Envisioning the World Within or Without Limits
On Representation and Creativity in the Aesthetics of 17th Century China
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19233756 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Polina Lukicheva (University of Zurich, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 74 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1081-1101 |
| Publication date | 2020-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Asiatische Studien – Études Asiatiques (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0004-4717 • E-ISSN: 2235-5871 |
| Publisher | De Gruyter (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/asia-2021-0001 |
| OpenAlex | W3153441061 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 10 |
This essay examines a number of statements on painting and visual perception by Chinese literati artists of the late Ming – early Qing periods. It argues that the approaches to pictorial representation and creativity entailed in these statements reveal a considerable impact of Buddhist theories of consciousness. In the theories analyzed, pictorial representation is discussed in terms of ways and modes of how the mind relates to the world. As will be demonstrated, the function of expressing cognitive organization in representation is given more prominence than the function of rendering an external reality. The view of pictorial representation as being essentially what the mind produces in its relation to the world provides a basis for the assumption of a fundamental affinity between the creation of an image and the process how phenomenal reality unfolds by virtue of cognitive operations. This assumption seems to broadly underpin the painting theories discussed. And it is this assumption that provides a clue how and why the literati artists adopt Buddhist theories of cognition to the understanding of art. In the last section of the essay, we turn to the sources which cast still another perspective on artistic practice, namely a practice which captures a single moment of pure direct perception
Aesthetics · Art · Buddhism · Cognition · Cognitive science · Consciousness · Creativity · Epistemology · Function (biology) · Painting · Perception · Politics · Rendering (computer graphics) · Representation (politics) · Sociology · Virtue · Visual arts · Artificial Intelligence · Chinese history and philosophy · Computer Science · History · Law · Olfactory and Sensory Function Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |