Yin and Yang in Chinese Culture

烹該的哲學

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By Barbara Tropp

Published 1982

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The ancient Chinese philosophy of yin—that which is feminine, dark, and yielding—and yang—that which is contrastingly masculine, bright, and hard—underlies the whole of Chinese culture. It is not a hard law or a vigorous system as the old philosophers present it, but rather a general appreciation of dualities and a faith that harmony arises from the proper blending of opposites. To that way of thinking, the world is not a matter of irreconcilable opposites, but one of complementary pairs.

A preoccupation with yin and yang is evident in all the traditional Chinese arts. The archetypal Chinese landscape painting with its solid mountain looming alongside a low-flowing evanescent stream, the classic poetic couplet with its mirror images like