四君子그림의 繪畵美學的 接近

Abstract

Asian paintings have different contents and drawing techniques from those of western paintings, because Asians’ attitude and mind toward their lives are different from those of westerners. Especially, the Four Gentle Plants, a category of Asian paintings, which reveal scholar gentleman’s character and culture as it is, show unique dashing off with one stroke of a brush. Painted in combination with literary men’s spiritual idea and taste, the Four Gentle plants as a subject of paintings in the literary artists’ style have greatly contributed to the development of Asian paintings. The name of the Four Gentle Plants has been used since the Ming dynasty although the Plants have been used as a subject in paintings before the Ming dynasty. Plum blossom is a flower which comes out with a character of purity in the early spring which there is still snow of the last year in. Orchid has leaves which are elegant. Flower of orchid is chaste, and has noble grace and sweet fragrance. Due to the characters, literary men found pleasure in orchid. Chrysanthemums is a precious flower because it has a beautiful flower which comes out with emitting strong fragrance at the risk of hard frost until the late autumn. Bamboo has strong roots and straight stems. Although stems are hollow, leaves of bamboo are always green. Spirit and elegant appearance of bamboo, which symbolize an indomitable spirit and fidelity, are compared to scholar gentlemen. The plants have been a subject in paintings of the literary artists’ style, compared to scholar gentlemen with the name of the Four Gentle Plants. Thus, the Four Gentle Plants have a unique artistic character which is not in western paintings and have well developed in China and Korea until the modern period. In conclusion of the study of painterly characteristics through an aesthetic perspective, the Four Gentle Plants have a feature to express artists’ thoughts through building an ethical standard and purifying nature, in order to cultivate their lives and promote self-improvement, as a traditional subject of Chinese ink paintings. Thus, the Four Gentle Plants, pursuing a vital value in beauty of the ‘stages of thought’, had been developed as a refined hobby in the modern period. This hobby was a beginning to do self-discipline because it is to expose scholar gentlemen’s spiritual culture. Painterly beauty in the Four Gentle Plants is one of the stages of thought, because the paintings expose meanings to which are infused feelings, to which an artist’ idea and emotion are changed through the plants. The second one is beauty of empty space, because only filling space can not be expressed of deep and exquisite meanings which are nature of objects through emptiness and substantiality due to reflecting on an artist’s mind as a scholar gentleman. The third one is beauty of supreme harmony. The world of moderation combined with meanings of a life is expressed in harmony because the paintings are art to be expressed with realizing amusements and searching human nature intuitively. After all, an artist’ personality is exposed as the spiritual meaning in the Four Gentle Plants. Then, the spiritual meaning is revealed as refinement of paintings. Thus, the refinement of literary man’s personality is embodied by aesthetics of personality. The refinement of paintings as the same level of literary man’s personality is found in the Four Gentle Plants. If the noble spirits can be recreated by adaptation of the painterly characteristics to the contemporary style, not imitating shapes of lines of a brush in a painting, the Four Gentle Plants will find their identity. Then, Asian paintings will succeed a high qualified tradition and build up culture which is to expand functions of art.