For so long a time it has been getting increasingly formidable, if not possible, to define art in general ever since the advent of the so-called found art or ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol, among other avant-garde or pop artists. But this does not have too much constraint over some philosophers who have made persistent attempts in this regard. What have turned out to be considerably influential are the artworld framed by Arthur C. Danto and the institutional theory proposed by George Dickie. Nevertheless, Li Zehou, a contemporary Chinese philosopher, argues that the two theories aforementioned are not self-sufficient and convincing enough. For they could not well explicate the distinction between art and non-art, not to speak of the difference between artworks as artifacts and those as aesthetic objects. He then continues to treat art as sedimentation from an anthropo-historical viewpoint peculiar of his practical aesthetics (shijian meixue). His argument is underlined by a transcultural approach that is deployed to expand the intellectual horizon and bear the theoretical fruit.

Art as Sedimentation

As is formulated in the Four Essays on Aesthetics (Meixue si jiang), art is defined as the sum total of various artworks relating to human aesthetic psychology. Artworks manifest themselves in varied media and exist as aesthetic objects. They are so considered because they can directly incite an aesthetic contemplation or experience in spite of whether they are produced for appreciative, practical or spiritual purposes. It is often the case with music as is felt by someone with a 搈usical ear? Moreover, art by nature is the product of history based on human practice and symbolic creation. It involves a long process of sedimentation in the stratification of its form, image and significance. Accordingly, a work of art is reckoned to consist in at least three interrelated stratifications and sedimentations, namely, the stratification of form along with primitive sedimentation, the stratification of image along with artistic sedimentation, and the stratification of significance along with life sedimentation.

The stratification of form along with primitive sedimentation undertook a gradual progression of material and social labor. Its early stage emerged with the employment of certain aspects of natural order and form by primitives. Later on it underwent the evolution of objective lawfulness and subjective purposiveness into a new unity. This unity conduced to the crudest forms of beauty and aesthetic experience. In other words, through labor humans endowed the material world with such forms that originally discovered in nature itself, but grew independent through the application of humans?abstract faculty. Eventually it is through social labor and material production that humans created the forms of beauty. As humans lived with subjective emotions and sensations, they became more and more sensitive to the visible orders and apparent shapes, and also capable of detecting an isomorphic correspondence with the external objects at the time when they commenced to utilize the laws of nature to produce the objects of beauty for either decoration or enjoyment. The awareness of the isomorphic correspondence was by no means an inborn mentality or capacity, but an outcome of the human activities of making and using tools for social production. It was therefore imbued with sociality and humanity as well. As the awareness continued to evolve along with the human practice, there arose the dynamic structure of isomorphic correspondence that would be extended and enriched through successive and diverse social activities. As a consequence, when a person achieved certain goals in the process of such activities as part of reforming the objective world, the regularity and purposiveness of the process would be linked up with the human sensuous construction to arouse feelings of pleasure. Although aesthetic experience features vague understandings, imaginations and intentions, it is sensation that dominates in any case. All this could be regarded as the pre-historical mode of humans?spiritual world or the process of primitive sedimentation. [1]

The formal stratification of artworks commences from primitive sedimentation, but develops and  extends itself in at least two directions: one is the naturalization of humanity embodied not merely in such physical activities as Chinese qigong (breathing system for health condition and spiritual nourishment), taiji quan (a kind of martial art for body building and mind cultivation) and yangsheng shu (practical expertise for longevity), but also in the formal stratification of artworks, including qi (life force) and guqi (noble vitality). It takes considerable efforts to get the formal stratification of artworks to tally with the rhythm of the universe and thereby to form an isomorphic structure. That is why the key principle of garden designing in Chinese tradition emphasizes the value of naturalness, for it suggests that a fine garden appear 慳s if it were created by nature itself even though made by man?(sui you ren zuo, wan zi tian kai). In regard to the other direction, it refers to the Zeitgeist and sociality, say, the ever-changing objects, events, and relationships that embody the tendencies of different times and societies which would cause formal variations and aesthetic trends. Hence there are diversified styles or formal transformations in literary movements and different genres of art. Briefly, the formal stratification involves three forces as such: primitive sedimentation, naturalization of humanity, and social life underlined by ideology in religious, political, ethical and cultural scopes, etc. These forces are intermingling and interplaying in intricate patterns; and by so doing will they turn out to inspire a succession of impressive aesthetic objects. The joint endeavors of them constitute the root of art as the objective existence of the materialized substance of human mind and emotion. [2]

Subsequently, the stratification of image along with artistic sedimentation would have a person抯 emotion and desire as are humanized and expressed through symbols. These symbols, such as the Chinese taiji, the Christian cross, and the Buddhist mandala, constitute the subject matters, themes and even contents of mimetic arts in particular. In both China and the West, Li Zehou assumes, art originated from ancient witchcraft practices through its rituals, whereas aesthetic experience originated from human labor. As the rituals developed, they divided into three branches: the first branch recognized and reflected natural things, which gave rise to science; the second controlled and organized the masses into group activities, which gave rise to religions, political systems, and ethical norms; the third imitated the production and phenomena in real life to form lively images, demonstrating the formal aspect of witchcraft. This formal aspect is related to gestures, languages, costumes, and performances, leading to the making of art. For the key preoccupation in this process is the phenomenal imitation and simulation of life, and production in reality, thus bearing the fruit of various images. [3] The trinity of poetry, song and dance in China, for example, used to be artistic forms of primitive witchcraft activities. In later times they developed into an integral part of li (rites) in Chinese history, and served in antiquity as the earliest means of constituting human nature and enculturating human temperament. As they were performed over and over again during the magical services or ritual etiquettes with practical utility, they came up to function like fairy tales that are as much to children today as they were to people in ancient periods, molding their minds and cultivating their emotions and desires. This way of repetition nurtured a new sensuousness, which transcended the stratification of sensory forms and entered into the realm of mind relating to emotions and desires.

Progressively and eventually, the natural functions of psychology and the social functions of history would be combined and interwoven one with another, and then constitute the emotional stratification of images in artworks, which is far deeper than the sensuous stratification of form. This stratifying process of images tends not simply to enculturate human instincts and human nature, but also to interweave organically among desires and conceptions alike. As is detected in the psycho-analysis, animal instincts and emotional desires on the part of human beings involve the issue of the unconscious. It demonstrates itself in the stratification of image in complex and intricate relationships between the unconscious and the conscious in the act of either creation or appreciation. For example, figures in artworks that are similar but not identical to those in dreams are apt to transfigure, overlap and condense in various ways and shapes. This renders the illusory world in the stratification of images more diverse, obscure, extensive, indefinite and even unspeakable beyond logical reasoning and interpretation. Thus, the task of aesthetic experience is to explore the complex character, function, and pattern of this construction through the materialized but invented world of art. Incidentally, the 揹ianxing?(typical models) in the stratification of images are, just like the 揼oujia?(frames) in science, the generalized expressions of real life itself. Historically the process of image stratification goes along with change. It circulates from representation (imitation) to expression (abstraction), from expression to decoration, from decoration back to representation and expression. This can be seen in the gradual abstraction and symbolization of living animals into geometrical patterns as is shown in the different styles of paintings ranging from primitive to classical and modern. [4]

With respect of the stratification of significance along with life sedimentation, the significance that is suggested in the image gives rise to significant form. It is therefore inseparable from the sensuous forms and images of artworks. Yet, it transcends them in a manner that means more than the humanization of sense organs and the emotional desires in addition to the realization of such emotional desires in art illusions. It in fact humanizes the psychological condition of humans, and accounts for the endurance of artworks as it enables them to provide continuing satisfaction of aesthetic experience instead of momentary effect like fireworks. Saturated with such great significance, the artworks are appealing not merely to the pleasures of the ear and the eye (yue er yue mu), but to the pleasures of the heart and mind (yue xin yue yi) as well as those of lofty aspiration and moral integrity (yue zhi yue shen). As a rule the fine artworks thus created as emotional symbols are rich in and characteristic of significance and life sedimentation. From the viewpoint of philosophical aesthetics, they bear both endurance and eternality not merely due to the subtle significance and aesthetic value, but also due to the fact that their expressional power goes beyond the physiological existence of human species, and helps construct the psycho-emotional substance (qinggan benti) of pure humanity. In a word, it is in the stratification of significance that the degree of fulfilling human nature is embodied. [5]  Now the significance in artworks specifically refers to the deepest meaning of human life and condition as well. In theological terms, as Li Zehou claims, it implies an ontological world as it centers around and touches upon the implications from the absolute spirit or the divine Being. This being the case, the highest truth in art does not consist in the accurate imitation of things via its representational form at all, but in the communication of the subtle significance that appeals not to rational cognition but to aesthetic taste.

Moreover, the stratification of significance in artworks cannot be divorced from life itself. The significance in this case can be considered to be the significance of life. Although its expression is sometimes mystical and even religious, it is still felt to be related to life in reality. In many cases, art serves in its own way to preserve the significance of human life, and often demonstrates itself as the materialized confirmation of the incessant expansion of a person抯 spiritual life and substance. Sometimes it goes so far as to stir up the whole psychology of humankind, awaken people from their numbness, and even lead them to reflect on the fate of human existence. Correspondingly in artworks, people sense their own existence, condition and growth, and come thereby to understand and cultivate their own lives. Take Chinese art for example; the most important aspect of the significance is to express the value of life. It transcends the emotional image and sensual form as it is enhanced by the experience of the integrity of nature and humanity or the oneness between heaven and human (tian ren he yi), exemplifying a human抯 isomorphic emotional response to the cosmic order. It is the interactive communion between life抯 significance and the isomorphic structure expressed in artworks that reveals the sense of destiny, the sense of historical mission, and the sense of life抯 meaning, and meanwhile attributes to them great mystical power. Here on this occasion, the individual is general and universal, and the abstract is concrete and particular. That is why Chinese artistic abstraction is neither transformed abstraction of real things nor formal abstraction of emotional expression, but comprehensive abstraction of the rational-emotional intercourse and interfusion between the cosmic order and human life. [6]

In short, art is the product of history. Its creation and development involve the stratification of form, image and significance parallel to primitive, artistic and life sedimentation. The three stratifications are interrelated to the extent that we cannot draw a hard and fast line between them. For they interweave and interpenetrate one another along with the three sedimentations, which conduces to the organic unity of the structure in a great artwork. The above discussion of art as sedimentation is intended to denote that form and image are analogous to sensation and desire. They mutually penetrate, blend, and often overlap in the same object, aesthetic or artistic. They also exist in very complicated and crisscross patterns. For example, the stratification of form that appeals to sensation in literary work is vague. A novel appears to us through paper and words but the sensations of a novel are not sensations of the paper and printed characters; instead, they are manifested in an imaginative presentation. Even the stratification of significance cannot exist by itself because it exists only in the stratification of form-sensation and in the stratification of image-desire, but simultaneously transcends them after all. [7] Regarding the three sedimentations, we may arrive a tentative conclusion that primitive sedimentation results in aesthetic, artistic sedimentation in form, and the life sedimentation in art. All this makes up a dynamic and changing process in close association with the daily experience of humankind as a whole.

A Critical Pondering

1980s in China witnessed an extensive attention to Li Zehou抯 theory of art as sedimentation in view of cultural psychological formation. For this theory stimulated much rethinking among philosophers, anthropologists, critics, psychologists and the like across the country. From then on the newly coined term of jidian as sedimentation has been used as a catchphrase of high frequency to expose the essential characteristics of aesthetic experience in art. It has naturally spurred up a heated discussion and criticism, especially among Chinese academics and some overseas sinologists since The Path of Beauty (Mei de licheng) is made accessible in a number of languages including English, German, and Korean, etc.

According to some critical observations, the notion of art as sedimentation often comes under trenchant attack for it seems to be something static instead of dynamic, completed instead of uncompleted. As it is placed in the context of his anthropo-historical ontology, it appears to be enclosed within the past and the existent, and therefore leaves no room for further alteration and progression. For on this point it tends to neglect the fact of constant change and openness in art movements, and plays down the potential power of creativity and originality of art that often breaks through the history of establishment. This is often the case with the artworks produced by genius in particular, which are liable to set up not only new paradigms and styles, but to shape or remold the audiences?aesthetic mentality and sense of art altogether.

In the face of this criticism, Li Zehou defends for himself by explicating his notion of sedimentation in two senses. In a broad sense, sedimentation refers to the constitution of human minds from rationality to sensuousness, from sociality to individuality, and from history to psychology, possibly including the rational internalization (intellectual structure) and the rational condensation (volitional structure). In a narrow sense, sedimentation refers to the constitution of aesthetic sensibility and feeling. His theory of art as sedimentation looks into the second aspect only. Apart from this explication, he proceeds to emphasize the dynamic process and open nature of sedimentation in connection with daily activities and living experiences, and deliberately affirms the fact that sedimentation, art, experience and aesthetic appreciation are all subject to constant renewal and development due to the freshness, objectiveness and pioneeringness of everyday life and human practice. Here is a citation of what he claims,

Sedimentation flows from history into psychology, from rationality into sensuousness, from sociality into individuality. Therefore, sedimentation changes when the general, common sedimentation is realized through the unique, sensuous existence of each individual and when each individual displays the common sedimentation in herself or himself. These changes are displayed by differences in personality, ideals, experiences, and aesthetic faculties (including creation and appreciation). These individual sedimentations have ontological significance for individuals, who are thrown into this world by chance and vested with no significance, but who make a great effort to attain significance in their own lives. A person抯 own emotional psychology brings forth significance because logic cannot do so. This means that each person must pursue, discover, create, and constitute a unique life匱herefore, a person should never be a tool or means, for persons are ends in themselves匧et us return to persons, to individuality, to sensuousness, and to fortuity. Come back to everyday life! Throw away any shackles of metaphysical ideas and actively greet, constitute, and break up the sedimentations. Art is nothing but the psychological homologue to our sensuous existence; it lies in our living experience, say, our psychological-emotional substance. [8]

Hence we must learn to contemplate disinterestedly our surroundings, to purify our emotions and desires alike, to sustain our living experiences always with something new, and to keep our sensation, understanding, imagination and emotion in a state of ongoing variation and combination. 揑f we develop these consistently, we will change art from an artistic product designed for only a few elites to an art that is self-fulfilling, expression of every individual. If this occurs, all persons will be able to realize their individual existence by themselves. Their inborn potentialities, talents, and qualities of individuality will come into full play, simultaneously embracing and shattering the mental sedimentations to make room for newer processes.?[9]

Incidentally, it is in late 1990s that Li deliberately modified his notion of jidian 搒edimentation?into 搒edimenting? He shifted the noun form into its gerund in order to denote a continuing act or ongoing process, attempting to ascribe to it a dynamic feature on the one hand, and on the other, to decrease the probability of misconception against the static implications of 搒edimentation? This is also true of his conception of wenhua xinli jiegou as cultural psychological structure, which invites the similar criticism owing to its seemingly fixed and static character as is often conceived. In like manner, Li has clarified the hidden features of 揷ultural psychological structure?as a changing process, and thereby altered the previously used term 憇tructure?into 揻ormation?so as to get rid of any possible misinterpretation.

It is worth pointing out that Li often announces his stubborn adhering to his early arguments as a whole. But we can observe his way of modification if not patchwork. It is true that he manages to keep the consistency and coherence of his system in principle. However, his constant re-explications betray his announcement as they reveal his attempt for further improvement. It is for this reason that his system can be seen as one open to modest modification instead of drastic change.

Now let us turn to his notion of cultural psychological formation, it takes in a main component of shenmei xinli jiegou qua aesthetic psychological construction that goes along with primitive, artistic and life sedimentations in connection with the stratifications of form, image and significance altogether. According to Li抯 argumentation, an insight into the aesthetic psychological construction can be illustrated through aesthetic experience. This experience is a subtle and complex activity, comprising at least four basic factors, namely, aesthetic sensation, understanding, imagination, and feeling.

Respectively speaking, aesthetic sensation is based on the senses like sight and hearing as the outcome of humanization of the inner nature. Even though it seems to be entirely sensuous, it is in practice supra-sensuous as it contains many elements, especially cognitive perception and social conventions that could be traced back to the process of primitive sedimentation in connection with the unconscious world. In a word, aesthetic sensation is the product of both psychology and sociality, marking the progression of human sensuousness.

Aesthetic understanding has at least four implications. Firstly, it implies that the subject is always conscious of the context, and inclined to differentiate it from the experience of daily life as if he keeps a 損sychical distance? Secondly, it calls for a relevant knowledge of the object contemplated, particularly in representational art. Thirdly, it requires an intellectual cognition of the technical aspects of the object. Fourthly, it demands a profound but indefinite cognition that permeates sensation, imagination and emotion, and blends with them to form an organic unity. This process is characteristic of thinking-in-images. It could hardly be explicated in common expressions because 揑t can be sensed, but cannot be expressed in words?(zhi ke yi hui bu ke yan chuan) as the old saying claims. On this point, Li stresses again the distinction between two types of aesthetic understanding: yin and xiu. Yin suggests that in the process of appreciation the faculty of understanding integrate so completely with other psychical factors that it functions unconsciously. The meaning of the object lies beyond its literal forms and words. Xiu refers to a sudden realization of the meaning of the object, as if it had already been known. At the moment when we approach the comic, for example, we are fully aware of the role of understanding in aesthetic experience. Nevertheless, the importance of complexity, indefiniteness, and non-conceptual cognition of aesthetic understanding remains. [10]

Aesthetic imagination works as a kind of perceptual activity of synthesis and unification because it recalls certain events experienced or comprehended in the past, and associates them with other ideas, which enriches aesthetic experience in the end. The free play of imagination is an indispensable medium through which aesthetic sensation and understanding come to effect. The triangle interaction among them runs like this: 揝ensation in physiology and understanding in cognitive processes are constraints. Imagination transforms both into variables and links them up with the emotion and desire in aesthetic experience. Imagination leads sensation to go beyond itself, prevents understanding from turning into conception, and facilitates emotion in the creation of an illusory world.?[11]

Last but not the least, aesthetic emotion as a primary part of aesthetic psychological construction differs from ordinary emotion. For it is transformed by virtue of understanding and imagination into an emotional expression according to R. Collingwood抯 observation, or into a logical form of emotion in terms of S. Langer抯 proposal. It is self-evidently demonstrated in aesthetic pleasure. As is often discerned in an aesthetic activity, such emotion, whether mixed up with the state of mind, will and desire, or expressed in an artistic object, sets imagination free, heightens sensation, increases understanding, and develops a pattern of aesthetic experience, so to speak.

At this stage, aesthetic experience can be construed as a dynamic synthesis of the functions of sensation, understanding, imagination, and emotion. It is owing to such variables as individual differences, artistic expressions and values that aesthetic experience can be divided into three levels from a morphological viewpoint, ranging from the surface to the depth, from the simple to the complex, or from the formal to the significant. In Li抯 terminology, it commences with pleasures of the ear and eye. These pleasures are physiological by nature, but arise from different conditions of social life and culture, from different personal experiences and cultivation. They can help free human ears and eyes from purely physiological demands and domination by social volition, thus working to build up a new sensuousness and upgrade the human psychological-emotional construction.

The second level of aesthetic experience refers to pleasures of the mind and heart. Stemmed from the sense of beauty through the ear and eye, these pleasures permeate the inner world. They practically derive from the unification of sensual desire and reason, and that of sociality and nature. They may remove the repression of instincts and desires, and yield the delight and satisfaction of other mental activities including emotions of nostalgia, patriotism, and friendship, etc. For instance, 揥hen appreciating a poem, a painting, or a piece of symphony, we can often unconsciously experience something more lasting and deeper through those limited images in sensation, and comprehend the interior, infinite significance of daily life from the limited, casual concrete images appealing originally to visual and aural organs, thus increasingly raising the level of spiritual life.?[12]

Just as Li himself asserts, pleasures of lofty aspiration and moral integrity stand not only for the highest realm of aesthetic experience, but the supreme form of aesthetic capacity. These pleasures tend to effect simultaneously in two domains. On the one hand, they are apt to pursue and find satisfaction in certain purposive ideas of morality, mold and cultivate human will, fortitude, and ambition. On the other hand, they are supposed to facilitate the integrity of a finite 揑?with its infinite counterpart such that it is analogical to the oneness between human and universe. That is to say, they may bring forth a mental experience of supra-morality that is identical with the experience of infinity. Yet, this supra-morality doe not negate morality but refers to an experience freed from all moral principles and natural laws. For this reason the pleasures of lofty aspiration and moral integrity relate mainly to the contemplation of the sublime rather than the beautiful. [13]

According to Li Zehou, pleasures of lofty aspiration and moral integrity stand not only for the highest realm of aesthetic experience, but the supreme form of aesthetic capacity. These pleasures tend to effect simultaneously in two domains. On the one hand, they are apt to pursue and find satisfaction in certain purposive ideas of morality, mold and cultivate human will, fortitude, and ambition. On the other hand, they are supposed to facilitate the integrity of a finite 揑?with its infinite counterpart such that it is analogical to the oneness between human and universe. That is to say, they may bring forth a mental experience of supra-morality that is identical with the experience of infinity. Yet, this supra-morality doe not negate morality but refers to an experience freed from all moral principles and natural laws. For this reason the pleasures of lofty aspiration and moral integrity relate mainly to the contemplation of the sublime rather than the beautiful. [14]

Under ideal conditions, pleasures of the ear and eye are basically physiological and socio-cultural, serving to cultivate human sensations. Pleasures experienced by the mind and heart are coordinated with such faculties as understanding and imagination, working to cultivate human desires, emotions and intentions as well. Pleasures experienced from lofty aspiration and moral integrity assist humans in transcending moral constraints and attaining a higher state of supra-moral existence characterized with aesthetic and spiritual freedom. 

There is some truth in such a hypothesis of aesthetic psychological construction given above. But it strikes me as if the mystical dimension of aesthetic experience still remains as it is especially in the pleasures of lofty aspiration and moral integrity. Elsewhere Li identifies this aspect with something as mysterious as religious enlightenment in a loose manner without further investigation, not to speak of any authentic justification. The matter of fact is that he is highly conscious of the difficulty and problem in this case. He therefore grounds his argument and judgment on empirical inferring, but this inferring is semi-transcendental in that it is largely dependent upon a kind of sensus communis a priori. For this reason he has no minimum of vacillation to recognize its lack of sufficiency, and often makes a metaphorical use of Watson-Crick抯 Double Helix to suggest the complicated and variable aspects of aesthetic psychological construction. He also expects a real solution from the further development of brain science and psychology in the future. By then, as he assumes, the issues in question could be properly addressed in a more valid and convincing way. It follows that his theoretical hypothesis is just provided as a conjecture only, and it should be left open to further verification in a more scientific mode. 

A Methodological Reflection

When looking into Li Zehou抯 philosophizing about art as sedimentation along with cultural and aesthetic psychology, we find it more stimulating in a methodological sense as it straddles two cultural domains, Chinese and Western. It can be conceived of as a transcultural approach by and large. For it proceeds from a fundamental basis on such constituents as Chinese traditional thoughts in the mainstream of Confucianism, Marx抯 practical philosophy in view of historical materialism, Kant抯 critical aesthetics of judgment, Bell抯 hypothesis of significant form, Freud抯 psychoanalysis of the unconscious, and Jung抯 probing into the archetype, etc. It is especially so in respect to Li抯 aesthetic ponderings about art. Interestingly, he appropriates some suggestions and even concepts from Marx, Kant, Freud, and Bell, but reconstruct them in new shapes and implications in his own system, which they seem to fit fairly well as if they were salt dissolved in water. All this comes out from a critical transformation and creative synthesis in a Chinese context of glocalization, and consequently leads him to widen his thinking scope and venture across some theoretical boundaries encountered in his speculative pursuits.

For instance, in order to illustrate the primitive sedimentation of content, imagination and concept into form in art, Li makes a particular reference to some archeological findings in China with a more elaborate description and analysis. Thus reads a passage from The Path of Beauty published in 1981,

   Some of the geometric patterns of Yangshao and Majiayao clearly evolved from realistic animal images into abstract symbols. The direction of development, in form and content, was from simple imitation to stylized abstraction, from realism to symbolism. This was the primary process in the development of the concept of beauty as 搒ignificant form.?Thus the geometric patterns that to later generations seemed to be only ornamentation, with no specific meaning or content, actually possessed much of both in earlier times梩hey had serious totemic implications. Those seemingly pure forms were far more than mere visually balanced, symmetrical stimuli; they possessed a highly complicated conceptual significance. Though totemic images gradually became simplified and abstracted into pure geometric patterns梩urned into symbols梩heir totemic implications did not disappear. Indeed, these implications could be said to have been enhanced by virtue of the fact that geometric patterns covered the whole surface of a vessel more often than animal images did. Thus abstract geometric patterns were not merely formed beauty, for there was content in the abstract form and concept in what was perceived by the senses. This is a characteristic that beauty and aesthetics have in common. [15]

Incidentally, beauty lies in 搒ignificant form?instead of ordinary form. The significant form is natural form that possesses a socially defined content or sociality. As is noticed in the hypothesis proposed by Clive Bell in the Art, 搒ignificant form?and 揳esthetic emotion?are interpreting each other in a repeated circle. Having discerned this problem, Li attempts to break away from it by resorting to his theory of aesthetic sedimentation (shenmei jidian) and its explication given above. He therefore maintains that the pure geometric lines evolved from realistic images, and sedimented within some amount of social content and significance. They turn out to be 搒ignificant form?because human feelings towards them incorporated special conceptual and imaginative elements concerned. In this context, they tend to elicit a special kind of 揳esthetic emotion?because they are different from ordinary emotions, perceptions, and experiences as well. In many cases, such feelings in primitive rituals and magic services would be passionate and mystical but confused and ambiguous, containing ideas and imagination that could not be explained via reasoning, logic or conception. They therefore stir up some deep emotional reaction that is unspeakable in words. Some psychoanalysts like Jung tried to expose this unspeakability by virtue of 揳rchetype?as part of the mysterious 揷ollective unconscious? However, Li gives it a second reflection in the light of historical sedimentation, and arrives at the conclusion that it is actually not mystical in this regard providing we understand the particular social content and feelings (meaning and significance) sedimented and dissolved into the form itself and the emotional response to it. 揑t should be noted that,?he proceeds, 揳s time passed, what was originally significant form gradually lost its significance through repetition and imitation. It became ordinary, standardized, formal beauty, reducing aesthetic emotion into a general sense of form for its own sake. Thus these geometric patterns became in time the earliest models and specimens of decorative and formal beauty. [16] All this can be evinced in some of the geometric patterns of Yangshao and Majiayao as is depicted in the foregoing citation.  

Moreover, when it comes to his aesthetic considerations, Li undertakes to make the most of the implications of such Kantian concepts as 揳esthetic judgment?(鋝thetischen Urteilskraft) and 搕eleological judgment?(teleologischen Urteilskraft) in an interactive and complementary mode. The former involves the free play of faculties like understanding and imagination, while the latter regards freedom as the final purpose for man as man. He thereby draws from them the key point of freedom (Freiheit) that is grounded principally on reason and moral law, and then applies it to the three interrelated aspects of human mind, say, 揻ree intuition?(ziyou zhiguan) that appeals to cognitive power in pursuit of true knowledge of lawfulness and nature, 揻ree will?(ziyou yizhi) that appeals to volitional power of desire in connection with a high awareness of obligation and morality, and 揻ree feeling?(ziyou ganshou) that appeals to pleasure and displeasure in connection with purposiveness and art. [17] This being the case, he ascribes to beauty and sublimity two more properties aside from its aesthetic experience and enjoyment. One is cognitive and the other is moral as they are expressed in his terms: yi mei qi zhen meaning to enlighten the knowing of truth with beauty, and yi mei chu shan meaning to assist the cultivating of goodness with beauty. As beauty penetrates into artistic expression, art is then acclaimed to perform the similar function because of its twofold quality. That is, it presents itself in a material form that corresponds to the cultural psychological construction of humankind, and meanwhile, it indicates a materialized confirmation of the incessant expansion of a person抯 spiritual and emotional life. Under such circumstances, art is alleged to throw light upon truth with beauty through its stratification of sensation that has a potential intelligibility; and furthermore, it is assumed to store goodness through its stratification of desire that has a potential action. Altogether it works directly to nourish and educate human nature in terms of the cultural psychological construction peculiar of human race. [18]

  Li is known as one of the leading founders of practical aesthetics in China. This can be naturally traced back to Marx抯 observation on the role of labor in the developmental process of civilization as a result of the humanization of nature. Along this line of thought, he develops his practical aesthetics with a constant emphasis on the determinate part of labor that is specifically conducted by tool-making and 杣sing. From the perspective of his anthropo-historocal ontology, he argues that the long history of tool-making and 杣sing as the most primary and important form of human practice has made possible a good command of du as proper-measure par excellence. This du as proper-measure features operational capability that derives from historical accumulation and rational internalization relating to human existence and pragmatic reason in one sense, and in the other, it generates dialectic wisdom that reveals itself at two levels: the operational and the existential. At the operational level the act of knowing-how is to some degree identical to that of doing-what, whereas at the existential level the relationship between them is rather indirect. The former has mathematical quality and pays attention to the unlimited possibility of logic while the latter has dialectic character and pays attention to the limited possibility of reality. [19]

Additionally, du as proper-measure is closely leagued with individual creation that results in the sense of form and then of beauty. Such a sense is actually fostered and evolved from the long history of tool-making and 杣sing. For the repetition of tool-making and 杣sing has brought forth a kind of rhythmic and regular operation that not only makes the manual work easier, but also allows people to feel the pleasure from their applying formal forces to the external objects and artifacts. This leads them to grow more and more conscious of such elements as rhythm, sequence, symmetry, equivalence, proportion, order and harmony, etc. In spite of all this, it is by means of du that a person is enabled to freely employ such formal forces to create things in accordance with his sense of form and beauty as well. Nevertheless, du is not equal to beauty in that the former ends up in craft while the latter in art. Only by a free play or use of the craft can one enjoy the pleasure from it, and even go further to produce forms of beauty. On this point Li acknowledges that a command of du is dependent upon the integration of subjective purposiveness with the objective lawfulness, and du itself is an active creation in the light of right timing, suitable setting and material quality. When du as proper-measure is established and applied to human conduct, material activity and living behavior altogether, beauty is made available in them. By making beauty according to du as proper-measure (yi du li mei) is meant not merely to turn out some objects of beauty, but also to build up the sense of beauty. It can be identified, in classical terms, with 搕he unity of lawfulness and purposiveness in action? which then gives rise to a sense of freedom and pleasure in all cases. This sense of freedom is in fact the origin of aesthetic consciousness or sense of beauty, which will then continue to develop, create and renew the proper-measure and the beautiful with the passage of time. [20] Meanwhile, Li maintains that the sense of beauty originates from the humanization of internal nature within humans as is distinguished from external nature in the physical world. In this regard 搈usical ear?is a self-evident example. Since mankind is endowed to make through his labor 揳ccording to the law of beauty?(Karl Marx), his awareness of beauty in varied manifestations would be awakened in this historical process, and gradually developed along with the increasing discovery of the order and form intricate in natural objects. Then it follows that art came into being when artworks were originally made as practical and aesthetic objects owning to their purposiveness for witchcraft services and sensuous pleasures. Accordingly, Li also accepts the Marxist outlook of historical materialism, but he transforms it critically and synthetically into his historical ontology, where he asserts that history bears at least two senses. 揑n one sense, it refers to relativity and particularity by which history is the outcome (occurrence and emergence) of things and events in specific time, space, environment and condition. In the other sense; it refers to absoluteness and accumulativeness in the context of which things and events are incessantly inherited and becoming as the result of human practical experience, consciousness and thinking altogether. Traditional Marxism puts more emphasis on the first aspect while I place more stress on the second aspect because it concerns with the ontological being of humankind.?[21] This argument about history in terms of accumulativeness strikes me as being somewhat related to his historical view of art as a sedimentational process to be explicated subsequently.

As is observed from what has been discussed so far, Li Zehou tends to engage himself in his philosophical and aesthetic preoccupations in a way like some of his predecessors such as Wang Guowei among others, all rejecting any rigid divide between the Chinese learning and its Western counterpart. Li never confines himself to a single lane of thinking; instead he makes a reflective use of the essential components and implications of a variety of working theories by either reading new messages into them in a different cultural context or by transforming them creatively to fit his system. Regarding the apparent and hidden structure and functions of art as the product of history, he once again experiments with the transcultural approach aforementioned. Thus he goes further to articulate his doctrine of sedimentation in a more detailed and systematic fashion as is sketched at the outset of this discussion. Now his transcultural approach, together with his conception of art as sedimentation and his practical aesthetics as a whole, still appeal to critical reconsiderations and rediscoveries, thus showing the theoretical liveliness or vitality apart from a room for further improvement.

Up till now there still arises a question as regards whether or not the theory of art as sedimentation has overcome the difficulty in defining art as such. The answer could be 搚es?and 搉o? By 搚es?is meant that the theory itself helps expose and explain the ,essential aspects of significant form and its developmental process in art from a cultural and historical perspective. Consequently the experience of the aesthetic value in significant form is not that mystical but becomes somewhat intelligible instead. By 憂o?is meant that the definition of art as sedimentation in terms of form, image, and significance is considerably exclusive because it can be applicable only to the artworks in a traditional sense. That is to say, it excludes the ready-mades or found art promoted by the avant-garde artists. Off-handed examples could be Marcel Duchamp抯 urinal, Robert Rauschenberg抯 bed, and even Andy Warhol抯 boxes. As a matter of fact, Li Zehou is more less like John Dewey, both turning a blind eye to the art movements and changes of their own times. For instance, Dewey did not care about the post-impressionists then, while Li simply denies the art identity to the contemporary avant-garde production such as 揟he Heavenly Book?(Tianshu) by Xu Bing. For he holds up to his conception of art as sedimentation of form, image and significance, and retains his personal preference for the aesthetic values, cultural properties and moral messages all exemplified in artworks to his mind. He therefore finds the avant-garde pieces failing to meet the requirements on art in his conception. Quite ironically, Li follows Dewey to stress the necessity and importance of daily life, and intends to propose a broad scope and view of art as experience, but both of them stay in their individual tastes and senses of art that seem to be more traditional and classical than modern, more moral than sensual, more serious than playful, more elite than popular. It is noticeable that both of them are somewhat confined to their theoretical constraints over art, even though they pretend not to be so.

Notes

[1].    Li Zehou and Jane Cauvel, Four Essays on Aesthetics (Lanham et al: Lexington Books, 2006), p.134.

[2].    Ibid., p. 144. Also see Li Zehou, Meixue si jiang美学四讲（Four Essays on Aesthetics, Beijing: Sanlian Press, 1989）, p. 205.

[3].    Ibid.

[4].    Li Zehou, Mei de licheng 美的历程(A History of Beauty, Beijing: Wenwu Press, 1981), pp. 17-20.

[5].    Li Zehou, Meixue si jiang 美学四讲(Four Essays on Aesthetics), pp. 237-238.

[6].    Li Zehou and Jane Cauvel, Four Essays on Aesthetics, p.163.

[7].    Ibid., p. 133.

[8].    Ibid., p. 167.

[9].    Ibid., p. 167. Also see Li Zehou, Meixue si jiang 美学四讲(Four Essays on Aesthetics), pp. 250-251.

[10].  Ibid., p. 105. Also see Li Zehou, Meixue si jiang 美学四讲(Four Essays on Aesthetics), p. 140.

[11].  Ibid., p. 106. Also see Li Zehou, Meixue si jiang 美学四讲(Four Essays on Aesthetics), pp. 140-141.

[12].  Ibid., p. 118. Also see Li Zehou, Meixue si jiang 美学四讲(Four Essays on Aesthetics), p. 324.

[13].  Ibid., p. 120. Also see Li Zehou, Meixue si jiang 美学四讲(Four Essays on Aesthetics), pp. 197-225.

[14].  Ibid. Also see Li Zehou, ?/SPAN>Guanyu chonggao yu huaji?/SPAN> 关于崇高与滑稽(On the Sublime and the Comic), in Li Zehou, Meixue lunji 美学论集(Selected Essays on Aesthetics, Shanghai: Shanghai Wenyi Chubanshe, 1980), pp. 197-225.

[15]. Li Zehou, Mei de licheng美的历程(A History of Beauty, Beijing: Wenwu Press, 1981), pp. 18-19; Li Zehou, The Path of Beauty (trans. Gong Lizeng, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p.16.

[16].  Li Zehou, Mei de licheng美的历程(A History of Beauty), p.27; Li Zehou, The Path of Beauty, p.21.

[17].  Li Zehou, Pipan zhexue de pipan 批判哲学的批判(Crique of Kant?/SPAN>s Critical Philosophy, Beijing: Renmin Press, 1984) pp. 422-437.

[18].  Li, Zehou, (1989), Meixue si jiang美学四讲(Four Essays on Aesthetics), p. 242; Li Zehou & Jane Cauvel, Four Essays on Aesthetics, p.162.

[19].  Li, Zehou, Shiyong lixing yu legan wenhua 实用理性与乐感文化(Pragmatic reason and A Culture of Optimism), Beijing: Sanlian Press, 2005), p.21.

[20].  Li Zehou, Lishi bentilun 历史本体论(Historical Ontology, Beijing: Sanlian Press, 2003), pp.8-11.

[21].  Ibid., p.42.

（This paper was presented at the 2008 XXIIth World Congress of Philosophy in Seoul. Its shortened version under the heading of 揂rt as Sedimentation攊s published in The Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Blackwell, Vol. 1, 2010. Its full length is included in Wang Keping, Chinese Way of Thinking, Shanghai: Brilliant Books, 2009.）

（作者惠寄。录入编辑：乾乾）