Virtuous Beauty and Innate Beauty: The Fundamental Forms of Chinese Aesthetics

The Chinese aesthetic community generally holds that Xiumei (“秀美”,graceful beauty) and Zhuangmei (“壮美”,majestic beauty) correspond respectively to beauty and the sublime in Western aesthetics,constituting the fundamental forms of Chinese beauty.However,this view is untenable.Fundamental forms of beauty embody certain fundamental aesthetic ideas.Since graceful beauty and majestic beauty fail to reflect the fundamental ideas of Chinese aesthetics and do not correspond to beauty and the sublime in Western aesthetics,they should be regarded merely as two types of beauty rather than its fundamental forms.The fundamental forms of Chinese beauty are virtuous beauty and innate beauty.These two forms respectively embody two central aesthetic doctrines in Chinese thought.Virtuous beauty primarily reflects the Confucian idea that beauty lies in the perfection of moral character,whereas innate beauty mainly embodies the Daoist and Chan Buddhist belief that beauty resides in one's natural disposition.As two fundamental forms of beauty,they have each developed distinct characteristics in content and form.Virtuous beauty is marked by such aesthetic qualities as regulating emotion through reason,achieving harmony and moderation without moral deviation,and balancing refinement with simplicity,thus forming a style of masculinity and elegance.Innate beauty,by contrast,is characterized by emotional spontaneity,aloofness and transcendence,and distinctive aesthetic features,with a pure and natural style.Virtuous beauty and innate beauty interact and permeate each other while developing independently,each emerging as the dominant aesthetic trend in different historical periods.In the later stage of traditional Chinese society,virtuous beauty declined,and innate beauty became the prevailing fundamental form of beauty.