On "Xing Xiang

“Xing Xiang” is an important category first put forth by Yin Fan in his work He Yue Ying Ling Ji. “Xing Xiang” in Yin's discussion is both related to and different from the term by the same name put forth by Jia Gongyan in his Zhou Li Zhu Shu .The “Xing Xiang” by Jia Gongyan refers to the technical way in which the burial articles are made, while Yin Fan's “Xing Xiang” refers to the artistic features of poems and the artistic images beyond verbal expression with aesthetic inspirational characteristics.Most artistic images given by poems of the flourishing Tang Dynasty, which are collected in He Yue Ying Ling Ji, possess the features of aesthetic inspiration and the features beyond verbal expression . This category “Xing Xiang” is, as it were ,a theoretical generalization of the seprominent features. It emphasizes more the “Yi” of the artistic images . Ever since Yin Fan , this category has been enriched and developed. Many critics use both “Xing Xiang” and “Yi Xiang”, but they use the former at a higher aesthetic level. We can therefore understand “Xing Xiang” as a new stage of development of the category of “Yi Xiang”