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The Aesthetics Of Witheredness And Artistic Creations In The Song Dynasty, Yun Dong

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the Song dynasty witheredness (ku) came to be the representation of a particular type of beauty, with the withered objects regarded as the object of aesthetic interest. The taste for witheredness manifests in various forms such as cold and thin, sparse and plain, old and strange, epitomizing the ancient-emulating aesthetics of the Song dynasty. Besides literary texts highlighting the withered objects, literati paintings constitute a unique world characterized by witheredness popularized with examples of withered objects such as dead trees, aged plum trees, and thin bamboos. The aesthetics for the withered reflects the taste and spiritual pursuit of the …