Confucianism and Art Education

Author: Nie Zhenbin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Art, like nature, is a native home for humanity. Art is absolutely not a plaything for ordinary people but the source of harmony. What flows from it is an endless spring of vibrant life. As long as one engages with and appreciates art, this life-giving spring will nourish dry lips and help the seeds of the heart flourish. Over time, such a person may become a harmonious and perfectly developed individual. If a society is composed of such people, the entire society becomes harmonious. A society can only produce cultural offspring by "marrying" art; if it "divorces" art, it will only lead to barbarism, and the society will turn into a cultural desert. "The creation, reception, and appreciation of art is a high cultural quality, and the most important shortcut to acquiring this quality is art education." "The current burgeoning comprehensive art education or ecological art education not only emphasizes dialogue, intersection, and integration among various art forms but also focuses on the permeation of artistic spirit into other disciplines. Implementing comprehensive art education has unique advantages for China. To inherit and promote the fine traditions of Chinese artistic education, to perfect and develop comprehensive art education, and to cultivate high-quality talents—these are precisely the purposes of developing this series of 'Frontiers of Art Education.'" This book systematically elaborates on the concept of art education within classical Confucian theory and the evolution of Confucianism and its development in art education. The book is divided into two parts: The first part discusses the ideas of art education from pre-Qin thinkers such as Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, the Book of Changes, and The Record of Music. The second part analyzes the changes in Confucianism and the development of art education in each dynasty from the Han, Wei-Jin-Qi-Liang, Tang, Song, Ming, and Qing periods, comprehensively exploring the artistic spirit of Confucianism and its ideological tendencies in art education.