He is a calligrapher, painter and art educator. He has been contributing to China's art education for more than 20 years. The PHE International Youth Calligraphy and Painting Conference he founded has influenced tens of millions of people. He is Chen Shibin in June 2019.

On the 27th, Chen Shibin was invited to attend the founding meeting of the "China-Europe Humanities and Arts Education Alliance" and delivered a keynote speech titled "My Understanding and Practice of Aesthetic Education."

The following is the full text of the speech.

My understanding and practice of aesthetic education I remember that the German philosopher Nietzsche once said something that shocked the world, called "God is dead."

There are many interpretations of this sentence, but none of them has proposed a solution to what to do if God dies.

However, a hundred years after Nietzsche's death, Mr. Cai Yuanpei, the director-general of education, educational theorist, and president of Peking University in the Republic of China, proposed the solution of "replacing religion with aesthetic education."

His view had a wide impact and was strongly supported by Wang Guowei, a great scholar of his generation. Wang Guowei added: "Artists are also the religion of the upper class."

Another hundred years have passed. Although our education policy still retains the aesthetic content of "moral, intellectual, physical and aesthetic", it is a pity that our aesthetic education has not received enough attention for a long time in the past.

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Of course, we must also understand that as a new China that has just stood up in the middle of the last century, it is full of desolation and waste, and it is understandable to focus on pragmatism in subject education at this stage.

But today in the 21st century, China has developed into the second largest economy in the world, and has reached the level of developed countries in all aspects. We are still at the stage of "learning mathematics, physics, and chemistry well, and traveling around the world without fear", which is obviously too much.

Shallow and ignorant.

More than two thousand years ago, Zhuangzi once put forward the view that "the use of useless things can be of great use". This view has been widely recognized today.

Aesthetic education or art not only has practical functions, but also has a side of great use. It is the trinity of "skills, arts, and Tao" and plays an irreplaceable and important role in the aesthetic cognition and perfect personality shaping of young children.

I once wrote an article called "Aesthetics is the biggest consumption in future society."

The central meaning is that with the progress of society and the high development of material civilization, there will inevitably be a huge demand for spiritual civilization, especially the spiritual demand for aesthetics as a carrier will be greatly released.

I believe that each of us has this experience. From our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind to eating, clothing, living, traveling, traveling, learning, and entertainment, every aspect has a deep connection with beauty.

contact.

For example: when our food is combined with beauty into gourmet food, or when our clothing is customized by designers, the price will increase exponentially or even dozens of times; and the decoration and decoration of today's housing have already exceeded its construction cost; and

The design and brand value of transportation cars are already several times the manufacturing cost. There are countless examples of this.

Therefore, to some extent, aesthetics is more important than knowledge and skills.

In fact, economists have long been aware of this. They divide the development process of human economy into three major economic forms. The first is the agricultural economic form, the second is the industrial economic form, and the third is the aesthetic economic form.

This large aesthetic economic form is our current and future era.

In view of this, it is particularly urgent and important to carry out national aesthetic education.

Of course, the first priority is to provide aesthetic education to young children, because aesthetic education is the core content of shaping children's perfect personality and leading to a happy life.

In fact, children are endowed by God from the day they are born. They are beautiful in themselves, the messengers of beauty, and the incarnation of beauty. The greatest characteristics of art are innocence and nature.

It is highly consistent with the child's characteristics at this time, so the famous Spanish painter Picasso said that "every child is a born artist."

The famous German artist Beuys once said that "everyone is an artist."

The famous Chinese painter Cheng Dali said, "Children are the people closest to the master."

However, the beauty of a child at this stage does not last long.

As the mind matures and knowledge accumulates, this natural innocence and childlike interest will gradually weaken or even disappear.

If children are not aesthetically educated in time, they will not only lose their natural innocence and childlike interest, but also lose their ability to perceive art, and they will inevitably become aesthetically blind in a new era, which is a huge regret.

Therefore, I strongly appeal here that we should not only protect the children's innate innocence and innocence, but also strengthen their aesthetic education.

Below is a brief introduction to some of my practices in this field.

From 1998 to 2019, I did something that almost all artists dare not imagine and are unwilling to do.

This event is the PHE International Youth Painting and Calligraphy Conference.

This event is held every year, with the themes of peace, health, and environment, referred to as PHE in English; it targets young people and children around the world; it uses art and calligraphy as its content; it features competitions, exhibitions, and awards

, forums, publications, summer camps and a series of activities organized for the project.