Background
Zhu Guangqian was born in 1879 in Tongcheng. Anhui Province, China.
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Zhu Guangqian
Edit Profile朱光潛
Education
Hong Kong University, Universities of Edinburgh and London in the UK, Universities of Paris and Strasbourg in France.
Career
Professor, Department of Western Languages, Peking University, Sichuan University and Wuhan University. Honorary President, Chinese Academy of Aesthetics.
Views
Zhu Guangqian was widely read in aesthetics, but gave his greatest devotion to the works of Croce. He saw life as a work of art, with a perfect life a full expression of personality governed by demanding aesthetic principles of composition. His aestheticism placed the value of beauty higher than those of truth and goodness. Beauty could be found in intellectual products, such as philosophical systems, as well as in life and works of art. These scholarly systems could be doubted while being loved, with such delight making men free and happy.
In his early analysis of aesthetic perception, Zhu held that the perception of beauty differed from perception in science. Aesthetic perception was not conceptual and was not related to practical concerns; rather, it was determined by the contemplation and appreciation of solitary images. From 1950 he offered a different analysis, which brought together subjective and objective points of view. Beauty was conditioned by objectivity, but the subjective recognition of the effect of emotions allowed an object to become an image or emblem of itself. With this subjectively grounded rellexivity came beauty. After 1960 Zhu emphasized a Marxist practical point of view, uniting the objective and the subjective in the practical.
