Reading Mr. Xu Fuguan’s "The Spirit of Chinese Art", the opening chapter talks about the spirit of ritual and music in Confucian culture. Mr. Wang examined classics, quoted ancient theories, traced the origins, combined with experience and insights, and proposed that the Confucian spirit of ritual and music is actually the art of life. This is a supreme artistic realm that directly reaches people's hearts and harmoniously unifies beauty and goodness. Although this artistic spirit for life is gradually declining on the road of music, it has influenced China's literary creation for thousands of years.

There is no doubt that Confucius loved music. In "The Family of Confucius", Sima Qian recorded in detail the process of learning the guqin from Xiangzi. His expressions about music can be seen everywhere in the "Analects of Confucius" written by his disciples. "I don't know the taste of meat in March", ""Guanyong" is happy but not obscene, sad but not sad"...

Confucius liked music, appreciated music, and had standards and requirements for music. In the Analects of Confucius, it is said that "Zi called Shao, which is both beautiful and good." From this, we can understand that Confucius's requirement for music is the unity of beauty and goodness. Beauty belongs to the category of art, and goodness belongs to the category of morality. How to achieve the harmonious unity of the two? According to Confucius, ""Guanyong" is happy but not obscene, sad but not sad", that is, music that is not obscene and not sad should be "medium" music. Regarding the music of "neutral" and "harmony", it has always been the standard adopted by Confucian disciples for music. Later, Xunzi's "Music Theory" clearly pointed out, "Therefore, music is the discipline of neutrality."

Following Confucius' idea of ??integrating the perfection of art with the perfection of morality (benevolence), Confucianism extended that music is not only meaningful in political education, but also contributes to personal personality cultivation.

In terms of political education, on the basis of musical education, the concept of etiquette was later introduced. "Legends of Music" says, "Music comes from the middle, and rituals come from the outside. Music comes from the middle, so it is quiet. Ritual comes from the outside, so the text. Great music must be easy, and great rituals must be simple." In Xunzi's view, because The evil nature of human nature requires the use of external forms of ritual to regulate human behavior. But after all, etiquette is only a constraint that "stops from the outside" and is coercive. In order to channelize and transform people's inner temperament, it needs to be guided by the joy of "coming out from the middle." But the "music" that can educate people's hearts must be a controlled "neutral" sound, rather than following the happy emotions like the "Zheng Sheng", thinking that it satisfies people's sensory desires, goes along with it, and encourages people to do what they want. The "obscene" pleasure that stirs people's hearts.

Through the innocent content, the natural unity with the neutral form, to the harmony of social customs.

In terms of personality cultivation, according to "Music", the three elements that constitute music are "poetry", "song" and "dance". "The three are based on the heart", that is, the three do not need to be objective external objects. Access comes directly from the heart, so it can be "deeply affectionate and civilized, and powerful and spiritual." Mr. Xu Fuguan believes that the "heart" in Confucianism is the moral heart of a person, which is what we call "conscience." Therefore, "the joy that comes from the heart integrates human morality and passion, whereby passion is settled and morality is supported." On this basis, Confucianism established the art of "art for life" Spirit.

Happiness should not follow the expression of human desires without scruples, but start from the moral conscience deep in life. This is different from the subconscious and stream of consciousness advocated in the West. This is the direct way to the source of life. Realization of earth. The combination of morality and emotion brings harmony to life. Through music, people's artistic realm and moral quality are lifted upward, "breaking through to true art beyond art, and great joy beyond happiness."

The final conclusion is that the spirit of ritual and music advocated by Confucius is a kind of silence of heaven and earth, which needs to be emanated from "quietness" and embody a silent music that reaches the depths of life. "In the highest realm of goodness, it breaks through the limitations of art." "Sex, and immerse life in the infinite artistic realm where beauty and benevolence are unified." Let physiological desires be integrated into moral rationality, and achieve harmonious unity through real life.

Historical Development As a result, we have seen that the artistic spirit of music advocated by Confucius has not declined. The main reason is that with the development of later generations, people's moral cultivation methods are diversified. There is no need to use music as a form of way to preserve the principles of nature and achieve conscience. Secondly, the music advocated by Confucius is a kind of ancient music, which requires people to calm down their floating emotions before they can enjoy it. The sensual pleasure of secular music, even the institutions set up by rulers to collect music, are increasingly moving towards secular music, leading to the decline of ancient elegant music.

Although the musical spirit of Confucius declined, it did not disappear, but it did not disappear. It is transformed into another form and continues to develop. The most direct point is the development of poetry and music in later generations. These artistic categories have completely expressed music, but they have retained the rhythm and rhythm of language. This itself is also a reflection of the life advocated by Confucius. The inheritance of the artistic spirit of music.