Some Aesthetic and Artistic Categories in Chinese Painting and Calligraphy
Résumé
The paper "Some Aesthetic and Artistic Categories in Chinese Painting and Calligraphy" deals particularly with Chinese painting and calligraphy where the qualities describing a calligraphy or a brushstroke (fat, thin, vulgar, free, etc.) are seemingly to be applied to a human being rather than to a graphic description. In fact, since ancient times calligraphers
and painters have embodied a kind of moral guaranty to the ruling authorities, and formal changes in arts, especially in calligraphy, symbolize political changes. However, before being a political image, calligraphy is an image of human beings: some artists are seen as “models” and it is believed their human qualities are expressed in their artworks. The political appropriation of artistic and ethical qualities contributes to legitimize the validity of a power, and the propagation of a specific style means to assert specific moral values. The vocabulary of the Chinese artistic tradition is examined through physiological or bodily descriptive terms and through character-type descriptive terms; thus, the aesthetic and artistic categories help in understanding the emphasis put on the artist instead of the artwork.