Abstract
A work of art is an intentional transformation of qi 氣 into a dynamic structure. The philosophy of qi is presented here as a means to develop the aesthetic theories of Richard Wollheim and Eliot Deutsch. Both Wollheim and Deutsch present their arguments, in part, as rejections of George Dickie’s “New Institutional Theory of Art.” I develop a robust qi aesthetic drawn from traditional sources and their contemporary commentaries as a way of joining the debate between Dickie and Wollheim/Deutsch, taking the side of the latter, but attempting to provide a thicker vocabulary and a stronger rationale for challenging Dickie.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Chan, Wing-tsit. 1963. A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Danto, Arthur C. 2004. “The Artworld.” In Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition—An Anthology, edited by Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen. Maldon, MA: Blackwell.
Deutsch, Eliot. 1996. Essays on the Nature of Art. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Dickie, George. 2004. “The New Institutional Theory of Art.” In Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition—An Anthology, edited by Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen. Maldon, MA: Blackwell.
Egan, Ronald. 2001. “Poet, Mind and World: A Reconsideration of the ‘Shensi’ Chapter of Wenxin diaolong.” In A Chinese Literary Mind: Culture, Creativity, and Rhetoric in Wenxin Diaolong, edited by Cai Zong-qi. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Goldberg, Stephen J. 1995. “Chinese Aesthetics.” In A Companion to World Philosophies, edited by Eliot Deutsch and Ron Bontekoe. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Gu, Ming Dong. 2009. “From Yuanqi (Primal Energy) to Wenqi (Literary Pneuma): A Philosophical Study of a Chinese Aesthetic.” Philosophy East and West 59.1: 22–46.
Hay, John. 1993. “The Human Body as a Microcosmic Source of Macrocosmic Values in Calligraphy.” In Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice, edited by Thomas P. Kasulis, et al. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Kasoff, Ira E. 1984. The Thought of C hang Tsai (1020–1077). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Legge, James, trans. 1963. The Sacred Books of China: The I Ching. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.
Li, Zehou. 2010. The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition. Translated by Maija Bell Samei. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
Liu, Xie 劉勰. 2000. Dragon Carving and the Literary Mind 文心雕龍. Taipei: Academia Sinica Computing Center. URL: http://hanji.sinica.edu.tw/
____. 2003. Dragon Carving and the Literary Mind 文心雕龍 (bilingual text), vol. 2. Translated into English by Yang Guobin 楊國斌; translated into modern Chinese by Zhou Zhenfu 周振甫. Beijing 北京: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
Mullis, Eric C. 2007. “The Ethics of Confucian Artistry.” Journal for Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65.1: 99–107.
Pollard, David. 1978. “Ch’i in Chinese Literary Theory.” In Chinese Approaches to Literature from Confucius to Liang Ch’i-ch’ao, edited by Adele Austin Rickett. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Shun, Kwong-loi. 1994. Mencius and Early Chinese Thought. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Tu, Wei-ming. 2004. “The Continuity of Being: Chinese Visions of Nature.” In Chinese Aesthetics and Literature: A Reader, edited by Corinne H. Dale. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Wang, Fuzhi 王夫之. 1988. Reading the Compendium of Discourses on the Four Books 讀四書大全說. In Complete Works of W ang Fuzhi 船山全書, vol. 6. Changsha 長沙: Yuelu Shushe 岳麓書社.
Whitehead, Alfred North. 1926. Religion in the Making. New York: Fordham University Press.
Wollheim, Richard. 1987. Painting as an Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Xici Shang 繫辭上. 2006–2014. In The Chinese Text Project, edited by Donald Sturgeon. http://ctext.org/book-of-changes/xi-ci-shang (last access: November 30, 2014).
Xu, Fuguan 徐復觀. 2006. “The Problem of Qi within Chinese Literary Theory 中國文學中的氣的問題.” In The Essence of Chinese Literary Theory 中國文學精神. Shanghai 上海: Shanghai Shudian 上海書店.
Yellow Emperor’s Canon of Medicine: Plain Conversation 黃帝內經 (bilingual text). 2005. Translated into English by Li Zhaoguo. Xi’an: Xi’an World Publishing Corporation.
Zhang, Yanhua. 2007. Transforming Emotions with Chinese Medicine: An Ethnographic Account from Contemporary China. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Zhang, Zai 張載. 1978. Correcting Youthful Ignorance 正蒙. Beijing 北京: Zhonghua Shuju 中華書局.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Brasovan, N.S. Aesthetics of Qi: Building on the Internalist-Essentialist Philosophy of Art. Dao 14, 75–93 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-014-9417-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-014-9417-7