Chan Aesthetics in Chinese Animation: A Conceptual Framework Integrating Semiotics and Reception Theory

Chan aesthetics has become an increasingly prominent cultural resource in contemporary Chinese animation, yet its communicative mechanism and audience meaning-making process remain theoretically underexplored. This paper aims to conceptualize how Chan aesthetics is constructed in animated texts and how it is interpreted by audiences within a media communication context. Drawing on Barthes’ semiotic theory and Reception Aesthetics, the study develops an integrated conceptual framework that connects textual meaning construction with audience reception. Within this framework, the study focuses on five core ideas of Chan aesthetics, namely enlightenment, emptiness, impermanence, non-duality, and not “established upon words and letters”, which are articulated through visual, auditory, and narrative forms at denotative, connotative, and mythic levels, while audiences actively participate in meaning construction based on their horizon of expectations. This paper argues that Chan aesthetics in Chinese animation should be understood as a dynamic process in which animation-specific forms contribute to the articulation of philosophical and aesthetic meanings, while audiences actively participate in their interpretation. The proposed framework provides a more systematic understanding of Chan aesthetic communication in animation and offers a theoretical foundation for future empirical research on audience perception and cultural transmission.