The Relationship Between Art Theory and Design Education

Abstract

The relationship between art theory and design education is an important topic which involves the aesthetics accomplishment of the artist, expanding the cultural horizon, and improving the personal ability to create artworks. However, there has been a long time since the discussion of this topic was stopped. the current cultural environment where the art and design discipline is increasingly growing fast, we should pick up this topic and get over the complicated relationship between them, and review the important role that the art theory plays from the view of art development, to build a cultural platform for the art thinking and the design theory to communicate and develop with each other. Keywords—art theory, design education, aesthetics ideal, design style innovation the history of Chinese and Western art education, the relationship between art theory and design practice has always been a topic worth continuously discussing. From the Qin Dynasty, the art creation was concluded in the Analects - Shu R as follows: the will in conformity with the truth; Let every attainment in morality be firmly respected; Let perfect virtue be accorded with; Let relaxation and enjoyment be found in the fine arts. This not only accurately summarizes the art practice, but also prioritizes each element of the art creation. That is to say, the art creation firstly decided by the spirit, which is the objectification of metaphysical spirit. Truth here can be interpreted as objective law or eternal Spirit Entity. Only when we get a deep insight into the Truth, can we realize the voluntary compliance with the ethics and social constraints derived from the perfect virtue, and finally reach the free realm and the highest level of the art creation: relaxation and enjoyment be found in the fine arts, and reach a sentimental sublimated state of the mind - to create artworks in an ideal condition of forgetting all with a completely freedom aesthetic mentality. However, what's the Truth for art practice? It's a rather important theoretical proposition. Combining with the contextual history of the art culture development, the art theory, as the general sum-up for the art creation and the appreciation rules, is one of the core elements of the art and the design practice. However, art theory itself is not a simple concept but a theory system with a very large structure. Its theoretical value is the core to correctly understand the development of art theory and the relationship between the art theory and the design practice. a wide sense of the art theory, it includes art history, art theory and art criticism; in a narrow sense of the word, it's an individual concept like the art history and art criticism, mainly exploring the basic theoretical problems such as art creation, the basic appreciation rules, art development, anthropology of art, art appreciation, psychological mechanism of the art creation and appreciation, art acceptance, and more. this paper, the art theory refers to the concept in a wide sense. As a theory system of the art field, it's necessary for the students majored in the art and design to have an full grasp of the contextual history of the art's birth and development, and to understand the internal driving force of the art's historical evolution. The levels of the understanding of the art theory will affect the spiritual trend and cultural purport of the art and design practice, and are related to art taste and cultural spirit of the design works. Therefore, as the specific embodiment for the metaphysical art spirit, the art theory plays an important role in the art and design teaching. As a practitioner of the design teaching, we should always adopt the teaching principle to deeply understand that the art theory is the important carrier of our spiritual civilization, to better instruct our teaching practices and to make the art theory combined with the art and design practice. If we review the relationship between the theory and the art design practice from a historical view, we can easily find that, the Chinese thinkers had been looking into this theoretical proposition for a long time and had taken numerous constructive theory explorations and trials. This has a great impact on the future trend of the Chinese art aesthetics. There are many examples of the art aesthetic viewpoint affecting the trend of the design style in Analects. For example, the Confucius said, hate the manner in which purple takes away the luster of vermilion. I hate the way in which the songs of Zheng confound the music of the Ya. I hate those who with their sharp mouths overthrow kingdoms and families, based on the moral ration and social ideals of subduing one's desire and returning to the Truth. It takes Confucianism as the principle and clearly demonstrates the Confucian viewpoints and the culture philosophy of LiYue. This not only deeply affected the aesthetic ideal of color ideal at that time, but also enriched the spiritual significance of Chinese design philosophy and extended the cultural vision of the traditional design symbols. We can take another example from the Analects: In the last month of spring, with the dress of the season, along with five or six young men, enjoy the breeze and the rain in altars, and return home with singing. The Confucius said that I give my approval to them. It demonstrated the extremely great cultural idea of the Confucian aesthetics and the aesthetic dimensions of the morality and accomplishment. All of these added fuel to the flames of the LiYue Culture in the Chinese classical aesthetics and the design. As for the German classical aesthetics, in the book of Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of Man , Schiller advanced many brand-new theoretical propositions. These propositions played a theoretical enlightenment role in the process for the Western art to transform from luxury style of the Rococo era to the bourgeois art