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Analysis Of Aesthetic Experience: The Intuition Of Form 27

Chapter 1 Analysis of Aesthetic Experience: the Intuition of Form

Modern aesthetics attaches great importance to, above all, the following prob- lems: “What is the nature of our psychological processes during aesthetic expe- riences?”, and, as most people like to ask, “What sort of things can be called beautiful?”. The second problem is much the more important of the two, but, before we can resolve it, we must begin by tackling the first. Since the things we call beautiful are those that arouse aesthetic experiences, we must initially es- tablish what is meant by “aesthetic experience”, and then it will be possible to determine what are the things that are able to arouse it. What is aesthetic experience? It is the psychological activity that occurs when we respond to the beauty of nature and of art. When the wind, for ex- ample, is soft and the sun pleasant, and everything in view appears suffused with a lovely red and a delicate green. Then your heart expands and your spirit relaxes faced with so wonderful a spectacle. You then forget everything, and you find that a flower smiles at the sun, and, then, you notice that the song of a bird is particularly limpid and clear. It is as if your spirit is slowly waking up. Or, again, when the sun has not already set, you sit down on a cliff overlooking the sea, and gaze at the reflection of the sunset in the golden colours of the surface of the sea as it is rippled by a gentle breeze. It seems then that even the green hills nearby, with their undulations, are enjoying the beautiful evening with you. A breath of cool wind stirs, and you are roused suddenly from that dream world. “If one looks at everything with a calm spirit, then all would be content; the joy of the four seasons is like that of man”.1 It is enough that you have the leisure, and that the sound of the bamboo, the rustle of the wind in the pine- trees, the hum of insects, the song of the birds, the boundless wilderness, the fugitive thunder and lightning, the wind and the rain, even a crumbling wall or dilapidated house, all what were originally empty things, are able to become objects that delight the eye and the heart. Not only nature but also the works of man can give you the same pleasure. Sometimes, after a day of rushing around about your business, you discover you have a moment of free time. So

1 Wan wu jing guan jie zi de, si shi jia xing yu ren tong 万物静观皆自得，四时佳兴与认同. The quotation is from the Song Dynasty 宋代 (960-1279) philosopher Cheng Hao 程颢 (1032- 1085), ri ou cheng er shou 琴日偶成二首, in Er-Cheng quanshu 二程全书, juan 3, Mingdao wen, 3.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004392267_005 28 Chapter 1 − the Psychology of Art and Literature you settle down, perhaps to an art book on some famous painter, or you may choose a book of poetry, or a novel or play, and, in the wink of an eye, you are following the author into another world. Accompanying Wang 王维 [701- 761], you are able to fully savour these lines: “If you enjoy for too long the song of the birds, they fly away; if you stand too long looking at flowers, they fall in great numbers”.2 When Wu Song 武松 sets out to kill a tiger, you are worried about what will happen. When he succeeds, you share his joy.3 When Qin Wuy- ang 秦舞阳 turns pale on seeing Qin Shihuang 秦始皇, you suffer with Jing Ke 荆轲; and when Qin Shihuang runs around the pillar, you lose all hope, just like Jing Ke.4 The joys and sorrows, the successes and failures of humanity are like a bustling theatre. These conditions, both those caused by nature, as well as those that spring from art, are, in all their variety, the stuff of “aesthetic experience” [meigan jingyan 美感经验]. The big task of aesthetics is really the analysis of this expe- rience. If we wish to understand the conclusions modern aesthetics have reached in connection with this analysis, we have to trace the origins of aesthetics in its relationship with philosophy. Aesthetics derives from a branch of philosophy. Since Hume and Kant, mod- ern philosophy has concerned itself mainly with the study of knowledge. The basic problem here is “How do we come to know the existence of things in the universe?” This problem has induced modern philosophers to pay particular

2 Xing lan ti niao san, zuo jiu luo hua duo 兴阑啼鸟散， 坐久落花多. These lines are taken from the poem in five-character form Cong Qi wang guo Yang shi bieye ying jiao (in Jinti shi sanshijiu shou). San is a variant for huan. Wang Wei (699-759) is, as is known, one of the great- est poets of the Tang Dynasty. 3 The reference is to the famous story of tiger-killing carried out by the Itinerant Wu Song, contained in Chapter XXIII of the novel of the Ming period (1368-1644), Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan 水浒传). 4 This is a case of a dramatic episode, recounted by 司马迁 (145-86 bc) in the Shiji 史记 86 (Cike liezhuan 刺客列传) about the attempt on the life of King Zheng 王政, the later First Emperor of Qin (Qin Shihuang), in 227, by Jing Ke and Qin Wuyang, who had been sent by Prince Dan of the State of . Jing Ke and Qin Wuyang managed to enter into the presence of King Zheng, carrying as “gifts” the head of one of Qin’s generals who had defected and taken refuge in Yan, and a map of the State of Yan. A poisoned dagger was rolled up inside the map. The two would-be assassins “came to the steps of the throne, Qin Wuyang changed colour and shook with fear… The courtiers wondered at this. Jing Ke looked at him with a smile and went forward to excuse him saying: “He is a common man of the northern barbarians, and he has never seen the Son of Heaven. Therefore he shakes with fear””. Jing Ke therefore succeeded in opening the maps and grasping the poisoned sword, but King Zheng dodged the thrust and ran around a pillar. The passage of the Shiji which tells of this episode is translated into English by Derk Bodde in Statesman, Patriot and General in Ancient China, Three Shih Chi Biographies of the Ch’in Dynasty (225-206 bc), Peiping-New Haven, 1940, pp. 23-38.