The Significance of Chinese Aesthetics in This Globalization Time

This paper proposes to articulate the differences among premodern, modern, and postmodern on the perspective of structuralist semiotics, and with which to explain the significance of Chinese aesthetics in this globalization time. There are some similarities in semiotic structure between premodern Chinese aesthetics and postmodern west aesthetics, i. e. both emphasize the relationship between art or the aesthetic and real life, and thus they can join together to fight against modern aesthetics which emphasizes the autonomy of art and the aesthetic. But the differences between premodern Chinese aesthetics and postmodern west aesthetics seem to be even clear. The former emphasizes that art should follow the principle of reality, and the latter, on the contrary, emphasizes that reality can be looked as a kind of art. These differences make Chinese aesthetics very important in rescuing postmodern west aesthetics from the one-sided emphasizing on the fictitiousness.