Essay on "Transforming Aesthetics into Life, Aestheticizing Life"
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Paper keywords: daily life, origin, evolution, prospect
Paper abstract With the continuous advancement of mass media and technology, from about 20 At the beginning of the 20th century, especially after the 1980s, a new aesthetic phenomenon emerged. Interests became increasingly diversified, and the boundaries between aesthetics and life became increasingly blurred. It can be said that throughout the world, there is a trend of "life-oriented aesthetics and aestheticized life". The origin, evolution and development prospects of this aesthetic phenomenon are questions that aesthetics must answer.
1. The origin of aesthetics and daily life
Aesthetics is a comprehensive human science about aesthetic phenomena. For more than two thousand years since the emergence of aesthetic thought, aesthetics and life have always had a deep connection. Scholars believe that the development of culture generally goes through three periods: the oral culture period, the printed culture period and the cultural period. In different cultural periods, aesthetics and life have gone from unity to separation, and finally to integration again.
In the early days of oral culture and handwriting culture, aesthetics and life were once chaotic and inseparable. At that time, aesthetics was a part of life. For example, bows and arrows in the fishing and hunting era were both tools and beloved aesthetic items (if there was a so-called "aesthetic" concept at that time). The boundary between aesthetics and life is blurred, or in other words, aesthetics had not yet been born from life, and people's aesthetic consciousness was still sprouting in the womb of life practice.
For example, ancient Chinese jade bis and various kinds of beautiful jade worn by people were not only aesthetic works of art at that time, but also sacrificial supplies and symbols of certain concepts. They had practical significance in primitive religions, religious activities. Even at that time, it was still difficult to distinguish aesthetics from life so clearly. Poetry, music, and dance were not the pure arts that people thought later. Even the Buddhist and grotto murals and statues from the Middle Ages (such as the Wei and Jin Dynasties), it is difficult to say how many people originally created them as "arts of art" with an aesthetic consciousness. The same is true in the West. Ancient Greek drama was also part of the Dionysian sacrificial ceremony.
In the later period of handwriting culture, paper appeared, and aesthetic consciousness gradually became "independent". At this time, aesthetics began to alienate from life. This is a major promotion for the independent development of aesthetic art, especially the arrival of the printing era, which provides the possibility for the independent development of aesthetics. At this time, it distanced itself from "life" in an "elite", "aristocratic" and even "sacred" manner, and aesthetics was enshrined on the top of the high Olympia Mountain. People believe that just because aesthetics is different from life, it is aesthetic art. Moreover, it seems that the further away from the lives of ordinary people and the more lofty it is, the better aesthetic art is.
Corresponding to the conditions and spiritual concepts at that time, aesthetic activities were considered to be creations higher than life. Aesthetic works of art are considered to be products that are beyond their kind and outstanding, and are holy fruits that transcend the ordinary. Because aesthetic art activities are the activities of the elite, the activities of superiors, and the elegant activities of elegant people, aesthetic art works are regarded as elegant, special, and noble things that are different from ordinary life. This isolates aesthetic artists from ordinary people and crowns artists with genius laurels. In short, this period distinguished aesthetics from life and emphasized the distance between aesthetics and life.
Starting from about the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, people’s aesthetic activities gradually changed. The initial signs started from the promotion of visual arts by art. When the audience enjoys the movie, it is like entering life. The emergence of movies heralds the beginning of aesthetic life. In particular, the arrival of the "electronic culture era" has further promoted people's aesthetic concepts towards the "new generation". In this era of changes in aesthetic concepts, aesthetics seems to have no boundaries, and even those vulgar "ready-made objects" that could not be associated with art in the past have become aesthetic works of art. When the Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, collected an ordinary washbasin that everyone has, as an art treasure for people to appreciate; when the American "bundle bonding" artist H. Hammond combined rags, acrylic People with traditional aesthetic concepts were stunned when resin, gypsum powder, wood, foam rubber and other miscellaneous things were bundled and glued together to create so-called "feminist art".
However, some theorists with forward-looking ideas have explained that those who regard various "ready-made objects" as works of art are actually engaged in a very serious business. They are actually expanding or recreating people's aesthetic concepts. The secret of converting ready-made objects into works of art lies in the aesthetic attitude. According to these theorists, any object, whether it is an artifact or a natural object, becomes an aesthetic object as long as an aesthetic attitude is adopted towards it. However, when everything can be art, art ceases to be art. Art disappears into life or becomes integrated with life.
When discussing contemporary art, the famous German writer Klaus Honnef pointed out: "In the Western world, not only people's general attitude towards contemporary art has undergone profound changes, but the art itself has also undergone dramatic changes. An important feature of this change is that aesthetic principles have been almost completely abandoned, with the result that artists no longer feel completely opposed to society."
In the past, aesthetics was an experience, but now. All experience must become aesthetic. In the past, only a few "elites" could do "art" and play "art", but now everyone is an artist and everyone can play "art". In postmodern society, it seems that thousands of subjects suddenly speak, and they all demand equality. Art has become a process in which everyone participates. Land art, conceptual art, advertising art, pop art, karaoke, various mass art evenings... the audience and the actors often become one. At this time, the boundaries between creation and appreciation disappear, the boundaries between authors and readers disappear, the boundaries between aesthetics and life disappear, and the distance between aesthetic activities and real activities disappears. Therefore, life is aesthetics, aesthetics is life, and aesthetics and life are once again integrated.
2. The reasons and basis for the change of aesthetic concepts
The reasons for the development and evolution of aesthetics are extremely complex, but there are also rules to be found. The development of aesthetics is not isolated, but is closely related to many aspects of social life. Therefore, its motivations are both personal and social.
First of all, the impact. Engels once said: "People must first eat, drink, live, and wear before they can engage in politics, science, art, religion, etc."
This is a point out from the height of materialism that material life needs and spiritual needs relationship with life needs (including aesthetic needs). Before material living standards are highly prosperous, people will naturally not realize the importance of aesthetic activities. However, after the material living standards have become highly prosperous, the importance of aesthetic activities has undoubtedly been put on the agenda. In the past, it was for the sake of "clothes on your body and food in your mouth", but now it is to beautify yourself and your life, and to liberate yourself to a greater extent through the "aestheticization of life". At this time, everyone begins to discover and cultivate themselves from an aesthetic perspective. The result is that life becomes an art, or is elevated to art.
Secondly, the establishment of the market economy and the intensification of social politicization have played a catalytic role in the popularization and democratization of aesthetics. In terms of aspects, the disintegration of essentialism, the emphasis on the diversity of phenomena, and the establishment of pluralistic thinking also have an impact on the transformation of aesthetic concepts. In particular, postmodern philosophy's deconstruction of the subject provides a theoretical premise for the democratization and civilianization of aesthetic concepts and the closeness and identity of aesthetics and life. In addition, the self-dissolution of art and the corresponding rise of natural beauty and social beauty have also questioned the traditional aesthetic concept of using "art" to resist life, which has obvious limitations.
It is not difficult to imagine that since "art" itself has dissolved itself, it becomes impossible for elite aesthetics to reject popular aesthetics, and the identity of aesthetics and life becomes logical. From a social perspective, the beauty of life has always existed, but in the classical aesthetics period, the division of labor between material production and spiritual production resulted in the separation of material enjoyment and spiritual enjoyment, and beauty was strengthened from an artistic perspective. In contemporary society, due to the increasing integration of material production and spiritual production, it is inevitable that the beauty of life will emerge from the hidden. From the perspective of the labor process, in the classical aesthetics period, people tended to pay more attention to spiritual products and despise material products. The labor process was also divided into two parts: "brain use" and "hands-on" parts; in contemporary society, material production and spiritual production are gradually integrated. , also led to the "hands-on" charm.
Finally, the beauty of technology is discovered. From a technical perspective, with the emergence of broadcasting, the Internet, etc., spatial distance and the distinction between center and periphery almost no longer exist. Bernheim said: "The most profound aesthetic significance is that it forces us to doubt the classical aesthetic view of art and reality." People have noticed that daily life is increasingly showing identity with artistic conditions. In the era of classical aesthetics, because text was the basic medium, the author and the object, and the reader and the work needed to be connected through the transformation of text, and they needed to rely on thinking, understanding, and imagination to complete creation or acceptance. Aesthetics can be separated from daily life.
In this era, due to the role of electronic media, the relationship between the author and the object, and the reader and the work has changed from indirect to direct. Sometimes they merge directly into one, blending into one. Readers don't need to think, understand, or imagine. They just feel, watch, and listen directly. Due to the existence of electronic media, the boundaries between reality and unreality are becoming increasingly blurred. On the Internet, reality and images are also in a new relationship. When you go to a tailor shop to make clothes, you can first make the clothes realistically on the screen. Customers can also participate in the design. This kind of non-realistic virtual image can be made without any distortion. transformed into reality. In this way, the classical situation of understanding or grasping reality from the outside is cancelled, and artistic activities themselves are activities of reality itself. As a result, art is no longer as sacred, mysterious, eternal and unique as it was in the classical era. Production, mass reproduction, and Walkman... brought creation and appreciation to a new realm. In this way, aesthetic experience is connected with life experience, and the distance from life is eliminated.
The development prospects of the three aesthetics life-oriented
"Aesthetics life-oriented, life aestheticized", as a prominent phenomenon with global and contemporary characteristics, undoubtedly reflects the development of aesthetics The general rules and connotations of the times. However, due to the diversity and complexity of aesthetic consciousness in daily life, it is difficult to make accurate value judgments on it. Let’s talk about our preliminary views from the positive and negative aspects of value orientation.
First of all, from a positive perspective, aesthetics is rooted in daily life and is of great significance to the reconstruction of human nature such as expressing personality, emancipating the mind, and strengthening. It is conducive to people's pursuit of individual liberation, self-expression, enriching and satisfying people's spiritual and cultural needs. "Aesthetic life-oriented" updates the original content of daily life, completely breaks the closed nature of traditional Chinese lifestyle, stimulates the public's strong desire to participate and experience, broadens people's living space, and enriches people's spare time life . Its popularity and popularity guide people to establish scientific concepts and attitudes towards life, and promote their development in a healthy and civilized direction.
In addition, the "life-oriented aesthetics" also attracts more and more people to devote themselves to culture, which greatly improves the cultural production capacity, the efficiency of cultural production means and the quantity and level of cultural products, thus It has brought elegant aesthetics into ordinary people's homes in large numbers, and has gained more and more markets and audiences. Because the "aesthetic life-oriented" interpretation of secular myths allows the public to implicitly liberate the unconscious impulses in their hearts, it enables people to discover the small people and the big world in light humor, making ordinary people feel that their lives are also full of surprises and sunshine, and breaking the elite The monopoly of aesthetic consciousness on aesthetic consciousness has eliminated aesthetic privileges, prompting both mainstream aesthetics and elite aesthetics to find and determine their own positions in their respective realistic practices.
Secondly, from a negative perspective, relying on the operation of the market mechanism to produce, manufacture, circulate and consume aesthetic products and realize commercial profits for producers, this commodity feature has changed the traditional aesthetic culture. The mode of communication gives aesthetic activities a layer of clothing. The authority, sublimity and seriousness of traditional aesthetics are gradually replaced by vulgarity, entertainment and consumption. Its aesthetic content is often flat and without depth. In order to cater to public tastes, some people regard mediocre things as new trends, while profound and sublime things appear outdated, leading to a "kitsch" tendency.
There is still a lot of cultural garbage such as pornography, violence, and vulgar slogans in foreign aesthetic culture, which seriously affects people’s lives, especially for the young generation who lack judgment. influence. In addition, images, etc. display meaning through pictures, and the audience is completely passive, with limited possibility of thinking, making the audience more likely to be deceived by superficial verisimilitude. The reality also makes us unable to deny that due to too much focus on the happiness and ease of life and the lack of ideals for modernization, the world, and the future, beauty has become an embellishment, a decoration, an advertisement, and a lover of the public. In this way, beauty has been Pollution, this is something we should always be wary of.
In short, the aesthetic cultural phenomenon of "aesthetics transformed into life, life aestheticized" is still in the process of dynamic development and change, and its strengths and weaknesses coexist. But what is certain is that its original intention and purpose are positive. The purpose of aesthetics is to entertain people with truth, goodness, and beauty. As for it involving actual utilitarian relationships, this is really not its original intention. When the simulation ability of aesthetic art is surpassed by modern technology, the cognitive function of aesthetic art can only be the dissolution of the traditional aesthetic art form that was previously regulated and monopolized by a few people. Transformation has transformed the traditional aesthetic art form that was monopolized by a few people and served the interests of capital into a new aesthetic art.
In the context of today’s world integration, the development of a country’s aesthetic consciousness will inevitably be affected by other countries. Therefore, we must keep pace with the times, keep a clear mind, and critically absorb aesthetic consciousness that is beneficial to the development of our country's aesthetics. At the same time, we should also integrate into this global aesthetic ideology of collective creation and enjoyment, focusing on integration and creation, combining elite aesthetics and mass aesthetics, and under the premise of the coexistence of both. **Common development and continuous innovation.
References:
[1] Klaus Honnef: "Contemporary Art", Jiangsu Publishing House, 1995.
[2] "Selected Works of Marx and Engels" (Volume 3), People's Publishing House, 1972.
[3] Toynbee et al., translated by Wang Zhihe: "The Future of Art", Peking University Press, 1991. ;