Thirty years ago (1977), Thomas Metzger published a book that became well known in Sinological circles: Escape from Predicament: Neo-Confucianism and China's Evolving Political Culture. In this book, Metzger discusses a serious problem Chinese scholars were confronted with at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century: the modernization of China without giving up 2000 years of culturally valuable Confucian teachings. From the 1920s on, Confucian thought was replaced by Marxist ideology and, with the beginning of the Peoples' Republic in 1949, the latter was firmly established as the new order of discourse. Metzger argues persuasively, however, in spite of the new leftist ideology that poured into China after the May Fourth Movement of 1919, that Confucianism was not relegated to the museum of History of Philosophy in China as Joseph Levenson (in his Confucian China and its Modern Fate, 1958) had predicted. Instead, Confucian thought — as an integral part of the Chinese cultural psyche — survived and remained influential, though not visible, in shaping modern China. Even radicals of that time, such as Mao Tse-tung, although they attempted to give China a completely new ideological order, were formed by their cultural tradition in such a way that it also influenced their political action.1
The aforementioned historical example is significant for our theme. It concerns the question of persistence of culture in the face of cultural encounters — both of the hostile kind, such as the first clash of civilizations between China and the West in the nineteenth century (after the Opium Wars), as well as of the latest and somewhat more amicable sort, the process of mingling and interpenetration of cultures called globalization.2 Hence, the significance of culture and cultural identity in the age of globalization remains an issue to be addressed.
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Notes and References
For this phenomenon, see also Lin Yü-sheng, The Crisis of Chinese Consciousness. Radical Antitraditionalism in the May Fourth Era, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979
This is, however, only one side of globalization. As is well known, there is a dialectics of globalization at work bringing forth equally strong forces of localization such as the rising fundamentalism in many corners of the world
Michael Walzer, Thick and Thin. Moral Argument at Home and Abroad, Notre Dame, London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994, p. 8
See Li Zehou's overview on traditional Chinese aesthetics in his popular book The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995
For a detailed discussion of Chinese aesthetics and literary theory, see Karl-Heinz Pohl, Ästhetik und Literaturtheorie in China — Von der Tradition bis zur Moderne, Munich: Saur, 2006
See Maureen Robertson, “ ‘ …To Convey What is Precious’: Ssu-k'ung T'u's Poetics and the Erh-shih-ssu Shih-p'in,” in: Susan Bush and Christian Murck (eds.), Theories of the Arts in China, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 3–26
Huang Yue, “Ershisi huapin,” in: Zhongguo gudai meishu congshu, Peking, 1993, Vol. 4, p. 23; Günther Debon, Grundbegriffe der chinesischen Schrifttheorie und ihre Verbindung zu Dichtung und Malerei, Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1978, p. 75
Traditionally, the Chinese knew three “distances” (yuan) which can be likened to the European notion of perspective. Guo Xi (ca. 1020–1090) discusses them in his treatise “The Great Message of Forest and Streams” (Linquan gaozhi), in Lin Yutang's translation: “Looking up from below is called the ‘high perspective’ (gaoyuan); looking from the rim at the interior of mountains is called ‘deep perspective’ (shenyuan); looking toward the distance is called ‘level perspective’ (pingyuan).” Lin Yutang, The Chinese Theory of Art, New York: Putnam's, 1967, p. 79
Lin Yutang, The Chinese Theory of Art, New York: Putnam's, 1967, p. 34
Shitao (Daoji), Huayulu, Ch. 3, translated by Lin Yutang, p. 142. Lin Yutang translates fa as “method.”
Richard John Lynn, “Orthodoxy and Enlightenment: Wang Shih-chen's Theory of Poetry and Its Antecedents,” in: William Th. DeBary (ed.), The Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism, New York: Columbia University Press, 1975, pp. 217–269
Scholars had to be familiar with calligraphy and composing poetry; when they painted, they did so as amateurs and for pleasure (not for money), in contrast to professional painters
Max Loehr, “Art-Historical Art: One Aspect of Ch'ing Painting,” Oriental Art New series 16 (Spring 1970), pp. 35–37
Li Zehou and Liu Gangji, Zhongguo meixueshi (History of Chinese Aesthetics), I, Beijing: Xinhua, 1984, p. 33
Liu Gangji, “Verbreitung und Einfluss der deutschen Ästhetik in China,” in: K.-H. Pohl (ed.), Trierer Beiträge. Aus Forschung und Lehre an der Universität Trier, July 1996 (Sonderheft 10), pp. 8–13
Particularly influential was Liang Shuming and his book Dong xi wenhua ji qi zhexue (Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies), Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1922
Adele Rickett, Wang Kuo-wei's Jen-chien Tz'u-hua — A Study in Chinese Literary Criticism, Hongkong: Hong Kong University Press, 1977, p. 23, and Hermann Kogelschatz, Wang Kuo-wei und Schopenhauer: Eine philosophische Begegnung — Wandlung des Selbstverständnisses der chinesischen Literatur unter dem Einfluß der klassischen deutschen Ästhetik, Wiesbaden: Steiner 1986, p. 245 ff
Liu Gangji, “Verbreitung und Einfluss der deutschen Ästhetic in China,” in: K.-H. Pohl (ed.), Trierer Beiträge. Aus Forschung und Lehre an der Universität Trier, July 1996 (Sonderheft 10), pp. 8–13
Like many terms from Western thought, aesthetics as “study of beauty” was first coined in Japan and from there introduced to China
Karl-Heinz Pohl, “Chinese Aesthetics and Kant,” in: Mazhar Hussain and Robert Wilkinson (eds.), The Pursuit of Comparative Aesthetics — An Interface Between the East and the West, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006, pp. 127–136
Liu Gangji, pp. 15–19. Representative is a collection of essays entitled Yi jing (Realm of Art), Peking: Peking University Press, 1987. The notion of yijing, (lit.: “realm [jing] of ideas [yi]”), in fact, goes further back in history than Wang Guowei (the yi in the title of Zong Baihua's book has a different meaning: “art”). For Chinese aesthetics of the modern period, see also Zhu Liyuan and Gene Blocker (eds.): Contemporary Chinese Aesthetics, New York: Lang, 1995
Gao Jianping, “The ‘Aesthetics Craze’ in China — Its Cause and Significance,” Dialogue and Universalism, Vol. 3/4, 1997, pp. 27–35
Gao Jianping, “The ‘Aesthetics Craze’ in China — Its Cause and Significance,” Dialogue and Universalism, Vol. 3/4, 1997, p. 30
Xu Fuguan, Zhongguo yishu jingshen, Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1966
Liu Gangji, pp. 19–32. Particularly influential was Li Zehou's book on Kant: Pipan zhexue de pipan: Kangde shuping (The Critique of Critical Philosophy: A Study of Kant), Peking: Renmin chubanshe, 1979. See also Jane Cauvel, “The Transformative Power of Art: Li Zehou's Aesthetic Theory,” Philosophy East and West, Vol. 49, No. 2 (April 1999), pp. 150–173; Woei Lien Chong, “Combining Marx with Kant: The Philosophical Anthropology of Li Zehou,” Philosophy East and West, Vol. 49, No. 2 (April 1999), pp. 120–149
See footnote 4
See Jing Wang, High Culture Fever: Politics, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Deng's China, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996
Gao Jianping, “Chinese Aesthetics in the Past Two Decades,” in: Wang Keping and Gao Jianping (eds.), Some Facts of Chinese Aesthetics, Peking: Chinese Society for Aesthetics, 2002, p. 41
Min Lin, The Search for Modernity. Chinese Intellectuals and Cultural Discourse in the Post-Mao Era, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999, p. 185. There has been a heated debate in (and outside of) China as to the relevance of postmodernism in China. For an overview see, for example, Arif Dirlik and Xudong Zhang (eds.), Postmodernism & China, Durham: Duke University Press, 2000, as well as Min Lin's book
Zhang Kuan, “The Predicament of Postcolonial Criticism in China,” in: Karl-Heinz Pohl (ed.), Chinese Thought in a Global Context. A Dialogue Between Chinese and Western Philosophical Approaches, Leiden: Brill, 1999, p. 61
Zhang Fa, Zhang Yiwu, Wang Yichuan, “Cong ‘xiandaixing’ dao ‘zhonghuaxing’ — xin zhi- shi de tanxun” (From ‘Modernity’ to ‘Chineseness’ — An Inquiry into New Knowledge), Wenyi zhengming 2/1994, pp. 10–20
The CCP was founded in 1921, i.e., during and through the intellectual forces of the May Fourth Movement
Edward Said, The Word, the Text, and the Critic, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983, p. 227. As a well-known historic example of a “travelling theory,” Marxism lost its internationalistic orientation when adopted by Mao Tse-tung; instead it served a nationalistic purpose in China, intending of ridding China of its domination by Western (and Japanese) colonial powers
The internal contradictions in the thought of Foucault and Said have been mentioned time and again by others. Particularly ironic is Foucault “flirtation” with Maoism during the Cultural Revolution; see Gao Jian, “Wenge sichao yu ‘houxue’ ” (The Ideological Trend of the Cultural Revolution and “Postist Studies”), Ershiyi shiji (Twenty-first Century), 35 (June 1996), p. 116; see also Zhang Longxi, Mighty Opposites. From Dichotomies to Differences in the Comparative Study of China, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998, p. 138, 207. As to Said, see Zhang Kuan, p. 64
Gao Jianping, “Chinese Aesthetics in the Context of Globalization,” International Yearbook of Aesthetics, Vol. 8 (2004), p. 65
Gao Jianping, “Chinese Aesthetics in the Context of Globalization,” International Yearbook of Aesthetics, Vol. 8 (2004)
His book The path of Beauty (Mei de licheng; cf. aforementioned footnote 4) was also translated into German: Karl-Heinz Pohl and Gudrun Wacker (ed.), Der Weg des Schönen — Wesen und Geschichte der chinesischen Kultur und Ästhetik, Freiburg: Herder, 1992; but, with only one single edition, it has long been out of print. His work, does, however play a role in Sinological circles. For example, in 1999, the journal Philosophy East and West devoted a whole issue on Li Zehou's notion of subjectivity. See the articles by Cauvel and Chong mentioned earlier in footnote 25 as well as Timothy Cheek's introduction as guest lecturer of this special issue: “Introduction: A Cross-Cultural Conversation on Li Zehou's Ideas on Subjectivity and Aesthetics in Modern Chinese Thought,” Philosophy East and West, Vol. 49, No. 2 (April 1999), pp. 113–19, and Li Zehou's response to the article: “Subjectivity and ‘Subjectality’: A Response,” pp. 174–183
Gao Jianping, “Chinese Aesthetics in the Past Two Decades,” p. 43
Gao Jianping, “Chinese Aesthetics in the Context of Globalization,” p. 71
http://www.chinesecontemporary.com/art.php?image_id=427 (May 2, 2007). On Wei Dong's art, see also Henry Steiner's introduction to “CrossEyes. Three Painters and a Designer,” Ex/Change (Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies, City University of Hong Kong), No. 12 (February 2005), pp. 14–15
According to an interview, Dürer (next to Delacroix and Cezanne) belongs to Wei Dong's models of the past. See http://www.jerseycitymuseum.org/exhibitions/virtualCatalogue/dong. html. Regarding Dürer's insignia, see http://www.schaepp.de/duerer/in.html
See http://www.chinalink.be/MCAF2.htm. The head of the second “attendant” from left — the only one without braids — is strikingly similar to that of Mao Tse-tung
An example for aesthetics of fullness (in contrast to the aesthetics of emptiness, prevalent in much of Southern Song painting of the Ma-Xia-School) is the famous hand scroll: “Along the River on the Qingming Festival” (Qingming shanghe tu) by Zhang Zeduan (1085–1145). The ca. 10-m long scroll (now in the Palace Museum of Peking) depicts life in its fullness in the Song capital Bianjing (now Kaifeng)
The predominance of installations over paintings also illustrates this tendency
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Pohl, KH. (2009). Identity and Hybridity – Chinese Culture and Aesthetics in the Age of Globalization. In: Van den Braembussche, A., Kimmerle, H., Note, N. (eds) Intercultural Aesthetics. Einstein Meets Margritte: An Interdisciplinary Reflection on Science, Nature, Art, Human Action and Society, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5780-9_7
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