公德的消失：在「藝術」取代「美術」的背後

The Disappearance of Public Morality: The Replacement of Fine Arts with Art

1880年前後，「美術」一詞從日本傳入中國。1895年甲午中日戰爭之後，康有為和梁啟超等人使西學「美術」和傳統「藝術」觀念初步對接。二十世紀初，「立憲」和「共和」漸成時代主流觀念後，對憲政的追求使「公德」建設成為這一時期的特點。知識菁英們從「新民」理想出發，「美術」追求著獨立、真理和公德。而「美術」思想在普世過程中，於工商實業、教育、傳媒各個公共領域中發揮著它的社會作用。五四新文化運動之後，「美術」獲得了更多的美學含義，走向了大眾化。在革命一元論的語境下，代表著科學主義和自由主義的「藝術」美學取代了代表著「立憲」的「美術」公德。最終，唯物論式的審美，在馬列主義革命追求中迎來高潮。而代表著自由主義的「藝術」在革命語境下並未消逝殆盡，它成為知識分子心靈層面的隱形寄託。

Around 1880, the word“fine arts”was introduced into China from Japan. After the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and others made the initial connection between the Western“fine arts”（美術）and the traditional concept of“arts”（藝術）. At the beginning of the 20th century, constitutionalism and republicanism gradually became the mainstream ideas in those days. The pursuit of constitutional government made the construction of public morality become the characteristics of this period. Starting from the ideal of new people, the intellectual elite pursued independence, truth and public morality in fine arts. The idea of fine arts plays its social role in the public fields of industry and commerce, education and media in the process of universality. After the May Fourth New Culture Movement, fine arts gained more aesthetic meaning and became popular. In the context of revolutionary monism, Art replaced fine arts. It means scientism and liberalism replaced constitutionalism. Finally, the materialistic aesthetic enjoyed a glorious heyday when the society turned to pursue the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist ideology. The idea of“art”representing liberalism did not disappear under the revolutionary context, but became the invisible sustentation of the intellectual’s mind.