Abstract

In ancient Chinese philosophy, yi 意 means both "intention" and "idea," which means, according to Edmund Ryden, that it can be voluntative or cognitive.1 As a widely used aesthetic category, yi has multiple dimensions in Chinese art theory. Stephen Owen, for example, summarized several common usages of yi in literary criticism: yi as "the clever interpretation of some material," as the act of giving relation to the sensory data, as "intention" or "will," and as "the way someone thinks of things."2 In the area of Chinese calligraphy criticism, there are more than twenty aesthetic categories that contain the word yi, such as youyi 有意, wuyi 無意 (not being...