本文探討徐復觀如何以莊學建立其山水畫藝術哲學，分析出想像力之自由奔馳才是此藝術精神之核心，並從而論證為何徐復觀拒絕以禪宗作為藝術理論之一般性基礎，而必須以莊學為核心。在〈畫山水序〉之詮釋中，他持莊學作為詮釋之中心，其觀點雖然無矛盾之處，但宗炳的另一著作〈明佛論〉，其實可以作為詮釋〈畫山水序〉之背景思想，最近的研究亦支持此點。但此類詮釋背後之藝術理論，會把〈畫山水序〉引領到有類於西方泛神論的形上美學，其引發之情感，應是宗教上的莊嚴相，而不是一般理解山水畫中的閑情逸致。徐復觀沒有忽略思想史，而是從莊學美學之觀點切入，不承認以佛法身與自然之關係所可能形構出的藝術理論，其觀點乃主張佛家並無想像力之概念，因而不能成為藝術哲學之一般性根基。對徐復觀而言，禪宗之超脫，乃指對緣起之解脫，這屬於宗教感之自由解脫，而非與物互化、共感之想像力之自由。莊學開展的之所以是藝術精神，乃在於他表現物我兩忘之想像，由竹而為人，莊周而為蝶，乃神話之創造性自由，而非泛泛的超越世俗的自由。本文進一步指出徐復觀所述的藝術精神，不止是一種修養性的精神，而且真實地可以在藝術創造中引發藝術作品，其論證就在於蘇東坡的畫論之中。 In this paper I discuss how Hsu Fu-kuan builds the philosophy of arts for chinese nature painting, and analyzes the free actions of imagination as a core in spirit of arts, and according to this I argue why Hsu refuses the Zen-school(禪宗) as the general basis for the theory of arts and why he fails to constitiute a general undestanding for arts. In the interpretation for 〈Prefere to Painting the Nature (畫山水序)〉Hsu means that Zhuangzi (莊子) can be seen as a core to interpret 〈Prefere to Painting the Nature〉 of Zongbing (宗炳) as a universal theory of arts without contradiction to his another work 〈 a Commentary on awakening Buddha (明佛論)〉as his private life in practice. The recent researches oppose his interpretation. But this opposition lead〈Prefere to painting the Nature〉to a difficulty in similarity to pantheistic metaphysical aesthetics, the caused from arts feeling is nothing but religious representation of solemnity not leisure in chinese landscape painting as we understand generally. Instead of neglection from history of thought, Hsu understands 〈Prefere to painting the Nature〉from the standpoint of aesthetics of Zhuangzi to derive that the thought of Buddhism is a lack of imagination without general basics for philosophy of arts. Transcendence in Zen-school concerns for Hsu only with the freedom from causality, but it belongs to freedom for religious feeling, not for the reciprocal reduction between human beings and natural beings, that is not for the freedom in imagination of common feelings. What is developed from Zhuangzi is spirit of arts, because such spirit shows nothing but the imagination of reciprocal forgetting, from bamboo to human, from Zhuangzi to butterfly, it is creative freedom of myth, not a freedom which is transcendent over mundaneness in general. In this paper I would further indicate that the stated by Hsu spirit of arts can't be seen as a spirit of cultivation, but can cause really art works in creation of art, his argument is in the theory of painting of Su don-po (蘇東坡).
