Genius as an Innate Mental Talent of Idea-giving in Chinese Painting and Kant

This essay is an attempt to examine the feasibility of projecting Kant's account of genius as an innate mental talent of idea-giving in the context of qiyun (spirit consonance)-focused Chinese painting. I will explain parallels and significant diff erences between pictorial yi (idea) or yixiang (ide a-image) and Kant's aesthetic idea, and between the shen (spirit) taken to animate yi and the spirit that Kant thinks animates the aesthetic idea.