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Aesthetics & Philosophy About Chinese Calligraphy - Understanding for Beauty

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“In my own development as an artist, it has been made evident to me, time and time again, that success comes from the careful observance of details.” ~ Ferruccio B. Busoni

The first step to practice art will be “observing” and "understanding" rather than mere practice or creation by our physical hands. Some artists used to say that one has "to train one's eyes."  Before we start a piece for any forms of art, we must mentally “visualize” our design. This is very important in the Lin Mo ( 臨摹 ) process of Chinese calligraphy. To be a Chinese calligraphy cognoscente both in skills and insight, one has to train his inner eyes to see the underlying principles guiding an ancient master’s design. He has to go beyond the extrinsic beauty as shown in the writing to the profound beauty embodied within. Then he may realize that the ancient Chinese calligraphy masters embodied cosmic harmony of structures and shapes within their masterpieces.

Physicists from Einstein on have been awed by the profound fact that, as we examine Nature on deeper and deeper levels, She appears even more beautiful. Why should that be? We could have found ourselves living in an intrinsically ugly universe, a “chaotic world," as Einstein put it, "in no way graspable through thinking."

Likewise when we look into the ancient Chinese calligraphy masterpieces on deeper and deeper levels, we will find the beauty of the calligraphers’ souls speaking in their own works. How did they do that? They simply observed and followed their inner heart. The more we dive in, the more we feel that the ancient wise men exceeded us in mental, physical, and spiritual levels. We are just living in a “chaotic world of deteriorating Chinese calligraphy bombarded with fame, shortsightedness, self-proclaim, politics, and lack of skills and consciousness.”

The essence of art is in the "eyes of the beholder" rather than permanently fixed, quantitatively and qualitatively, within the aesthetic object.  Art is a special human behavior towards aspects of one's world that are determined to best give one the experience of feelings and meaning of great intensity, relative to other objects or aspects of our environment. The qualities of these "aspects" of our world that conjure up the feelings and perception of art include the masterful ability of the artist to include, in his aesthetic stimuli formation for others, the qualities of "comprehensiveness" (the degree to which the work creates the feeling of integration and unity in the viewer), "consistency" (elements of the work form a compatible whole), "intensity" (the creation of emotional intensity through both the form and content of the work), and "originality" (the value of novelty through creativity which leads to new aesthetic experience for the beholder).

The artist facilitates in his creation aesthetic perception of the viewer. The viewer must take responsibility for the carryover of aesthetic appreciation, from that of the artist that created the stimulus, to his own feelings and internalized relationship with the art object.



Last Updated on Thursday, 31 March 2011 13:33