Abstract

Jing Hao’s Notes on Brushwork describes two principles: vital energy and resonance. How to uphold them? Li Zehou helps us: he interprets Jing Hao and the complementarity of Confucianism and Daoism. However, Li Zehou also makes that puzzling. Qi is born from an a priori or noumenal rationality, and Daoist aesthetic delight arises from a content that is noumenal. I explain: Li Zehou is held back by his use of Kant’s frameworks for ethics and aesthetic judgment. Pragmatist writers do interpret qi as an observable extensiveness. But they fail to account for Jing Hao’s claim that vital painting resonates with nature at a level more basic than resemblance to perceptible shapes and events. I suggest a path. I begin with Li Zehou’s own statement “the “individual sensuous existence” of each person is “completely and utterly unique.” Stephen Owen helps, by interpreting Jing Hao’s principle qi in relation to xiang, a manifest image that is not perceived as a shape or event. Peng Feng takes us further, by explaining how Wang Yangming describes xiang. My conclusion: Jing Hao and neo-Confucianism are live-options today for improved thinking about nature, ethics and aesthetic delight.