Jade products that imitate ancient Chinese art samples are a special kind of objects that, in their form and decor, are close to or likened to more ancient works of arts and crafts. The article explores the artistic form and characteristic features of imitations of ancient jade products of the Qing era, presented in the collections of Russian museums and the Palace Museum of China. The object of the study are objects of Chinese art of jade (...) carving, which are in the collection of the Palace Museum (Beijing), the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. Peter the Great (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg) and the State Museum of Oriental Art (Moscow), where the use of imitations of ancient objects was discovered. Artistic analysis of jade imitations allows us to conclude that the works of the Qing era were more complex and diverse in form, decor and carving techniques compared to Han products, while the craftsmen, although they managed to preserve the classical sophistication of objects, lost the severity and solemnity of Han jade. As well as the art history analysis of the works, one can see that the forms and decors of jade objects are the product of aesthetic consciousness. The novelty of this study lies in the fact that the varieties and features of imitations of ancient jade during the Qing Dynasty are summarized, and the huohuan technique in jade processing is confirmed. This may be of interest to researchers in related scientific fields. (shrink)

The article examines the influence of ancient Chinese philosophical concepts on the formation of modern piano art in China. Ancient Chinese materialistic philosophy is based on such teachings as Wu-xing and Yin-Yang, the Great Limit (Tai Chi), the eight trigrams and others. With the passage of time and the rapid development of science, these philosophical concepts not only did not lose their significance, but also had a powerful influence on the formation of modern Chinese piano creativity, deeply influenced (...) the form and cultural connotation of Chinese music, and also became the theoretical basis for the works of many modern composers. The philosophical and aesthetic Taiji system presented by composer Zhao Xiaosheng, integrated into the modern piano composition system, marked the beginning of a revolution in the field of piano art, combining the theoretical foundations of traditional Chinese philosophy and the principles of modern composition methods. The research methodology is based on philosophical and cultural analysis, musicological analysis, and semantic analysis. Of particular interest is the comparative analysis of the musical and philosophical "Tai chi composition system" by Zhao Xiaoshen, the dodecaphony of A. Schoenberg and the set theory of M. Babbitt and A. Fort, which the Chinese composer considers the sources of his creativity. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that a correlation is proposed between the key categories of ancient Chinese philosophy and modern experiments in the field of musical expression. The authors managed to demonstrate the high degree of influence of Chinese philosophy on music, to clearly show that the basic postulates of ancient Chinese philosophy have been encoded in the basis of traditional Chinese music since ancient times, and in the twentieth century they were the basis of modern Chinese theory of composition, while playing a colossal role in identifying the common foundations of modern composition of the West and East, while preservation of local features of the diverse sphere of these cultures. The emergence and formation of a philosophical and theoretical system of musical composition, based on the concepts of classical Chinese philosophy, organically refracted in the latest achievements of Western music composition, emphasizes the ontological significance of these concepts for both Eastern and Western culture. And the creation of appropriate musical works undoubtedly leads to positive trends in the development of modern Chinese music and classical Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

The Russian poet and anthroposophist Andrei Belyi has four poems from 1918 with the same title, Anthroposophy [Antroposofiia]. These are love poems and anthroposophy is represented in them as a living spiritual being of female gender. The principal attribute of this being is a "clear gaze," "flashing eyes," which regard the poet from the precincts of light, of blueness, from waves of aromas and musical harmonies. These verses are clearly oriented to the poem "Three Encounters" [Tri vstrechi] by Vladimir (...) Solov'ev, the theme of which is the thrice-repeated vision of what Solov'ev recognized as the Sophia of the ancient Gnostics and of Jakob Böhme. How are we to understand Belyi's enigmatic poetic intent? How does anthroposophy—a "science of the spirit," an occult system created by Rudolf Steiner—become in Belyi's imagination now a "sister," now a beloved—"tender, gentle, and kind"—linked to the poet by a mysterious and fateful meeting in eternity? Most importantly, what does this anthropomorphism of anthroposophy mean? The suggestion that these verses may have had real prototypes poems does not eliminate the question. But the question is resolved if we turn to a very well-known and in certain respects key lecture by Steiner entitled "The Essence of Anthroposophy," which he gave in Berlin in February 1913, and which Andrei Belyi attended. This lecture not only provides the key to those of Belyi's poems of interest to us here; it also brings us directly to the theme of our present study, inasmuch as its content creates a bridge between Russian religious culture of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, developing under the aegis of Sophia, and the latest German gnosis. It is therefore worth dwelling on it especially. (shrink)