The Aesthetics of Rites-Music and Traditional China

Abstract: Chinese history has been characterized by many concepts in modern historical research. But none serves more influential in shaping Chinese history as rites-music (“礼乐”). It can define the nature of Chinese civilization, culture, politics and institution, correspondingly, each of which can be entitled as a rites-music one. However, rites-music was preliminarily and essentially based on traditional aesthetics and arts. Rites (“礼”) mainly refers to the elegance of the behavior, ceremonial art and fine arts of rites, and music (“乐”) refers to verse, music and dance. Thus, rites-music is the synthesis of these aesthetics and the art manifestations. This background reveals the value of the aesthetics to the traditional China. In this sense, the aesthetic tradition characterized as rites-music is the most fundamental tradition, and the rites-music spirit aimed at grace both in language and social behaviors constitutes the soul of the national spirit. Hence, setting up the rites-music aesthetics will contribute to declare the core position of the aesthetics in Chinese humane history, and facilitate the research of Chinese aesthetics history equate to the national history while it quitting the conventional pattern.