The basic meaning of tradition

The basic spirit of China's traditional culture is essentially the national spirit of the Chinese nation. There are many opinions about the basic spirit of China traditional culture. Some scholars believe that the ideological basis for the long-term development of China traditional culture can be called the basic spirit of China traditional culture, and it is the subtle internal driving force in the process of cultural development, that is, the basic idea guiding the continuous progress of national culture. The basic spirit of China's traditional culture is the basic feature of the Chinese nation's spiritual form. Therefore, (1) steel is healthy and promising; (2) Harmony and neutrality; (3) the use of respecting morality; (4) Harmony between man and nature. These are the basic spirits of China traditional culture. (Zhang Dainian: On the Basic Spirit of China Culture, China Cultural Studies Series 1, published by Fudan University Press. China's national spirit is basically condensed in two famous sayings of the Book of Changes, namely: Heaven is healthy, and a gentleman strives for self-improvement. The capacity of the earth is limited, so a gentleman must constantly cultivate his own virtue to undertake the world. "Self-improvement" and "respecting morality and carrying things" are the basic spirits of China traditional culture. The concept of the golden mean, although widely circulated in the past, can not actually play a role in promoting cultural development. Therefore, the "golden mean" cannot be regarded as the basic spirit of China's traditional culture. (Zhang Dainian: Cultural Tradition and National Spirit, Academic Monthly 1986No. 12. The basic spirit of China's traditional culture is also reflected in the fine tradition of replacing religion with moral education. (Zhang Dainian: China Culture and China Philosophy, included in China Culture and China Philosophy, published by Oriental Publishing House) Some scholars believe that the fundamental spirit of China traditional culture is harmony and freedom. (Xu Siyuan: On China Culture, two issues, China Cultural Studies Series 1, published by Fudan University Press. Some scholars believe that the patriarchal hierarchy ethics, which is based on self-sufficient natural economy, family-oriented, and blood relationship as the link, is the main clue, essence and core that runs through the five levels of China's ancient social production activities and productivity, social production relations, social system, social psychology and social consciousness, and is the basic spirit of China's ancient traditional culture. (Yang Xianbang: Re-evaluation of China's Traditional Culture, edited by Zhang Liwen et al.: Traditional Culture and Modernization, published by Renmin University of China Press. Traditional culture is a kind of national culture that reflects the national characteristics and features, and it is the overall expression of various ideological cultures and ideologies in national history. Every nation in the world has its own traditional culture. China's traditional culture takes Confucianism as its core, as well as Taoism, Buddhism and other cultural forms, including: ancient prose, poetry, ci, qu, fu, national music, national drama, quyi, traditional Chinese painting, calligraphy, couplets, riddles, shots, wine orders, two-part allegorical sayings and so on.

Culture itself is a rather vague concept. Generally speaking, culture is a social phenomenon and the product of people's long-term creation. At the same time, it is a historical phenomenon and the precipitation of social history. Culture in a broad sense is the sum of all material wealth and spiritual wealth created by human beings. It includes not only world outlook, outlook on life and values, but also natural science.

Non-ideological parts such as science and technology, language and writing. To be exact, culture refers to the history, geography, customs, traditional customs, lifestyle, literature and art, code of conduct, way of thinking and values of a country or a nation.

According to the definition of British anthropologist edward tylor, culture is "a complex whole including knowledge, belief, art, law, morality, customs, abilities and habits acquired as members of society". Its core is all kinds of knowledge as spiritual products, and its essence is communication. Culture is a unique phenomenon in human society. Culture is created by people and unique to people. Only human society can have culture, and culture is the product of human social practice.

China's traditional culture is a kind of national culture that reflects national characteristics and features, and it is the overall representative of various ideological cultures and ideologies in national history. It refers to the culture with distinctive national characteristics, long history, profound connotation and excellent traditions, which was created by the Chinese nation and its ancestors living in China and passed down from generation to generation. It is the crystallization of thousands of years of civilization in China. In addition to the core content of Confucian culture, it also contains other cultural forms, such as Taoist culture and Buddhist culture. Up to now, scholars at all times and all over the world can't come to a conclusion, except for the reasons of multi-dimensional vision, there are also

Objective ambiguity from the perspective of linguistics. Broadly speaking, culture is the sum of human spiritual life and material life. Just kidding, it is a cultural phenomenon for a man to stand on a street corner and spit and fly out. If there are two women, one hem and the other bah, the culture will be much more complicated. The generality of culture leads to the embarrassment that people who study culture often have dogs eating hedgehogs. American cultural anthropologist Lowell said: I was entrusted with a difficult job, that is, talking about culture. But in this world, nothing is more difficult to grasp than culture. We can't analyze it because its composition is endless, and we can't describe it because it has no fixed shape. We want to express its meaning in words, just like holding air in our hands. When we look for culture, it is everywhere except in our hands. Alas, at this point, students will find that this guy copied our Taoist ancestor and tried to read Lao Tzu's original words: treat him as an alien, smell him as nameless, and fight for his nickname. These three things can't be blamed, so they are confused. There is nothing above and nothing below. The rope is indescribable. Returning to nothing is called the shape of nothing, and the image of nothing is called trance. I can't see its head, and then I can't see it ... without translation, everyone can see that Lowell copied Lao Tzu and just changed his name. Laozi preached, and the latter changed culture. I'm kidding. Culture in a narrow sense only refers to people's spiritual life. On this basis, the cultural structure is further classified according to different perspectives.

First of all, in terms of time, there are primitive culture, ancient culture, modern culture and modern culture.

Secondly, in terms of space, there are oriental culture, western culture, marine culture and mainland culture.

Thirdly, from the social perspective, there are aristocratic culture, civilian culture, official culture, folk culture, mainstream culture and marginal culture (Mr. Jiang Yihua divided them into normative culture, non-normative culture and semi-normative culture. This division is relatively novel, so I will focus on it. Mr. Jiang believes that the so-called normative culture is based on Confucian classics and historical records compiled by officials of past dynasties and has evolved over a long period of time.

It is the most authoritative normative culture of the small-scale peasant society in China, and it is a historical culture formed by extensively absorbing the theories of Taoism, Buddhism, Yin and Yang, verticality, metaphysics and Buddhism. Correspondingly, it is the mode of production, lifestyle, various relationships between people, customs, beliefs, pursuits, daily psychology, potential consciousness and non-standard culture in various written or unwritten systems. In addition to these two cultures, there is a semi-standard culture between them, which refers to a large number of literary and artistic works with different elegance and popularity, and various cultural education and religious entertainment activities that are semi-divorced from classics, history and culture, such as Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Romance of Sui and Tang Dynasties, The Journey to the West and other popular cultural masterpieces. Of course, I think the division of Teacher Jiang seems to be only effective for the traditional culture of China.

Fourthly, it is divided into etiquette culture, system culture, dress culture, campus culture and enterprise culture from the social function.

Fifth, from the internal logic level of culture, it can be divided into four levels: material state culture, mentality culture, behavior culture and system culture.

Sixth, in terms of economic form, there are different cultures, such as animal husbandry and hunting, fishing and salt, agriculture, industry and commerce. Some people engage in coloring, yellow culture, blue culture and so on. ★ Overview of tradition ★: benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, faithfulness, loyalty, filial piety, chastity, forgiveness, courage and tolerance; Qin Qipu

Painting, three religions and nine streams, 360 lines, four great inventions, folk taboos, folk customs, loyalty to the country, bamboo, folk songs, loess, Yangtze River, Yellow River, red, moon. ...

★ Agricultural culture ★: farmhouse, peasant uprising, hoe.

★ Gzero★: Palace culture, imperial learning.

★ A hundred schools of thought contend ★:

Confucianism (Confucius, Analects of Confucius, Mencius, Mencius, Xunzi; Benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom and faith; Mean)

Taoism (Laozi, Zhuangzi; Morality, inaction, freedom)

Mohist school (Mozi, Mozi, universal love)

Legalists (Han Fei, Li Si, Han Feizi)

Famous artists (Deng, Hui Shi, Gongsun Longzi)

Yin and Yang Family (Zou Yan, Wuxing, Jinmushui, Fire and Earth)

Strategists (Guiguzi, Su Qin, Zhang Yi, Warring States Policy)

Miscellaneous Family (Lv Buwei)

Farmhouse (Lv Chunqiu)

Military strategist

Physician ★ Qin ★: Sheng, flute, erhu, guzheng, flute, drum, guqin and pipa. Molly, top ten

Famous songs (Mountain Flowing Water, Guangling San, Wild Goose in Pingsha, Three Lane of Plum Blossoms, Ambush on Houses, Red Flute and Drum at Sunset, Fisherman's Questions and Answers, Eighteen Beats of Hu Jia, Autumn Moon in Han Palace, Chun Xue)

★ Chess ★: China Chess, China Go, Chess, Chess Pieces, Chess Board.

★ Books★: China calligraphy, seal cutting, Four Treasures of the Study (pen, ink, inkstone, rice paper), woodcut watermark, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Zhong Dingwen, Han bamboo slips, thread-bound books.

★ Painting ★: Chinese painting, landscape painting and freehand painting; Dunhuang murals; Eight horses, Tai Chi (Tai Chi). ★ Zodiac ★: mouse, cow, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, chicken, dog and pig.

★ Traditional literature ★: Tang poetry, Song ci, Yuanqu, Ming and Qing novels, Song, Fu, Book of Songs, Thirty-six Strategies, Sun Tzu's Art of War, four classic novels.

★ Traditional festivals ★: Lantern Festival, Cold Food Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day (ancestor worship), Dragon Boat Festival (Zongzi, Dragon Boat Race, Qu Yuan), Mid-Autumn Festival, Double Ninth Festival (respect for the elderly), Laba Festival (New Year's Eve, red envelopes, reunion dinner), New Year's Eve, Spring Festival (Zheng Dan, New Year's Day, January Day).

★ China Drama ★: Kunqu Opera, xiang opera Opera, Cantonese Opera, Anhui Opera, Han Opera, Beijing Opera, Shadow Play, Yue Opera, Sichuan Opera and Huangmei Opera; Kunqu mask, xiang opera mask, Sichuan mask, Peking mask.

★ China architecture ★: Great Wall, memorial archway, gardens, temples, clocks, towers, temples, pavilions, wells, stone lions, houses, Qin bricks and tiles, terracotta warriors and horses.

Chinese characters: Chinese characters, couplets, riddles (riddles), two-part allegorical sayings, idioms, shots, wine orders, etc.

★ Traditional Chinese Medicine ★: Traditional Chinese Medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Huangdi Neijing, Treatise on Febrile Diseases, Compendium of Materia Medica.

★ Religious philosophy ★: Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Yin and Yang, five elements, compass, gossip, Sina, magic weapon, fortune telling, Zen, Buddhism, Guanyin, the old gentleman on the throne; Burn incense, worship Buddha and light candles. ★ Folk handicrafts ★: paper-cutting, kites, Chinese embroidery (embroidery, etc. ), Chinese knot, clay figurine,

Dragon and phoenix patterns (gluttonous patterns, ruyi patterns, thunder patterns, palindromes, and ba patterns), Xiangyun patterns, Cheng, Qianceng, eaves, and vultures.

★ China Wushu ★: southern boxing and northern pushing, Shaolin, Wudang, feel at home, Tai Chi and Eight Diagrams.

★ Regional culture ★: Central Plains culture, Jiangnan culture, Jiangnan water town, Saibei Lingnan, desert customs, Mongolian grassland, the ends of the earth and the land of Central Plains.

★ Folklore ★: Etiquette, marriage (matchmaker, elder), funeral (mourning, paper money), sacrifice (ancestor); Door gods, New Year pictures, firecrackers, jiaozi, lion dance.

★ Dress clothes ★: Hanfu, deep clothing, long skirt, Tang suit (collar robe), Tang silk scarf (hoe), straight dress (Taoist robe), embroidered shoes, old tiger shoes, Uygur clothes, Russian clothes, Hushi clothes, etc. ★ Four major elegant operas ★: flowers, birds, insects, fish, peony, plum blossom, osmanthus, lotus flower, birdcage, bonsai, cricket and carp;

★ Animals and plants ★: dragon, phoenix, wolf, unicorn, tiger, leopard, crane, turtle, giant panda ...; Plum blossom, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum; Pine and cypress

★ Things to carry ★: jade (Yu Pei, jade carving ...) porcelain, cloisonne, China lacquerware, painted pottery, teapot, wax.

Dyeing, ancient weapons (armor, broadsword, sword, etc. ), bronzes, antiques (copper coins, etc. ), Ding, Jin Yuanbao, Ruyi, candlestick, red lantern (palace lantern, gauze lantern), rickshaw, snuff bottle, bird cage, longevity lock, sugar-coated haws, bronze mirror, big sedan chair, hookah, snuff bottle and banana fan.

★ Eat and cook ★: Seven things to do when going out: rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea; Wine and tea ceremony; Eating culture, Chinese food, eight cuisines (Shandong, Sichuan, Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan and Huizhou), jiaozi, reunion dinner, New Year's Eve dinner, rice cakes, Mid-Autumn moon cakes and chopsticks; Shark fin and bear's paw ...

★ Legends and myths ★: Goddess fills the sky, Pangu opens heaven and earth, Houyi shoots the sun, Chang 'e flies, and Kuafu shoots the sun.

★ Ghosts ★: immortals, monsters, ghosts; Jade Emperor, Yan Luowang, Black and White Impermanence, Meng Po, Naihe Bridge ... 1, passed down from generation to generation, the traditional culture of China was interrupted in some short historical periods, and changed more or less in different historical periods, but it did not stop on the whole, and changed little on the whole.

2, national characteristics, China traditional culture is unique to China, different from other national cultures in the world.

It has a long history of five thousand years.

4. Broad and profound, "broad" refers to the broadness of China's traditional culture-rich and colorful, and "broad" refers to the profundity of China's traditional culture-unfathomable. General introduction

Some scholars believe that China's national spirit can be roughly summarized into four interrelated aspects.

1. Rational spirit

It has a long tradition of atheism, fully affirms the unity of man and nature and the unity of individual and society, and advocates that the satisfaction of personal feelings and desires is consistent with the rational requirements of society. On the whole, denying the religious worship of supernatural God and savior and the existence of the other side of the world, vigorously advocating the harmonious unity between man and nature, individual and society, and opposing the division and confrontation between them are the roots of the rational spirit of the Chinese nation.

2. The spirit of freedom

This is first manifested in the people's spirit of resisting the rule of the exploiting classes. At the same time, in the struggle against foreign oppression, some classes, groups and figures in the ruling class also actively participated in this struggle. It shows that in the ideological and cultural tradition of the ruling class in China, there are also positive aspects of loving freedom.

3. Realistic spirit

Confucianism in the pre-Qin period advocated that knowing is knowing, not knowing is not knowing, knowing people and discussing the world and opposing knowing from birth; Legalists oppose foreknowledge, pay attention to experience, emphasize implementation and praise merit; Taoism advocates knowing people, knowing oneself and analyzing the principle of everything. These are all manifestations of the spirit of seeking truth from facts.

wise and full of stratagems

(See Liu Gangji: On the Chinese National Spirit, Journal of Wuhan University 1985,No. 1. Some scholars believe that the basic spirit of China traditional culture can be summarized as respecting ancestors, interpersonal relationships, morality and etiquette. (See Sima Yunjie: Sociology of Culture, published by Shandong People's Publishing House. In addition, China's traditional culture also has the viewpoint of development, self-improvement and tireless learning spirit. (See Ding Shouhe: "Trial of China Traditional Culture", "Seeking Roots" No.4, 1987. ) This theme is hotly debated in the field of traditional culture. The following article in Guangming Daily shows that tradition and development promote each other-on the development of Chinese painting again.

After the silence of the "85 Art Trend of Thought", the one-sided situation of "pen-and-ink centralism", "pen-and-ink supremacy" and "returning to traditionalism" gradually emerged, the essence of which is to restore the value standard of taking tradition as a mirror. This situation is contrary to the general pattern of reform and opening up. Originally, the direct result of ideological emancipation in the new period was that painters had autonomy in artistic choice and diversified values. The painter's cultural mentality has also changed from single to multiple, and it is no longer possible to frame everything with a model standard. In the period of cultural transformation, we should determine the diversified value standards with different value orientations, otherwise it will not reflect the current situation of development. However, all kinds of traditional public opinion are based on pen and ink, which tends to respect pen and ink and waste a hundred schools of thought. The so-called pen and ink center is a line of defense against the integration of China and the West and artistic innovation. Even some scholars are critical of Lin Fengmian's brushwork, which has a keynote to rectify the overall pattern of artistic change and development in the 20th century. For a time, I was particularly optimistic about the "Four Kings", and it became fashionable to accumulate wealth and thin hair. In response to the one-sided public opinion, Mr. Wu Guanzhong published the article "Pen and ink equals zero". Literally, it seems that something has been done, which is essentially an inversion of the value standard set by a certain aspect. For example, the form of modern beauty lies in individuality and

Style, in fact, has gone beyond pen and ink. For example, modal structure, pen and ink value what you want, what you want is the feeling in the pen, the pen in love. What it pursues is sincerity, and its value lies in the beauty of modality, interest and charm. It is not deliberately "using the bone method to use the pen", but the focus of the examination lies in the modality of pen and ink. For another example, modern painting should emphasize the beauty of formal structure, the structural beauty of dot, line and block organization, the formal beauty of interactive care of ink and wash colors, and the tension beauty produced by dynamic structure. If we leave the era of pen and ink, leave the expression of vitality of art ontology, and talk about pen and ink abstractly, it can of course be said to be zero. The bottom of this sentence is the inversion of traditionalism. The deep root of this great discussion has not left the old topic put forward by the May 4th New Culture Movement. This century is coming to an end. Reviewing and sorting out the problems encountered in the development of the past century is of reference value to the future. It is precisely because there are two voices in the debate that the two wings go hand in hand, compete with each other and penetrate each other in art, and great gains have been made. My point of view is that the communication between tradition and modernity and the integration of East and West are the most basic successful experiences in this century. They are contradictory and interdependent. Tradition cannot be broken, development cannot be underestimated, inheritance and development should be balanced, and tradition and modernity should interact and compete, which is of great benefit to the development of Chinese painting.