Chapter 8 Five Remembrances of Green Luoqun·Loving the Grass Aesthetics and Associations Everywhere

In addition to beauty and pleasure, there is another dispute that is more likely to cause misunderstandings, that is, beauty and association. What is Lenovo?Lenovo is seeing A and thinking of B.A's association with B is usually caused by two reasons: either A and B are similar in nature, for example, seeing springtime reminds young people, seeing chrysanthemums reminds Jieshi; or A and B have been close in experience , For example, when you see a fan, you think of fireflies, and when you walk to Chibi, you think of Cao Mengde or Su Dongpo.Similar associations and close associations are sometimes mixed together. Niu Xiji's words "Remember Green Luoqun" and "Love Fangcao everywhere" are good examples.Why does the owner of the poem remember the green skirt?Because Luo Qun is close to his lover; why does he love the grass everywhere?Because the color of the fragrant grass and the skirt is similar.

When the consciousness is active, the association is going on, so we are thinking about it almost all the time.Knowing who is speaking when you hear a sound, and knowing the meaning of a word when you see it, all play the role of association.Association is the interpretation of new experience by old experience. Without it, perception, memory and imagination cannot occur, because they are all based on past experience.From this we can see that Lenovo is widely used. Lenovo can sometimes be controlled by the will. When composing a composition or recalling past experiences that cannot be remembered for a while, it is difficult to squeeze Lenovo into one road.But in most situations associations are free, involuntary, and erratic.When you listen to lectures or read books, you want to concentrate, but images of playing ball, walking, eating, and the cat next door always involuntarily break into your mind;This kind of free association is like water flowing wet, the fire will be dry, a little hooking up, that is to be tied, before reaching nine days, it has already entered the underworld.For example, when I start from the word fire, I think of red, pomegranate, the courtyard at home, Fushan, Lei Li's poems, carp, Confucius' son, etc. These associative clues go back and forth, although there are relationships to be found, but these Relationships are all accidental.The associative clues of my word Huo are like this, but for another person or myself in another time, the associative clues of the word Huo are different.From this we can see that Lenovo is loose and erratic.

Such is the nature of association.When most people think a thing is beautiful, it is because it can evoke sweet associations. In the eyes of those who remember the green skirt and feel pity for the fragrant grass everywhere, the fragrant grass is very beautiful.There are many facts of the same kind in color psychology.Many people have preferences for colors, some prefer red, some prefer cyan, and some prefer white.According to one school of psychologists, it is all due to association.For example, red is the color of fire, so seeing red can make people feel warm; blue is the color of countryside and vegetation, so seeing cyan can make people think of the leisurely life in the countryside.Many children and country people look at the painting and just like its red and willow green colors.Some people look at the paintings and like the stories in them. The country people like to paste the pictures of Meng Jiangnu, Xue Rengui and Taoyuan's triadism on the wall for decoration, not because the pictures carved on the wood are beautiful, but because they can tell many interesting stories. Lenovo.This kind of temper is not limited to country people.Every time I accompany my friends to the art gallery to look at paintings, the first thing they pay special attention to is a few famous paintings, and the second is historical works such as the picture of Jesus' execution, Napoleon's wedding picture, etc. They dismissed works like the old man and old woman painted by Ran Borang, and the post-impressionist landscapes and landscapes.Then there are those who look at pictures (as they look at all other works of art) for their moral lessons.When Mr. Science sees nude statues or portraits, he can't help feeling disgusted.I remember that James once said in one of his books that he once saw an old nun standing in front of a picture of Jesus' execution and looking up with folded hands, fascinated.Someone next to her asked her how the painting was, and she replied: It is beautiful, you see how merciful God is, let his own son be sacrificed to atone for the sins of mankind!

When it comes to music, Lenovo is even more powerful.When most people listen to music, they associate nothing but beautiful images.They like this tune because it reminds them of the breeze and the bright moon; they don't like that tune because it awakens their sad memories of the past.Why did Zhong Ziqi bear the elegant name of bosom friend?Because when he listened to Boya playing the qin, he exclaimed, "Excellent!"The towering mountains are like Mount Tai, and the ocean is like rivers.What did Li Qi hear in the sound of Hu Jia?What he heard was that the empty mountains were scattered and the birds were reunited, and the clouds floating in the thousands of miles were cloudy and sunny.What did Bai Letian hear in the sound of the pipa?What he heard was that the silver bottle broke and the water squirted out, and the cavalry protruded and the swords and guns blared.How does Su Dongpo describe Dong Xiao?He said: His voice is humming, like complaining or admiring, like weeping or complaining.The lingering sound curled up, endlessly.The latent dragon dancing in the deep valley, the weeping woman in the lonely boat.These countless examples can prove that most people appreciate music because they appreciate the associations it evokes.

Is the pleasure accompanied by Lenovo a sense of beauty? Scholars over the years can be divided into two groups on this question, one group answers yes, and the other group answers no.This debate is the fierce debate between form and content in the history of literary and artistic thought.According to the content school, literature and art express emotion, so the value of literature and art depends on its emotional content.First-rate literary and artistic works must have profound thoughts and sincere emotions.This sentence was originally irrefutable.But people who focus on content often draw two other conclusions from this basic principle. The first conclusion is the importance of the subject matter.The so-called theme is the plot.They think that some plots can evoke beautiful and magnificent associations, and some plots can only evoke ugly and mediocre associations.For example, when making epics and tragedies, only heroes should be used as the protagonists, and foolish men and women should not be used.The second conclusion is that literature and art should contain moral lessons.Since the reader's associations are transferred with the content of the work, the author should try to lead the reader to the serious path, and not shake his evil thoughts with obscene and despicable plots.These theories originated earlier, and their influence is still great today.In the past, people said that thinking is innocent, words have substance, and literature conveys the truth. Now people's so-called philosophical poetry, religious art, revolutionary literature, etc., all focus on the content of literature and art and the effect of literature and art that has nothing to do with aesthetics.

This proposition has been attacked by the formalists in modern times, whose slogan is art for art's sake.They say that if two painters use the same model, the value of the paintings will be different; if two writers use the same story, the poems will have different meanings.Many learned scholars and great moralists have not become artists, and many artists are not learned scholars or great moralists.From this we can see that the reason why art is art is not in content but in form.If you are not an artist, even if you have excellent content, you will not be able to produce good works; on the contrary, if you are an artist, even mediocre things can become excellent works after being turned into gold through the magic of the soul.Didn’t Impressionist masters such as Mollet and Van Gogh often express a world of deep affection in a chair or a few dilapidated houses?This school of thought did not gain power until modern times.Romanticism in literature, Impressionism in painting, especially Post-Impressionism, formalism in music, all despise content.Just take pictures as an example, when most people look at a picture, they first ask what is in the picture, what kind of character or what kind of story is it.These things are technically called signifying elements.Many painters in modern times are fundamentally opposed to any expressive elements in their paintings.Seeing a painting, they only pay attention to its colors, lines and shadows, without asking what meaning or story it contains.If you see a work of this school, at first you just see a lot of colors mixed together. It takes a lot of examination and guesswork to know whether it is a house or a cliff.This group of people is most opposed to miscellaneous associations with aesthetic feeling.

The theories of these two schools are held for a reason, and they are reasonable, so where should we go from here?We deny that the content and form of art can be discussed separately (this principle will be discussed later), but on the issue of aesthetic feeling and association, we agree with the formalism. In a broad sense, association is the basis of perception and imagination, and art cannot be separated from perception and imagination, nor can it be separated from association.But what we usually call association refers to the non-stop random thinking from A to B, from B to C.In this ordinary sense, association is an obstacle to beauty.Aesthetic perception starts from intuition without thinking, but association inevitably involves thinking.In the aesthetic experience, we concentrate on an isolated and insulated image, and association is the most likely to distract the mind, divert attention, and divert the mind from the aesthetic image to many things that have nothing to do with aesthetics.In aesthetics, when I see Fangcao, I wholeheartedly appreciate the taste of Fangcao; in association, when I see Fangcao, I think of skirts, and think of beauties in skirts. When I think of beauties in skirts, my mind stops. It's back in Fangcao.

The association is mostly accidental.For example, the content of a painting is the autumn moon on the West Lake. If the viewer does not concentrate on the painting itself but trusts the association, then A can think of the Leifeng Pagoda, and B can think of the beauties who visited the West Lake together in the past. It can improve the viewer's goodwill towards the painting, but the beauty of the painting itself may not necessarily increase, but the aesthetic feeling caused by the painting will decrease due to mental laxity. Knowing this, we can know that many experiences that are usually considered aesthetic are not aesthetic.If you are from Wuchang, you may particularly like Cui Hao's poem "Yellow Crane Tower"; if you are a descendant of Tao Yuanming, you may particularly like "Tao Yuanming Collection"; > or Han Tuizhi's "Original Dao"; if you are an antique dealer, you may be particularly fond of the newly unearthed tortoise shell inscriptions in Henan or the murals in the Dunhuang stone chamber; if you know that Leonardo is famous, you Perhaps particularly fond of his Menlorisa.These are all natural tendencies, but they are not aesthetic feelings. They are all based on the attitude of practical life, seeking its value outside of art itself.