Wang Yachen 汪亚尘: Beauty and Fine Art 美与美术

Beauty and Fine Art 美与美术[1]

The concepts of ‘beauty’ and ‘fine art’ are completely different and cannot be talked about as one. Now, I will give a brief explanation of the two concepts.[2]

“美”与“美术”是两样东西，不能混在一起讲的，我现在要将这个“美”与“美术”拿来大略解释解释：

What is beauty? Beauty lies within the five senses;[3] it is that fulfilling feeling of happiness felt in one’s heart and it usually leaves a very deep impression.[4]

美是什么？… 就是接触着人的五官中，映像在心里的一种快乐的铭感。（是一种极深的感觉）

What is fine art? It is a kind of technique, an illusion used to express the beauty of space and time.

美术是什么？…就是表现空间时间的美底一种技术和幻术的。

Just as language stems from feelings and thoughts, fine art stems from our experience of beauty. This is the natural sequence. Therefore, I would like to propose the following stance: “To have the ability to freely express oneself through fine art, it is necessary to first be able to deeply experience the beauty of the natural world.”

有感想，然后生出言语。有美，然后生出美术。这是天然的次序，所以我要说一句：“先要有自然的铭感，然后有自由的美术。”

Looking only at traditional Chinese art, most artworks focus on their form while often ignoring the ‘deep impression of beauty’. Focusing on only the principles guiding Chinese painting, the four main ones are: to touch, to watch, to trace and to copy.[5] It can be said that there is no principle of innovation among them. When merely looking at the surface of such artworks, they can still be recognised as fine art. However, seen from the viewpoint of today’s concept of fine art, they cannot be recognised as creations done by an artist.

照我国美术的传统上看起来，都是从美术上成为美术的作品，把“美的铭感”（既自然）是顾不到的，现在我单讲中国绘画法则，大概都用抚，—摹，—临，—仿，四大本领；独创的简直可说没有，那些画，在表面上看来，说他是美术，末始不可，但用今日的思想来理解他，就不能承认是美术家的制作了。

Continuing along these lines, I ask: why do we steal the experiences, languages and expressions of others when we have our own? If we sacrifice our own experiences to copy others’ we lose the natural value of beauty.

进一层说：我们自己有感想，——言语，——表情，为什么要假用人家的感想，——言语，——表情呢？如果牺牲自己的感想……假用人家的感想……那就失了“美”的价值了。

Beauty is universal. So too is the resonance of beauty universal. It is there for all mankind and is not only known to artists. Nowadays, the biggest mistake people who study art make is to only focus on the form of beauty. They forget the fundamentals of ‘natural beauty’.

美是普遍的，所以美的感动，也是人类普遍的，并不是单限于美术家晓得的，现在我们习艺术的人，单研攒在形式的美上；把根本上的“自然美”忘记了；那就是最错误的地方。

I hope that young people who have not yet formed any of these bad habits harmonise their own experiences with ‘natural beauty’.[6] On the basis of these deep feelings, their artwork will naturally capture the beauty of fine art.

我希望没有染过那些旧毒的青年，总要用自己的感觉与“自然美”调和；有了这种铭感的基础，那美术品自然就会因之表现出来了。

16 April 1920

一九二0，四，一六。