Li Zhi As a "Performance Artist"——From the View of "Existentialism"

The pursuit of free anima was the fundamental and ultimate life pursuit of the greatest ideologist—Li Zhi . This pursuit determined that Li Zhi regarded the so-calledrecreationin artsas his life’s supreme realm; what’s more ,it has decided that he not only chose his unique life path by means of being aperformance artist,but also selected his end result in manner of aperformance artist. With the unity of knowledge and action, all these facts made Li Zhi become a rare and thoroughgoingexistentialistamong ancient Chinese intellectuals . The freestyle life pursuit and profound existential life-attention can be traced back to the original Confucians’self-learning,it is also rooted directlyin theUnion of Body and Taoism—a kind of philosophical thought taken by Taizhou School at the end of the Ming Dynasty .It is an inevitable outcome of the Chinese ancient philosophical ideology and can not beinterpreted by thetheory of economical determinismwhich is a prevailing western mode .