Abstract: The discourse system of Chinese aesthetics in the 20th century generally underwent a developmental process from “aesthetics in China” to the construction of “Chinese aesthetics”,and the construction of “Chinese aesthetics” is precisely the key to exploring the independent knowledge system of Chinese aesthetics.The aesthetic exploration of Zong Baihua,a modern Chinese aesthetician,went through an evolutionary course where,starting from German philosophical-psychological aesthetics,it moved to cross-cultural artistic aesthetics,and finally evolved into Chinese cultural aesthetics.In terms of his fundamental aesthetic propositions,there showed a shifting tendency of returning from the modern aesthetics discourse system centered on “beauty” to the indigenous Chinese discourse tradition of “Wen”.The in-depth reason for this shift lies in Zong Baihua's awareness that the disciplinary achievements of Western modern aesthetics are incompatible when addressing issues related to Chinese art,and that Chinese aesthetics possesses uniqueness distinct from Western aesthetics.Consequently,Zong Baihua is able to excavate and bring to light classical aesthetic discourses with distinct Chinese local characteristics such as “Wen” and “Wenxin” through his examination of tradition.Moreover,he has provided a paradigm for constructing the independent knowledge system of Chinese aesthetics by means of integrating Chinese and Western thoughts and activating traditional approaches.

Key words: Zong Baihua, “beauty”, “Wen”, the aesthetics of “Wenxin”, the independent knowledge system of Chinese aesthetics