What is art?

This is a commonplace question. "Art comes from life but is higher than life" refers to the dialectical relationship between "artistic truth" and "life truth".

We should understand that any kind of art is the product of real life reflected in the artist's mind. The individual life facts depicted in all excellent works of art (no matter how vast the life written in the works is to the whole society, it is individual) are the condensation and generalization of the actual individual life facts, and they all express the things of universal significance in life through the depiction of specific artistic images, that is, some essence and laws of life.

If the artistic image is not a writer's discovery of life, if the artistic image is only a copy of the natural appearance of life, or even "lower than life", then it will inevitably lose its value as art. Only by starting from life and taking life as the basis can we further talk about how art is higher than life. Because, whether semantically or logically, a "higher" life is based on real life first. Mr. Lu Xun said:

"The truth of art is not the truth of history ... because the latter must have something, and creation can be combined and described. As long as it is realistic, it does not necessarily have something. However, he is not based on social existence. "

In other words, what works of art describe is not equal to the "truth" of life itself, but must be based on what exists in life. Therefore, the truth of art lies in reflecting life according to the face of life itself, that is, depicting specific phenomena, people and events.

In life, we can't see the abstract essence and laws, but we can see extremely complicated phenomena and extremely colorful individual forms. In other words, different concrete phenomena contain certain essence and laws.

Therefore, writing down concrete, individual and unique life phenomena is the premise of the authenticity of the work. Paintings such as Mona Lisa's Smile, sculptures such as David, and literary works such as A Dream of Red Mansions by Cao Xueqin; Music works, such as Beethoven's Symphony of Destiny, can arouse people's enthusiastic response because they are highly summarized works of art by artists in their respective fields under the guidance of life, so they can make people feel real and tangible.

Moreover, the concreteness and richness of life are expressed through countless individual and unique phenomena. Therefore, if literary and artistic works want to truly reflect life, they must focus on describing the unique characteristics of specific life phenomena, rather than being satisfied with listing general phenomena.

Any specific life phenomenon-contradictions and conflicts, the characteristics of characters' personalities, is expressed through a series of details. Details profoundly reflect people's mental outlook, personality quality and details, and comprehensively and vividly reveal the essence and development process of contradictions and conflicts. Only by depicting some details truly and prominently can we truly show the unique life phenomenon and give people a deep feeling.

For example, Lin Daiyu in A Dream of Red Mansions, with the help of a series of meticulous descriptions, such as her tears at the sight of flowers, her sadness at the sight of rain, her concern for Ying Ge's shadow and her loss of soul at the sight of poetry, left a unique image of a rebellious girl among readers.

Another example is Yan Jiansheng in The Scholars. Before he died, he signaled with two fingers not to light two lamps to burn oil, which further exposed his stingy nature. Jin Fan used him at the banquet. On the one hand, he refused to lift ivory potatoes, on the other hand, he made a lot of detailed descriptions of Zi Yuan, a prawn, which sharply exposed his hypocrisy in mourning. ...

All these can help us understand how important it is for detail description to highlight the uniqueness of characters and plots, and then reflect the truth of life. However, the detailed description is not an end in itself. Simple detail description, even if it is realistic, can't reveal the essence and law of life. Only the unity of detail description and artistic generalization can make people see the inherent law of life through unique phenomena.

Here, the key lies in how to show a picture of life and what social problems are reflected through detailed description. There are countless real individuals and events in life. If they are not organically linked with major social issues, even if the writer describes them vividly, it is impossible to touch the essence of life.

Therefore, this so-called true representation of life is not the artistic truth we require. Among them, the true description of the phenomenon determines the true revelation of the essence. Because people know the life reflected by artistic works through perceptual artistic images, only when artistic images give people real feelings will people believe that what they reflect is the inherent law of life itself.

To truly reflect life, art must describe specific phenomena-specific people, specific things and specific environment-according to the original appearance of life, but it is by no means to stay in the imitation of real life phenomena, but to reveal the essence and laws of life through phenomena.

Therefore, literary and artistic creation should always choose and emphasize the actual words, and on this basis, process and transform them to supplement and enrich them, thus summarizing more profound social and historical content.

As I said before, no matter how vast the life picture depicted by specific works of art is, it is also individual for the whole social life. No great writer, no long work, can write the whole picture of social life; It is also impossible to write everything about a major event. Art is not a history textbook and does not need to record the whole process of social life itself.

However, it must and can depict typical characters, summarize typical plots and reveal some essential aspects of life through the true description of some characteristic details. In this sense, what a work of art reflects really goes far beyond the appearance of the concrete life phenomenon it describes, and the truth of art is higher than the truth of life.

We always talk about the relationship between art and life, especially the relationship between the reflector and the reflected, but the reflector (including all social ideologies) always actively reproduces things instead of mechanically repeating them. As far as literature and art are concerned, the life described by writers is a new real life displayed through creative activities. It has the form of real life itself, but it has a new meaning-a meaning that is included in real life but not fully displayed.

Therefore, the life reflected in literary and artistic works is not a simple equivalent of real life. Literature and art are above life, not comparing the individual with the general, but saying that the individual can reflect the general. Although A Dream of Red Mansions only describes the situation of a dozen people, what readers or viewers see and think of is a broader social life and a more universal problem.

Balzac is great, not because he can describe the French social history naturally in his novels, even more complete and detailed than some social science works, but because he centers the history of the whole French society, that is, the "realistic history", around the central picture of the gradual disappearance or corruption of feudal social remnants under the attack of bourgeois nouveau riche and the changes in the status of aristocratic women and bourgeois women.

This means that through generalization and concentration, specific life phenomena are typified, thus revealing the general significance through individual cases. Therefore, asking literature and art to truly reflect life is by no means asking literature and art to simply record life. Because not all people and things in life have typical significance, they can be summarized as artistic models.

Only those images that are more vivid, vivid and prominent than real life and reveal the essence and laws of life after generalization and concentration are typical artistic images. Only through this typical artistic image to reflect the life of literature and art can it be higher than real life.

The colorful real life determines the colorful artistic image. But we must never come to the conclusion that art cannot be compared with real life at all. As I said before, whether literature and art are superior to life is not from the comparison of phenomena and quantity, but from the essential significance of the things described in literary and artistic works. Since literature and art are the condensation and generalization of real life, the beauty of art must be higher than the beauty of life.

The most important content of artistic truth is the authenticity of emotion and ideological tendency naturally revealed with the description of images. Only by integrating the objective life phenomenon, its inherent essence and laws with the writer's subjective knowledge and experience can literary and artistic works have perceptual credibility and great persuasion.

Throughout the ages, all works that are widely circulated are because they can impress readers with sincere feelings. Shi Mi's Chen Qingbiao, Han Yu's Ode to Twelve Lang, Ouyang Xiu's Drunken Pavilion, Gui Youguang's Ji Xiang Xuan Ji, etc. The reason why these essays are widely known is that most of them describe parent-child patterns and personal feelings, and people can hold different views on their ideological tendencies, but we have to admit that they are all voices from the author's heart without any correction.

The aesthetic characteristics of literature and art have produced the special functions of literature and art. Only when the works inspire readers emotionally can they inspire readers ideologically. A work that lacks true feelings, no matter how correct the idea is and how great the theme is, can't play its due role.

If the author wants to praise or condemn life events and characters in his works, it will inevitably make readers feel that this is false preaching and unreliable, even if the works depict real and meaningful things in life, it is impossible to infect readers.

Because, in literary and artistic works, the author's love and hate always naturally permeate into the perceptual image, which can neither be hidden nor disguised, and the artificial image will not give readers a sense of reality. In this sense, sincere and deep feelings determine the ideological strength of the work. Therefore, the feelings melted in the artistic image are feelings with deep thoughts, and the thoughts infiltrated in the artistic image are thoughts that condense emotional strength.

Only the artistic realm that is closely related to ideological tendency and emotional state and reveals certain essence and laws is the most real and touching artistic realm. Only by condensing the image of the author's true feelings can we reveal the true and profound thoughts.

Emotion permeates the whole picture depicted in the work. The ups and downs of feelings are always bound up with the nature of contradictions and conflicts and the fate of characters, which concretely and profoundly embodies the author's social ideal and aesthetic ideal. Therefore, the concrete description of phenomena, the vivid portrayal of characters and the truth of life are connected into an organic whole through emotional clues, showing the great power of artistic truth, which is also a concentrated and vivid embodiment of artistic beauty!

In a word, the truth of art is based on the writer's discovery of life, and works of art always give people more things than real life experience.

The artistic image form is more distinct than life itself, the ideological understanding is clearer and deeper than general understanding, and the emotional tendency is more dignified and stronger than daily feelings. This determines that the truth of art is higher than the truth of life. It is precisely because people are exposed to such kind and fresh things from literary and artistic works that they are willing to appreciate literature and art.

It is precisely because of this intuition and authenticity of works of art that the most universal social significance of art is determined. That is, "art comes from life but is higher than life".