Confucianism is also called "Confucianism", and its philosophical essence is Confucianism represented by Confucius. The Four Books and Five Classics is a classic work of Confucianism. The Book of Changes said: "Heaven is powerful, and gentlemen are constantly striving for self-improvement. The terrain is Kun, and the gentleman carries things with morality. " It means that a gentleman should know how to conform to heaven, know how to be patient, advocate enriching broad personality and establish broad and powerful personality. The Doctrine of the Mean holds that if a gentleman hides his sincere heart and does his best, he can climb to the top of the world. Pre-Qin Confucianism emphasized the expansion of human mind and the promotion of human spiritual nature, which made the inner world harmonious and broad and naturally walked with the world. Mencius first wrote his theory, and Song Confucianism attached great importance to it. Cheng Yi said: "Mencius made great contributions to the Holy Gate. Zhong Ni only said the word "benevolence", and Mencius began to say "benevolence". Zhong Ni only said a' ambition', and Mencius said many things to help others. These two words alone have done a lot. " Zhu comprehensively demonstrated the dualism of "nature of destiny" and "nature of temperament" of human nature. In his view, Mencius' greatest contribution in theory is to put forward the theory of "good nature" and "theory of nourishing qi" "Cheng Zhu Neo-Confucianism" values Mencius so much, mainly because of his theory of nourishing the heart.
In the history of China's painting, Guo was the first person to directly implant the Confucian thought of "self-discipline" into the painting system, and attaching importance to "self-discipline" is a major feature of his painting thought. Guo's "cultivation" contains three meanings: one is the painter's ordinary cultivation, the other is the cultivation of pottery during creation, and the third is the cultivation of painting appraisal. These three meanings are closely related to Neo-Confucianism. According to Guo's logic, the cultivation of human nature in painting is fundamental, so he put the painter's cultivation of human nature in the first place in Lin Zhi. Guo believes that things other than mountains and rivers are not only the objects of visual observation, but also foreign objects related to body and mind; Observing the scenery is an aesthetic behavior and a means of spiritual cultivation. He divided the recreational landscape and the relationship between people in the landscape into four types: feasible, promising, livable and suitable for swimming, and based on livable and suitable for swimming, he graded and judged the quality according to the influence of the landscape on people's souls.
Song dynasty advocated co-reading. Zhu said: "The way to learn is not before poverty; The key to poverty lies in reading. " Through silent reading and meditation, things flying in the sky are removed from people's hearts. Therefore, the Song Dynasty Painting Academy attached great importance to reading. In the entrance examination, in addition to the examination of painting basic skills, we should also specially examine the reading situation.
After the Yuan Dynasty, with the rise of "literati painting", the painting circle regarded reading as an important way of self-restraint. In the Ming Dynasty, Dong Qichang's viewpoint of "Reading thousands of books and Walking Wan Li Road" can be regarded as a program that emphasizes the painter's painting accomplishment.
Under the influence of Confucianism, China painters pay attention to taste and style when creating. An accomplished painter does not lie in the manipulation of pen-carrying skills, but in inner cultivation and cultivation. It can be seen that Chinese painting is not so much "painting" as "nurturing". For thousands of years, Chinese painting has formed a set of rich health theory. From Lin Zhi by Guo to Painting Postscript by Guang Chuan by Dong Ti, from Complete Works of Pure Landscape by Han Zhuo to Painting Spectrum by Xuanhe, all paintings are guided by Confucian philosophy. After the Southern Song Dynasty, there were Wu Dasu, Huang, Wang Mengduan and so on. Borrow the philosophical concepts of Cheng Yi, Cheng Hao and Zhu directly, and take Neo-Confucianism as the guidance. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, influenced by Lu Jiuyuan and Wang Yangming's "Wang Lu Xin Xue", painters such as Wen Zhiming, Shen Zhou, Dong Qichang and Shi Tao applied the theory of "knowing and doing in one" to their works and became a generation of leaders and masters.
Second, the influence of Zen on Chinese painting
Chinese painting pays attention to "expressing the spirit with form" and "having both form and spirit", while the core idea of Zen is "don't speak, don't teach others, point directly at people's hearts, and become a Buddha by seeing nature", taking "similarity in spirit" and "verve" as the highest standards to judge art, which coincides with the pursuit of "expressing the spirit" in Chinese painting, showing the aesthetic feeling of both form and spirit.
From the very beginning, Buddhism took paintings with related themes as an important propaganda tool, and its murals, statues, stone carvings and temple buildings were all closely related to art. "Zen" is the provincial name of Buddhist "Zen", which means "meditation" and "meditation". The way to practice is to think about Buddhism and stop all desires. Zen Buddhism is one of the sects that came into being after Buddhism was introduced into China and merged with local culture. It advocates "the mind is the Buddha", "insight into nature" and "introspection", emphasizing "pointing directly at people's hearts" and "regarding nature as the Buddha". It believes that everyone has Buddha nature and can realize his mind and see nature through meditation, so Zen is also called "Buddhist Sect".
Zen skillfully combines the Buddhist nature advocated by Buddhism with Zen enlightenment, takes the Buddhist nature that everyone has as the basis of practice, and advocates that people gain epiphany in self-meditation. Master Huineng said: "Buddha is self-made, so don't ask for it from outside." Zen adheres to all the idealistic thoughts in the Shurangama Sutra, directly absorbs the research results of Buddhism since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, abandons complicated theoretical arguments, and wins people's hearts with the symbolic significance of Zen legal system and the characteristics of Zen master's practice and demonstration.
The epiphany method of Zen is a mysterious intuitive cognitive method. There is no need for logical thinking of concepts, judgments and reasoning, nor for long-term accumulation of experience. But only rely on perception, intuition and instant thoughts to grasp the object of understanding and deepen the artistic conception. This kind of spiritual strengthening and contemplation awakened the self-consciousness of ancient artists in China, thus stimulating the development of artistic creation. When it penetrated into the art field, this emphasis on the mind and the strengthening of the subjective consciousness naturally changed China's traditional theory of "carrying Tao", and the artistic concept of "writing the mind" and "freehand brushwork" appeared, thus making the painter replace the previous realistic form with the subjective emotion of "pen and ink interest".
Zhang Sengyou, Gu Kaizhi, Cao Buxing and Lu Tanwei, the four great painters of the Six Dynasties, all used Zen as their paintings, and regarded the ethereal and simple nature of Buddhism as the charm of painting, pursuing the wonderful Zen realm of the unity of things and me. In the Tang Dynasty, Wang Wei, who was deeply involved in Zen, had a special liking for painting. He integrated ink-wash freehand brushwork landscape painting into Zen philosophy and intuition, sketched it with light ink, and showed the Zen landscape of "nature from the outside and heart from the inside" incisively and vividly. Influenced by the Zen doctrine of "self-nature" in Song Dynasty, Su Dongpo advocated creative ideas such as "freedom" and "trying his best", and always maintained a natural feeling of freehand brushwork in painting and calligraphy. In the Yuan Dynasty, Ni Yunlin wrote "One in the Chest", which has an ethereal artistic conception and the ethereal beauty of Zen. In the Ming Dynasty, Dong Qichang inherited the concept of Zen, and used light, soft, virtual and light pen and ink to paint a beautiful, profound and noble style with a unique style. The paintings of Badashanren in Qing Dynasty are mainly freehand brushwork in ink and wash, with concise brushwork, quiet interest and a large area of blank space, showing an ethereal and pure "Zen realm". Shi Tao, a monk in the Qing Dynasty, painted "the scenery is light and chic", which is Zen. He said: "Those who set up the method of painting cannot have the method, but those who use and implement the method, those who draw with their hearts ..."
The "artistic conception" emphasized by China's landscape paintings is essentially the same as the "Zen realm" pursued by Zen, both of which attach importance to the observation of subjective mind and pursue "assimilation of things and me". The three stages of artistic conception development are interlinked with the three stages of Zen. Zong Baihua said: "It is the reality of China people's life perception and artistic conception that only Tao is empty and body is not used." Therefore, the intuitive perception of Zen is of guiding significance to the expression spirit of Chinese painting.
Thirdly, the influence of Laozi and Zhuangzi's philosophy on Chinese painting.
Laozi said, "Be empty, be quiet." Zhuangzi said, "The water is still bright. What about the spirit? The heart of the sage is still the mirror of heaven and earth, the mirror of everything. " It can be seen that "quietness", as one of the important characteristics of aesthetic artistic conception, plays a self-evident role in painting creation. Lao Tzu, who likes mountains and rivers, said that "the world of Tao is like a river valley in the sea" and that "water is good as water, and water is good for everything. Being in the evil of everyone, so being in the Tao. Living in a good place, kind-hearted, kind-hearted, good at words, good at governance, good at doing things, good at dealing with people. The husband does not dispute, so there is nothing special. " He believes that water has the characteristics of softness, gentleness, nourishing all things and not competing with the world, which is in line with heaven. In ancient times, Chinese paintings were mostly plain, but painted in ink. The combination of ink and wash has produced the effects of shade, dryness and wetness, alternation of reality and reality, and interesting, which is a vivid embodiment of Taoist thought in Chinese painting.
Zhuangzi said: "Heaven and earth coexist with me, and everything is one with me." Laozi said: "Whether there is mutual existence or not, it is difficult to complement each other." "Being" and "Nothing" are dialectical unity, and they are universal consciousness rooted in "Yin and Yang". This universal consciousness affects the development direction of Chinese painting and lays the artistic spirit of "everything should be romantic" in Chinese painting. Laozi said: "Know its white, keep its black." The so-called empty, white nothing. The mystery lies in "silence is better than sound". Chinese painting is the art of lines, and a comparative aesthetic feeling is formed by using the density of lines. Its structural principle is "counting white is black", and virtual is real. Laozi said, "Tao gives birth to one, two, three and everything." The return of the realm is the return of the soul. Based on Laozi's cosmic consciousness of "elephant is invisible" and Zhuangzi's detached feelings, poetry, calligraphy, painting and seal can be integrated into one, with the aesthetic character of "harmony as one". Laozi has always advocated "governing by doing nothing" and "letting nature take its course", emphasizing that "doing nothing" can "do whatever you want". "Governing by doing nothing" is not doing nothing, but interfering too much and letting nature take its course. This concept is embodied in the creation of Chinese painting, which is an intuitive expression of mind and intention. Tao is so calm, frank, natural and simple. Therefore, Taoist thought has become the ideological basis for hermits to live in seclusion and literati painters to avoid the world and paint.
Zong Bing in the Southern Song Dynasty said: "The sage reflects things with Tao, and the sage is sincere and tasteful; The saints teach the Tao with God, and the mountains and rivers are flat and flat. " He was the first person to introduce Taoist thought into landscape painting. Hao Jing of the Five Dynasties said: "The operation is flexible, the quality is shapeless, the height is vague, the quality is shallow, and the literary talent is natural, which seems to be due to non-text." Chinese painting is not simply to reproduce the image, nor to give up the abstraction of form, but the unity of image and abstraction, that is, the change of subjective and objective, spirit and object. The combination of freehand brushwork spirit of Chinese painting and Taoist culture not only conforms to the "metaphysical" god, but also conforms to the activity form of all natural things, and is a living and living natural reproduction.
Taoism pays attention to practicing Qi, believing that everything in the universe has "Qi"-there is weather in the sky, atmosphere in the earth, popularity in people, and qi in plants, mountains and rivers. Chinese painting applies Taoist "Qi" to creation, and pays attention to the flow of Qi before painting. In Qing Dynasty, Shen Zongqian said: "Everything in the world is formed by the accumulation of qi. In other words, mountains and rivers, hills and mountains, and even trees and stones are full of vitality. They are numerous but not chaotic, few but not withered. When they are combined together, they are unified and connected, split and formed separately. Everything is different, everything is different. In short, it is the so-called trend of gathering gas to show the interest of its activities. " This fully shows that the "Qi" mentioned by Taoists and the "Qi" reflected by painters are interlinked, and both are the spiritual qi of all things obtained by feeling nature.
In the Southern Dynasties, Sheikh inherited Laozi's philosophical thoughts and put forward the famous "Six Laws Theory", putting "vivid charm" in the first place. Among them, "Qi" is vitality, and "rhyme" is determined by "Qi". Laozi and Zhuangzi believe that the Tao produces turbid gas, which is transformed into yin and yang, and "one yin and one yang is the Tao". Everything is produced by yin and yang. Therefore, with "Qi", painting has life; With rhyme, the image in the painting is vivid. In Tang Dynasty, Zhang Yanyuan attributed the noumenon life of all things in nature to "Tao" and "Qi". "Tao" is the simplest, it contains the five colors of nature, and ink painting is as simple as "Tao" and also five colors ("ink is divided into five colors"), so ancient landscape painting generally does not need color pigments. Wang Wei quite agreed with this view and put it into practice, creating a precedent for China ink landscape painting. Ma Yuanxi, a painter in the Southern Song Dynasty, likes to paint colorful landscape paintings and chop stones with a pen and axe. He knows the Taoist way of "black and white, virtual and real", and often makes a "corner" and "half" scene, so his composition is unique, so he is called "a corner horse". Coincidentally, Xia Gui, a contemporary painter, used a bald pen to draw water and made a big axe, which was called "dragging the mud". He is simple, old and lively, and draws more "half" and "corners", so he is called "Xia Banbian". In Ming Dynasty, Xu Wei painted between "similarity and dissimilarity", which won the essence of Laozi and Zhuangzi's philosophy. He is wild and uninhibited by nature, splashing ink with ink, and his pictures are clear and concise, realistic and vivid.
In Chinese painting, the true self and the universe itself are integrated. It can be said that without the nourishment, cultivation and influence of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, there would be no Chinese painting today. The philosophy of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism is the living soul of Chinese painting creation and aesthetics.