Abstract My thesis mainly discussed a delicate relationship
between the status ofpainting and concept of art.During the
Middle age,painting was viewed as theMechanical arts which
opposed to the Liberal arts. Through the humanistic discourse on
Renaissance,the status of painting was clined to the liberal
artsgraually. Up to 17th century,French Academy accepted
painting as one of theliberal arts.After fifty years,painting
was transferred to be the Fine arts.Asan obervation on this
process, this thesis doesn't make any conlcusion,but choose
certain method and data properly during my discussion. This
thesis os divided into three chapters in accordance with the
development on the status of painting.The first chapter explains
how humanism in Renaissan-ce, constructed the developmental
foundation of discourse on painting.According to A.Chastel's
analysis,it indicates the domain of rhetoric and concept of
drawing constructed the condition of painting which moves it's
placeto the liberal arts through rational dicipline. I select
some viewpoints from C.Le Brun, A.Felibien, R. de Piles to make
a comparison with each other.Besides,the system of knowledge
charged and a lot of new knowledge was produced at the same
time.For dealing with this phenomenon, systematization was
created next century. In 18th century, painting transferred
from liberal arts to fine arts.Thereforethe third chapter,the
most important part in this thesis,expresses the develop-ment
after painting has been included as the fine arts.In this
chapter,I take the Encyclopedia(1750-1780)as my research
material, which edited by D.Diderot.In the begining, I consider
the System of Human Knowledge of Encyclopedia which presented
the framework of systematization.Systematization is considered
asituation that formulated a new system which mix the new and
the old knowledge.The contributor wrote those articles on the
fine arts,quoted the Empiricism as their basic for discussion
which resulted in painting got higher status thanthe other arts
in the fine arts.From maintaining the old system,the
contributorsdidn't complete the function of systematization. D.
Diderot, the main editor of Encyclopedia and the contributor of
the article <Art>,attempted to achieve this object. He tried to
mix the new and the old knowledges, and this attitudeimplied on
his viewpoints of traditional dialectic debate between
themechanical arts and the liberal srts. In the article <Art>,
he distillsan abstract concept from the crafts (arts) and
manufactures. And he emphasized on the importance of the
mechanical arts. When he located paintingon the sphere of the
mechanical arts, he didn't look down upon it. On the contrary,
he possessed more objective attitude on painting. The status of
painting tended to be stable on the 18th century.