謔，並擁有多方面的興趣。從史家評議中可見，對他的評論是｢矜能過實，譚諧取容，而才多逸氣，故有三絶之目。｣現代人對顧愷之的認識多在其繪畫理論上的影響，然而在晉書的史臣筆下，他的文章｢縟藻霞煥｣、｢才多逸氣｣，可見他的文筆之美；從｢矜能過實，譚諧取容｣更可以初步得到一個有自信滿溢而又幽默的印象，這又是他博學多才之餘，表現出「癡絕」的另一面。他的「癡」同他的人格聯繫在一起，而這樣的精神人格與魏晉時期的社會風尚、人物才性、品藻標準等都密切相關。 作為山水畫創始時期的代表作家之一、也身為傑出的早期肖像畫與人物畫家，顧愷之在藝術史上的作用與影響都是極其深遠的。顧愷之的維摩詰壁畫與戴逵雕塑的文殊菩薩像以及從獅子國傳來玉像，被當時稱為瓦官寺｢三絕」。顧愷之撰有《魏晉勝流畫贊》、《論畫》和《畫雲臺山記》等三本重要論著，在繪畫理論上也有許多前所未有的觀點，如傳神寫照、遷想妙得的藝術理念，東晉顧愷之在總結前人觀點的基礎上，第一次系統的闡述了人物畫中的形神關係。從顧愷之到謝赫、宗炳、王微，從人物畫論到山水畫論，從側重於對象之神的傳達到越來越重視主體精神意趣的融入，我們可以清楚地看到六朝畫論中傳神論的發展演化。顧愷之的畫論對後世影響深遠。顧愷之從創作實踐和理論建樹兩方面，把我國古代的繪畫推向了第一個高峰。 以往學術界對顧愷之的研究，總是側重於其繪畫方面的傑出成就，而對其在書法、藝術理論及文學創作諸多方面的成就未加以深入研究。因此，本文將以｢才、癡、畫三絕｣為主軸，嘗試從他的時代背景、家族門風、宗教信仰剖析東晉的顧愷之，並且多元延伸觸角來解讀顧愷之，甚至探討出顧愷之對後世的影響。期盼能在「畫絕」之餘，更深入的描繪出顧愷之「才絕」與「癡絕」的文人形象。

Regarding the art of painting, the style of a work is determined by the painter's participation in the landscape that he wishes to depict. This is an issue worthy of attention in the theories of either traditional Chinese landscape painting or contemporary Western aesthetics. This paper is meant to compare the writings of Guo Xi, a theorist of Chinese landscapes, and the aesthetic theories of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a contemporary French phenomenologist, interpreting the aesthetic theories of traditional Chinese painting in a brand new way through the aesthetic theories of phenomenology. After a brief introduction of the background of the research, the writer succinctly states Guo Xi's theories of painting and explicates his theoretical framework with some diagrams. Then a comparison is made between the aesthetic issues contained in Guo Xi's theories of painting and the aesthetic thought of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, focusing on Guo Xi's aesthetic issues-including ”the heart of woods and streams,” ”taking the view with your heart on the spot within the mountains and waters” and ”three perspectives-with references to Merleau-Ponty's theories from ”Eye and Mind.”

In an entry in his Notebooks 1914-1916 Wittgenstein appears to give some credit to the idea widespread in modern aesthetics that «the end of art is the beautiful »: «[…] there is certainly something» – he writes – in this conception. And he comments on: «[…] the beautiful is what makes happy » (NB 21.10.16). Maybe influenced by Tolstoy, who wrote that «people will come to understand the meaning of art only when they cease to consider that the aim of that activity is beauty, i.e. pleasure», Wittgenstein does not adopt the idea without reservations. However, he admits that there is some validity to it. Therefore what we read in his Lectures on Aesthetics (1938) is rather intriguing: «It is remarkable that in real life, when aesthetic judgments are made, aesthetic adjectives such as ‘beautiful’, ‘fine’, etc., play hardly any role at all» (LE, I, 8). Why is this a remarkable fact? Is it because, in spite of beauty being the aim of art, when aesthetic judgments are made, the predicate ‘is beautiful’ plays a marginal role? And if this is the case, why is the supposed end of art almost neglected in art appreciation? Or is Wittgenstein simply bringing a word back from its metaphysical to its everyday use here (cf. PI, 116)? I will argue that, while in the Notebooks entry Wittgenstein tells us something important on what makes an aesthetic experience a valuable experience and/or an experience of value, in the Lectures the topic is a bit different. Wittgenstein is talking about the appreciation of objects and works of art, about the ways we aesthetically react to them. I will focus on this shift in point of view and on a distinction introduced in the Lectures between approval and appreciation. It is in the light of this distinction, that we can understand the observation about the unimportance of ‘beautiful’ in aesthetic judgment. In the final part of my talk I will argue that, contrary to this opinion, the adjective ‘beautiful’ is of significance in aesthetic judgment.

The thesis proposes a series of 'forgotten' aesthetic geometries that are retrieved from metaphysical philosophy. Organised into five chapters, the discussion identifies geometric methods and figures in a series of selected texts from Neoplatonic, post-Cartesian and Kantian thinking. Chapter 1 situates the argument in an examination of Kant's Critical philosophy and identifies two kinds of aesthetic and geometric procedure that are constructed in the first and third Critiques. In the Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787) Kant constructs geometry as both pure 'cognition' (i. e. as intuition) and sense-perception (i. e. space). In the Critique ofJudgment (1790), however, geometry is a procedure that is generated by the imagination and the reflective subject as a form of aesthetic judgment. Geometric procedure becomes, therefore, an aesthetic act of construction that reflects the irreducible unity of the thinking subject and is reconfigured in relation to intuition, limit and unlimit, the soul, imagination and space and time. This discussion provides the context through which the aesthetic geometric methods and figures in the writings of Proclus, Spinoza, Leibniz and Bergson are explored. Chapter 2 reveals the synthetic figure of the fold from Proclus' (410-485AD) procedure of 'unfolding' a divine geometry from Euclid's Elements. Chapter 3 proposes an aesthetic 'comportment' that generates a 'passage' through Spinoza's geometric text, the Ethics (1677). Chapter 4 examines the analytic and aesthetic geometric figure of the 'plenum', which is constructed from an intensive corporeal and incorporeal magnitude in Leibniz's 'Monadology' (1714). Chapter 5 proposes that Bergson's text, Matter and Memory (1896), reinstates intuition as a 'natural geometry' or 'life' in the figure of the 'envelope'. The thesis explores, therefore, a geometric tradition in which Kantian aesthetics looks both backwards and forwards, and each method and figure represents a different 'recollection' of its potential.

中國畫論是中國傳統美學思想的具體反映，《歷代名畫記》不僅是中國繪畫通史之祖，也是奠定中國繪畫理論的經典之作。本文擬以張彥遠《歷代名畫記》的繪畫史觀與繪畫美學觀爲主軸，來探討張彥遠《歷代名畫記》一書所呈現的繪畫藝術觀。 本論文共分五章，其架構爲：第一章研究概況說明，第二章《歷代名畫記》的繪畫史觀，第三章「論畫六法」的人物畫美學觀，第四章「境與性會」的山水畫美學觀，第五章爲結論。茲詳述內容如下： 第一章爲〈緒論〉，說明研究動機與目的、研究現況與回顧、研究方法與步驟、預期研究成果與限制等。 第二章爲〈《歷代名畫記》的繪畫史觀〉，從張彥遠家世背景與學養的論述中，可以得知《歷代名畫記》一書，實寄寓他對家族傳統與書畫藝術的理想。《歷代名畫記》一書的編纂體例，前爲論、後爲史，史是論中的一部分，論又從屬於繪畫品評，整體的綱目結構清晰明確，畫史與畫論渾然一體，不僅開創了新的繪畫史論編纂體例，我們更可以透過《歷代名畫記》中，對繪畫理論與唐代繪畫發展的闡述，深入瞭解張彥遠的繪畫史觀。 第三章爲〈「論畫六法」的人物畫美學觀〉，繪畫的實踐常是先於理論的產生。唐代繪畫不論是題材的擴大，人物、山水、鞍馬、畜獸、花鳥畫等領域均有長足的進展；加上表現技法的高度成熟，對於筆法的拓展與墨法的產生，均產生非常深遠的影響。張彥遠在唐代繪畫高度發展的基礎下，繼承並發展了謝赫的「六法論」，對六法論作了體系性的詮釋，由他對六法兼善的畫家品評中，我們可以瞭解他對人物畫的美學觀。 第四章爲〈「境與性會」的山水畫美學觀〉，山水畫在唐代是一門新興的畫科，張彥遠《歷代名畫記》一書，不僅保留了前代宗炳與王微的山水畫理論，他更進一步吸收與闡釋了他們二人的山水畫理論，其〈論畫山水樹石〉一文不僅詳細論述唐以前山水畫的發展過程與風格的遞變，使我們對唐代山水畫的發展變革有更多的認識，他更結合唐代「境」的理論，提出山水畫「境與性會」的美學觀點，對於後代山水畫理論產生深遠的影響。 第五章爲〈結論〉，綜論前述五章的研究成果，提出《歷代名畫記》一書的繪畫藝術觀點，是建構在以「氣韻生動」爲主的形神觀、以「意」爲核心的畫論觀、「境與性會」的山水畫論觀、以及妙悟自然的美學觀等，由此呈顯出張彥遠對於繪畫藝術風格與審美特徵的觀點。

This essay develops an earlier claim that Vernon Lee’s interactions with male aesthetes were a key force in helping shape her sexual, literary, and professional identity (Maxwell and Pulham 6–8). The most prominent of these men — Walter Pater, John Singer Sargent, Henry James, and John Addington Symonds — were homosexual or homosexually inclined, something not in itself surprising in that aesthetic and decadent culture is strongly linked to sexual dissidence, being often celebratory or reflective of non-normative sexuality. One of the reasons that Lee, like other intellectual lesbian women, may have been attracted to aesthetic and decadent writing by these men was that it offered her a pattern or parallel by which to understand or construct her own sexual and professional identity. Yet such writings can be exclusive, seeking out similarly oriented male readers and implicitly suggesting that the best achievements of high art and culture are those produced by men who desire men. Such exclusivism may be a factor motivating Lee’s often ambivalent portrayal of male aesthetes, whose lives and cultural and artistic projects are invariably disrupted by feminine forces. While Lee maintained an enduring respect and affection for Pater, and cordial relations with Sargent whom she had known from childhood, her friendships with James and Symonds were much more complex and conflicted. Charting Lee’s often intricate relations with all these men would merit a major study in itself, so this essay gives two contrasting examples of formative literary engagements with male aesthetes. The first of these is with the American painter John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), the second with an intellectual rival, the historian and essayist John Addington Symonds (1840–93).

In this research, the author tried to elucidate the meaning of ”Great Beauty of the universe” in writings of Chuang Zi. The author hold that Chuang Zi surmount the relative beauty in the world and pursue the absolute beauty because of his spirit of detaching from the world. Therefore, the essence of ”Great beauty of the universe” in writings of Chuang Zi is metaphysical and original beauty, not the beauties of nature, as many scholars believe. ”Great beauty of the universe” in the book of Chuang Zi means the virtue of Heaven to rear the creation in the world without selfishness. ”Great beauty of the universe” is found by learners of the Taoists when cultivating their minds, and it can be put into practice to produce the beauties in the world, then becoming the metaphysical origin of all beauties. Therefore, the essence of ”Great beauty of the universe” is practical, not theoretical. In this research, the author will make a comparison between ”Great beauty of the universe” and ”metaphysical beauty” in Plato's aesthetic theory, and precisely presenting the essence of ”Great beauty of the universe”.

The Chinese word yishu is often translated into English as ”art” or ”arts” today. However, the term yishu used in the dynastic histories often refers to skills - especially on divination and medicine rather than art/s with aesthetic concept as its modern definition, such as painting, calligraphy, sculpture, music, drama, and so on. It is widely known that the translation of yishu in the sense of beauty is a modern concept derived from the West via Japan in the mid-nineteenth century, and soon the characters of geijutsu in Japanese, yishu in Chinese, returned to China and were used to indicate art/s with aesthetic meaning. Although this is a known fact, not much research has been done on examining the changing context of the term yishu in the long history of China. Reviewing the term yishu also generates another issue of how ancient Chinese considered art with aesthetic sense. This paper, thus, attempts to clarify the changing concept of yishu in China, and, meanwhile, studies idea of aesthetics and art in imperial China. Considering various types and quantities of textual sources (e.g. collectanea, reading notes, collected literary works and so on), this research uses dynastic histories as primary textual sources to survey the long history of the concept of art and various meanings of yishu in imperial China. This study may be limited in scope, but the dynastic histories, sponsored by imperial governments, are comparatively representative and authoritative. Hence, my attempts to clarify the original meaning of yishu and its modern meaning-art with the aesthetic sense, especially during the transition period of the 19th century, are considered accomplished.

As an important painting theorist in the Period of Eastern Jin, Wang Wei was born a bit later than Zong Bing, while Wang's On Paintings and Zong's Preface to Landscape Painting are both the earliest theories of Chinese landscape paintings. Their theories about painting have a lot in common and deserve some comparative research. This article is divided into the following four sections: Wang Wei's biography; the purport of On Paintings; the aesthetic meaning of Preface to Landscape Painting; and the conclusion.The brief biography of Wang Wei is to make the readers understand his status in the history of Chinese painting. Regarding the purport of On Paintings, its writing is succinct but rich, and the text is quoted and paraphrased to help the readers develop the most direct first contact with the author. The aesthetic meaning of On Paintings is the main point of this article. Based on its purport, the writer proceeds along four sections to discuss respectively the following issues: the same origin of calligraphy and painting, the existential origin of painting, the artistic philosophy of painting and the aesthetics of painting. Due to the historical distance, the manuscripts of the original text are inconsistent in many ways, which leads to many differences in interpretation. Here we address the disagreements between the different copies to facilitate the reading of its meaning. In the section of the conclusion, the meaning and value of On Paintings are confirmed and upheld.

This thesis considers the critical possibilities of aesthetic experience in a contemporary context, particularly in relation to painting. It puts forth an argument for the relevance of painting as a critically engaged means of producing art today. As a ground for the argument I look to Immanuel Kant’s formulation of aesthetic experience as implicitly connected to critical reflection, and propose an extended understanding of how the aesthetic experience of painting might be thought today. There are two distinct parts to this argument. The first concerns producing a contemporary formulation of aesthetic experience, accounting for relevant factors that have influenced art-theoretical interpretations of aesthetics. The second involves positioning this formulation of aesthetic experience in relation to the complex and loaded system of meaning that we might now understand painting to be. I argue for a non-juridical conception of aesthetic judgement, and attendantly for an understanding of criticality as an open, pluralistic space rather than a conclusive, rational one. The aspects of Kantian aesthetics I draw upon are the sensus communis, the aesthetic idea, the symbol as a structural stopping-short and purposiveness without purpose. These ideas, notably excluded from Clement Greenberg’s recourse to Kant, form the basis of a mobilisation of aesthetics for the reading of painting beyond formalism; indeed, emphasising how the aesthetic experience of form might lead to an expanded contemplation of content. I draw upon theorisations of discursive stupidity and wit towards an extended conception of aesthetic experience, and discuss the work of Juan Davila and Martin Kippenberger through the lens of these theories. I argue that painting’s ability to gesture towards an idea, whilst investing it with complexity, is one thing that enables it to open spaces for a renewed contemplation of agreed meanings. As this exegesis outlines an understanding of painting in relation to aesthetic experience, my practical research is undertaken within, and feeds back into that understanding: the relation between painting and critical aesthetics outlined herein acts as a receptive ground for my practice as a painter.

Charles Baudelaire on Eugene Delacroix is the main acchivement of his art criticism. He composed poems to comment Eugene Delacroix's paintings, thus acchieved Zenith task in taking poetry as subjective and impressionistic criticism shch as Les Phares and Le Tasse en prison. In Salon de 1846, he comments Eugene Delacroix's paintings along with his points on Romanticism and Colourism. By that time he proposed philosophical concepts of 'A Priority I and Universality and suggested Eugene Delacroix's originality, his final and most attractive quality-tragic trait (cette melancolie sinquliere et opiniâtre) and judged this trait acchive his grand. In section three of Exposition universelle 1855, Beaux-arts, he enphasized Eugene Delacroix's expression of female beauty, on colourism he cited directly his own lines in Les Phares and mentioned Weber's romantic music that initiate the harmony of his colours. In Salon de 18S9, he proposed theory of Imagination and the speciality of Eugene Delacroix. And in L'oeuvre et 10vie d' Eugene Delacroix he paied his omage to Eugene Delacroix's genius and thus destinated his position in tradition of the arts.This paper is to treate one of the sublets of my projets ”On Charles Baudelaire and Modern Theatre Aesthetics”, the key points here are on the metaphysical foundation of Charles Baudelaire's Arts Criticism. On this subjects, one can not escape to touch the key points of Charles Baudelaire's modernity that let us discuss later. Here we would like to concentrate on ontological subjects of his theory of criticism such as his theory of correspondances between perceptions and the originality of genius, and the university of passions and that of knowledge. He concluded that ”great passions and plus unusual will power, that is Delacroix.” in L'oeuvre et la vie d' Eugene Delacroix and thus expressed his respect to Eugene Delacroix's genius and destinated his position in tradition of the arts.

The Viral Sublime exposes a symbiosis between oil paint(ing), virology, and contemporary concepts of the sublime. It explores how the sublime is portrayed by the dual identity of viruses as both malevolent and beneficial in regenerative medicine and genomic science. My painting embodies my imaginative relationship with being in the world knowing that my body is shared with an unwanted virus that has the potential to destroy or possibly save me. To convey my sense of being in a viral world, my painting takes the form of viral landscapes in which oil paint is treated as having some characteristics inherent to viruses, in the ways in which oil paint behaves on a substrate. In fostering these viral dimensions of oil paint in my paintings, an homologous relationship between oil paint and viruses is demonstrated. Meeting with scientists and managing the medical intervention necessary, virology and genomics have become sources of inspiration in relation to the regenerative potential of the sublime. The Viral Sublime is not designed to provide answers, but to question whether it is through the gaze of technology, medicine or science that postmodern ideas of the sublime continue to thrive. Since Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, artists have conceived the sublime as a distinctive aesthetic category that is magnificent but overwhelming, awe-inspiring but terrifying, dangerous and life threatening (Burke, 1757). My lifelong experience of dealing with forces unseen to the naked eye has motivated the contextualisation of my practice within the art histories of invisible energies and virology. Drawing upon Burke and Immanuel Kant’s theories, and postmodern concepts of the sublime within contemporary art, the terrifying and overwhelming power of the contemporary sublime in the form of viruses is explored in my painting. As genomic medicine opens the doors to personalised medicine, one of many objectives is to expand the dialogue between science, medicine and art to initiate change in society’s perceptions of disease, particularly viruses. I propose the Viral Sublime as a new category and extension to knowledge within the canon of art history surrounding the concept of the sublime.

Kierkegaard (1813-1855), thinker of modernity, although very critical of the latter, fully belongs to a world which has seen its vision of the universe transform under the effect of the development of modern science . Although he is above all interested in freedom, the Danish thinker is not indifferent to the spectacle of nature, as certain passages from signed (non-pseudonymous) works or unpublished writings during his lifetime show. By mainly using these texts, this communication wishes to highlight in Kierkegaard elements allowing to reveal the presence, in nature, of a reality which goes beyond what our senses can perceive and what our calculations or our experiences can validate, in other words, a metaphysical dimension, conducive to aesthetic contemplation and indicating the path to an authentic ecology.