By searching the research papers on Cai Yuanpei in CNKI, the research on Cai Yuanpei’s thought on aesthetic education has been conducted in terms of annual publication trends, distribution of journals, and distribution of high-frequency words. The results show that during 1983-2022 a total 5503 papers were published in China, of which 1454 papers were on Cai’s thought of aesthetic education; 37 kinds of journals have published research papers on Cai Yuanpei’s thoughts on aesthetic education and most of them are journals of art; and the hot issues of research are related to three major themes: “education”, “aesthetics as a substitute for religion” and “modernity”.