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Synthesis philosophica, Vol. 36 No. 2, 2021.

Preliminary communication

https://doi.org/10.21464/sp36202

The Cultivation of Blandness. Paradoxical Communication in Chinese Literati Painting

Fabian Heubel ; Academia Sinica, Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, No. 128, Section 2, Academia Rd., 11529 Taipei, Taiwan (R.O.C.)

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Abstract

In this paper, I explore the motif of “blandness” (píngdàn 平淡) by relating it to the discussion of hardness and softness, farness and nearness, as discussed in the book The Spirit of Chinese Art by the modern Chinese philosopher Xú Fùguān 徐復觀. In this way, I hope to look into the significance of blandness in Chinese literati painting. In literati painting, an aesthetic limit-experience is practiced, which has to do with changing states of breath-energy and breathing. It refrains from a mode of creativity that one-sidedly strives for intensity, shock, and provocation. Here “blandness” is understood as a philosophical and aesthetic concept that refers to the cultivation of the ability to leave possibilities unused out of freedom. This sounds absurd if it is assumed that the aesthetics of blandness belongs to the follow-the-current thinking of immanence. In contrast, I propose an understanding of blandness as a realm in which immanence and transcendence, the finite and the infinite paradoxically communicate with each other.

Keywords

Chinese literati painting; blandness; Xú Fùguān 徐復觀; creativity; paradoxical communication

Hrčak ID:

280200

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/280200

Publication date:

20.1.2022.

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