Wang Yachen 汪亞塵: Beauty and Fine Art 美與美術

Beauty and Fine Art 美與美術[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”與“美術”是兩樣東西，不能混在一起講的，我現在要將這個“美”與“美術”拿來大略解釋解釋：

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]

美是什麼？… 就是接觸着人的五官中，映像在心裡的一種快樂的銘感。（是一種極深的感覺）

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

美術是什麼？…就是表現空間時間的美底一種技術和幻術的。

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，然後生出言語。有美，然後生出美術。這是天然的次序，所以我要說一句：“先要有自然的銘感，然後有自由的美術。”

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.

照我國美術的傳統上看起來，都是從美術上成為美術的作品，把“美的銘感”（既自然）是顧不到的，現在我單講中國繪畫法則，大概都用撫，—摹，—臨，—仿，四大本領；獨創的簡直可說沒有，那些畫，在表面上看來，說他是美術，末始不可，但用今日的思想來理解他，就不能承認是美術家的製作了。

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.

進一層說：我們自己有感想，——言語，——表情，為什麼要假用人家的感想，——言語，——表情呢？如果犧牲自己的感想……假用人家的感想……那就失了“美”的價值了。

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，所以美的感動，也是人類普遍的，並不是單限於美術家曉得的，現在我們習藝術的人，單研攢在形式的美上；把根本上的“自然美”忘記了；那就是最錯誤的地方。

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.

我希望沒有染過那些舊毒的青年，總要用自己的感覺與“自然美”調和；有了這種銘感的基礎，那美術品自然就會因之表現出來了。

16 April 1920

一九二0，四，一六。