The Lamp in the Mirror: Chinese and Western Mimeticism and Lyricism in Artistic Representation

In the study of classical aesthetic thought across cultures, there exists a view on the ontology and epistemology of artistic representation widely accepted in China and the West. It is an oppositional paradigm based on the contrast between Western mimesis and mimeticism and Chinese lyricism and expressionism. With further exposition, this view has been accepted by numerous scholars and exerted a strong impact upon the study of Chinese and Western literature and art. To what extent is this view reasonable? Is it an accurate reflection of the historical development of Chinese and Western traditions? Can it describe the ontological and epistemological differences in Chinese and Western artistic representation? What is the real condition of Chinese and Western mimesis and lyricism? This article selects two groups of thinkers who have expressed views on these questions: Laozi, Guanzi, Wei Hong, Cao Pi, Lu Ji, Liu Xie, Ye Xie, Li Zhi and others from the Chinese tradition, and Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Longinus, Schelling, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Dennis, Heidegger and others from the Western tradition in relation to the views of some modern philosophers, theorists, and scholars, with the aim to analyze their discourses of artistic representation and to find out to what extent the oppositional paradigm is true and valid and whether it is possible to locate a common ground for different theories of representation. On the basis of a close reading of some influential discourses of artistic representation, this article proposes “lamp in the mirror” as a concept that fuses binary dichotomies and hopes to gain some insights for the construction of global aesthetics.