Abstract: This article aims to analyze Zong Baihua's methodological transformation of constructing Chinese artistic conception by comparing Chinese and Western paintings during the 1930s and 1940s. In the beginning, Zong Baihua describes that China and the West are respectively static and dynamic; then he turns to consider China a fusion of both by interpreting it as qiyun shengdong (rhythmic vitality), after that, he focuses on the difference between Chinese and Western painting techniques by using the ideas of "musicality" and the "perception of space" to replace the concepts of dynamic and stasis with that of time and space; and finally, he conceptualizes Chinese views of universe as "time-leading-space" in the comparison of Chinese and Western metaphysics. Through these seemingly repetitive but really difficult explorations on the methodological transformation, Zong Baihua has provided the theoretical cornerstone for the modern project of "Chinese Aesthetics".

Key words: Zong Baihua, dynamic and static civilizations, time-space, cultural metaphysics