Gao Shiming
The Crisis of Landscape
Gao Shiming
What we see reflected in twentieth-century Chinese shanshui (ink landscape) painting is the destruction and chaos wrought upon the natural landscape by the century’s civilizational conflicts, and the resulting pandemonium of symbols and images. Xu Longsen seeks to restore some kind of order to shanshui from within this chaotic and broken state. In his monumental compositions, his gaze looks far into the past, to the dense mists and the boundless primeval darkness at the beginning of time, when Heaven and Earth came into being Within this monumentality of scale, the forms, patterns and connotations of brush painting all undergo a fundamental change.
Xu Longsen has revived the cardinal virtues of Chinese painting—the qualities of being forceful and unrestrained, open-hearted and expansive. Over a period of five centuries, the presence of these qualities in Chinese painting was gradually diminished under the dual impact of the literati ‘studio culture’ of the Ming and Qing periods, and the modern art academy. In Xu Longsen’s creative process, these qualities have been recaptured and revitalized.
For Xu, the total experience of his art is not only a question of what Zong Bing (style name Zong Shaowen, 375-443) described as ‘spiritual’ travel–entering into the realm of a landscape painting through quiet contemplation–but also a question of the way Xu Longsen actively responds to the public space.
What contemporary artists must face is no longer an era in which art was appreciated by ‘two like-minded souls sharing their thoughts in a hut in the wilderness,’ as the literary scholar Qian Zhongshu (1910-1998) put it, but rather an era in which art is seen within the cacophony of a public space. The art of landscape painting must confront the new reality of mammoth exhibition spaces shared with a plethora of other media, with the implication that all kinds of artistic practices are now being integrated into the public culture of contemporary society. Xu Longsen’s monumental landscapes thus constitute a kind of proactive practice through which a contemporary shanshui painter has taken on the challenges presented by the cacophonous public space of today’s exhibition venues.
The monumental scale of Xu Longsen’s shanshui painting is not the only element that sets his works apart from tradition: there is also a fundamental change taking place within the painting process itself. The imposing and powerful structure of his landscapes requires an almost military level of tactical planning, as well as a disciplined physical control balanced by an active and vital spirit, in order to achieve the creative momentum required to execute and display these monumental vistas. The Dao of painting is the Dao of change. We do not live and create in a vacuum, but rather in a social reality defined by public space. This social reality has already profoundly changed the way we experience and think about our world. Xu Longsen has said that, for Chinese landscape painters, this era of public space is both a daunting challenge and a new opportunity given by history. If the culture of the scholar’s studio encouraged the literati to cling to a belief in the implicit beauty power contained within simplicity, as expressed in the poem by Liu Yuxi (772 – 842): ‘Mountains need not be high to be famous, if immortals dwell there/Waters need not be deep to be enchanted, if dragons live within’; then what the art of calligraphy must seek as it enters this age of public space is a state of mind which accepts the grand scale, in which ‘no mountain is too high, and no ocean is too deep’. To achieve this state of mind requires not only a deeply felt experience of the ‘mountains and water’ of nature, but also a willingness to engage in a profound reflection on the culture of shanshui painting, and to develop a more nuanced understanding of the nature of shanshui itself.
Through his landscape practice Xu Longsen constructs his own primeval world: and even though the elements of nature illuminated within this world are part of a communal environment, Xu’s realm of landscape is completely different from those realms created by traditional landscape artists, which can be ‘roamed through and inhabited’. In contrast, Xu’s landscapes loom before the viewer as remote, amorphous scenes anchored in quiet and solitude: these are realms that do not invite entry. Perhaps Xu Longsen’s intention is to subvert the Confucian notion that ‘The wise love the the water; the benevolent enjoy the mountains’. Instead, perhaps what Xu seeks to create is a kind of response that is in keeping with the Daoist concept that ‘Heaven and Earth are not benevolent: they treat all creatures as straw dogs’ (i.e. insignificant)[1]. The creative forces of Heaven and Earth follow the ‘method’ of Nature, and the ‘method’ of ‘Nature’ goes beyond ‘the joys of benevolence and wisdom’: it is no more nor less than the eternal cycle of birth and decay.
In his ‘Letter to Zhu Yuansi’, the Southern Dynasties scholar Wu Jun (469-520) wrote: Those who aspired to honour and fame and wished to fly as high as eagles would have their minds settled in peace when looking at these elevated peaks. Those who were engaged in mundane affairs would loiter there with no thought of return when gazing at these valleys.[2]
Today when we gaze into a realm of landscape, can it be that what we seek as its essential nature is still no more than the pleasure of spiritual roaming and rarefied communal enjoyment?
(Translation by Valerie C. Doran)
[1] This quotation is from Chapter 5 of the Daodejing: 天地不仁，以萬物為芻狗
[2] Translation of excerpt from Wu Jun’s ‘Letter to Zhu Yuansi’ by Xie Baikui, see http://www.en84.com/article-7957-1.html
《山水的危機》
高士明
在二十世紀的山水畫面上所呈現的，是文明衝突中山河的破碎與擾亂，是一個符號與意象的亂世。徐龍森欲在此山水之離亂中重新理出次序，在巨大的畫面上再次追憶起天地初開之際的浩瀚冥漠、氤氳盤礡。這紀念碑式的水墨巨制中，筆墨的形態、法式與意蘊產生了根本性的變化。
徐龍森復興了中國畫的重要品格：雄渾而恣肆，磊落而曠達，在過去的五百餘年中，這些品格已經因明清的書齋化、近代的學院化而漸趨淪喪。而在徐龍森的創作中，這種品格的重新獲得，不止因為他對於宗少文所說的“坐究四荒”的觀覽境界的追摹；而且在於他對當代公共空間的積極回應。當代的畫家所要應對的，不再是“荒江野老”，也不再是書齋中的“二兩素心人”，而是一個喧囂的公共空間的時代。在這個時代，山水畫所面對的是與其他媒介共用的巨大的展示空間，另一方面也意味著，在今天，所有的藝術實踐都被整合在當代社會的公共文化之中。徐龍森的巨幅山水創作，可以被視為當代國畫家應對當代公共空間的一種積極的實踐。
徐龍森的巨幅作品，不止於形制之變，在畫面中有某些更為根本的東西改變了。氣勢雄渾的格局不但需要如履薄冰的經營，更需要發願與籌謀， 列兵佈陣的兵法；繪畫狀態不但要“官知止而神欲行”，也要求“批大郤，導大窾”的魄力和能量；同時，能為如此巨幅，依託的不只是“胸中意趣”，更要有“胸中丘壑”與“胸中”。畫之道乃易之道，我們在當前的社會公共空間中生活和創作著，這一現實已經深刻地改變了我們的經驗與思想。徐龍森深信，這個公共空間的時代是歷史給山水畫家的一個巨大挑戰，同時也是一次重大的機遇，如果說書齋文化蒙養了“山不在高，有仙則靈；水不在深，有龍則靈”的文人寄託和情致；那麼，進入公共空間時代的書法藝術所要追求的，則是“山不厭高，海不厭深”的宏大境界。欲達到這一境界，不但需要對於山川造化的深切體驗，還需要對於中國山水文化的深刻判斷以及對於山水意興的細膩體驗。
徐龍森的山水實踐是他一個人的洪荒世界，雖然其中映射出所有人的山河歲月，但他的山水卻絕非傳統山水畫講求的“可游可居之境”，山水寂泊茫昧，拒絕人的進入。徐龍森的野心，或許是要顛覆“仁者樂山，智者樂水”的儒教精神，他所要做的，或許是對“天地不仁，以萬物為芻狗”的一種應和。天地造化皆以自然為“法”，而“自然”之“法”卻恰恰超出“仁智之樂”，那是創造與衰朽的永恆輪回。南朝吳均《與朱元思書》中說到：“鳶飛戾天者，望峰息心；經綸世務者，窺穀忘反。”今日視之，山水之要義又豈止在於臥遊暢神、煙雲供養？
Chang Tsong-Zung
From Monumental Landscapes as a Mode of Display to the Literary Gathering as Artistic Uprising
Chang Tsong-Zung
- On the Semi-Private Exhibition
Both European and Chinese cultures have a tradition of ‘semi-private’ exhibition practice: in Europe it is the salon gathering, in China the literati gathering (yaji). Strictly speaking, however, the salon gathering is not a major display practice, but rather only serves as a footnote to museum practice. The significance of this footnote lies with the nature of its constituents, which contrast with those of the museum. As we know, the museum as public space is a phenomenon that originated in the nineteenth century and was directly related to the rise of the new public citizen for whom the creation of and access to a public space was both a right and a duty. In the social contract, the museum does not have the right to refuse entry to any citizen, and in return the public citizen has the duty to comport himself in a manner suited to a member of civic society. Both the art salon and the literati gathering exist outside of this particular relational structure. In these gatherings, participants must be invited or at least be part of the same inner circles. Strangers are not usually welcome nor do they have the right to demand entry.
Monumental ink landscape (shanshui) paintings challenge the conceptual parameters of the modern exhibition hall, and force a consideration of alternative modes of display. In installing his monumental scrolls, Xu Longsen transforms the exhibition hall into a virtual literati garden, in which he replaces the environment of trees, flowers, and rockeries of the natural garden with the environment contained within his scrolls. This act of display within a garden by extension relates to the model of the literati gathering.
Xu Longsen has recently been experimenting with the concept of the semi-private exhibition as a contemporary mode of literati gathering. In a recent event in Beijing, he brought the different art forms that are part of the traditional literati gathering into his environment: not only painting and calligraphy, but also music, dance and chansons. The traditional role of the host in a literary gathering was in this instance replaced by the curator, and it was through the mutual interaction of the artist and the curator that both the audience and the artwork were energized. Within this approach lies the potential for the creation of a new mode of literati gathering for this era.
- The Literati Gathering
The literati gathering is essentially an interaction between host and guests. While the guest is not attending as a ‘citizen’, he has an active role to play. The literati guest is here to complete this performance of display together with the host. If he is a connoisseur of calligraphy or painting he will be expected to express his opinion, articulated as a colophon or lines of poetry, sometimes inscribed on the artwork. If he is a connoisseur of performance he is expected to engage intellectually and aesthetically with the performance and exchange his insights. In other words, artworks and performances both need to be brought to life by guests on the occasion. They are fulfilled as artworks within the context of this gathering.
- People’s Uprisings as both Celebration and Mobilization
Any event or action that creates a deep impression also creates a response and often will inspire participation. ‘Participatory art’ is an experiment started by a small number of artists in the West; but even when enacted on a grand scale, participatory art cannot compete with the noise and excitement generated by social movements. Yet the powerful global response to the Occupy movements is not necessarily because of their revolutionary nature: rather, their compelling political significance lies in their being participatory actions that generate the hope for a life that challenges taboos and goes beyond regulated boundaries. This is an expectation that cannot be fulfilled by rock concerts or commercially structured festivals. On the other hand, the open spirit of taboo breaking is exactly what makes contemporary art so attractive, and it is precisely here that literati culture has insights to offer. The culture of the literati gathering has always involved a mode of ‘participatory display’ that places an expectation on the audience to play an active role. It is thus up to us to revive the activity of the literati gathering, and to understand it as a kind of ‘artistic uprising’ that offers to the contemporary ‘participatory art’ practice an alternative yet related paradigm with a deep historical resonance. The literary gathering stirs things up and recharges the spirit, because its total effect is that of a kind of personal enlightenment for the participatory audience, one that takes place within their own lives; and at the same time it creates the environment and occasion in which art that is dormant comes fully alive.
- From the Monumentality of Landscape to the Monumentality of Trees
The influence of the Six Canons of Chinese painting (a treatise written in the sixth century) has endured through the centuries, because of the way it directs artistic pursuit towards the transcendent spirit of nature. The rhythmic spirit of clouds and mists, the flowing arteries of rivers and waterfalls, and the bones and sinews of high mountains and ridges are integral to the language of landscape painting. Xu Longsen’s monumental trees equally and uncannily capture these same qualities of the natural landscape and the nature of landscape painting.
- What Volume Tells Us
In traditional culture, people made gardens and rockeries to re-create nature: The legacy of this practice is the literati garden culture. Xu Longsen builds rockeries with ink-and-brush, and plants trees with xuan paper: He is constructing a literati garden with his paint brush, and also a contemporary literati space of display through the arrangement of his paintings within the exhibition hall. Once one steps inside the world of his pictorial display one ceases to yearn for the natural garden and is content to loiter within this space. What he has captured here is the spirit of immanence: Looking up at the towering cliffs of ink is to experience both the weight and gravity of their monumentality and the sensation of soaring into their dizzying heights. Gazing at the mysterious, towering trees is like encountering a spirit in the mist, and an inner smile emerges in the knowing that it is enough to be here, in this space and in this moment, among these mountains and these trees.
Early Spring, the 66th Year of the Republic
(Translation by Valerie C. Doran)
《從巨幅山水的展示，到起義式雅集的聯想》
張頌仁
一．
關於半私密的展示。
洋人有“沙龍”，華人有“雅集”。“沙龍”的文藝聚會嚴格來說不能算“展示”，只能作為西方“美術館文化”的另例。這個另例的意義在於展覽觀眾的成分。“美術館”這個公共空間之所以成立，有賴於歐洲19世紀新“公民”的出現。“公民”於“公共空間”有權利義務的關係；美術館不獨沒有權拒絕來賓進場，來賓還是個不許被打擾的觀看者。但是他也要盡到“公民”的責任，要符合公民社會的行為規範。沙龍和雅集就不來這一套：不是自己人不讓進，不認識的人無權要求參加。客人是被認可的，被邀請的。
“雅集”講究的是主客關係。客人既然不因著公民的身份來，他就有其他的任務。雅集不允許孤單的參觀個體，客人有義務與主人唱和，共同把這場展示機緣點活。客人對於藝術品是有責任的：大家玩賞書畫，他就要介入品賞，發表心得，甚至題跋吟詠。看戲曲演奏表演，他也得有所品鑒，交換見解。在這個場合，書畫與演員同樣是“作品”，有待觀者介入，等待被慧眼點活、 參與對話，以便在這個場合被成就為“藝術品”。“作品”在雅集的玩賞交流中才真正完成其任務，走出庫房與排練室，成為“藝術”。
巨幅山水打破展廳思維，迫使另類的展示。美術館以西洋教堂的建築比例製造崇高，徐龍森的山水以龐大體積把這個崇高協力完成。文人展示原來就有更高遠的場地，那就是以山嶺為比例的園林。徐龍森的巨幅大畫索性以作品自成園林。既然是園林展示，那就可以參照雅集。徐龍森的半私密展示應該被理解為“雅集”的當代版。他也提供老雅集的內容：書畫、歌舞、評彈。不過新時代的“主人”少不了策展人：於是畫家與策展人互動，給大家起興。巨幅大畫把展廳化為庭園，以巨幅山水花樹權充泉林，偷換天日。這是新時代的雅集，氣概不亞前人。
二．
書畫，評彈，舞蹈，即興表演。
聲色之娛是主人與客人「對話」的興頭。視聽之娛，一方面乃主客盡興的渠道，另一方面也是讓書畫、評彈、舞蹈、音樂成仁之道。沒有場合，這一切都是束之高閣的雅物。有賴雅集，這一切才活過來，煥發意義。完整的“藝術”是“全感官”的：除了主人安排的項目，還要客人主動的感性介入，這樣才不辜負了主人雅意。
三．
民間起義的生命慶典與社會動員。
印象深刻的活動一定激起回響，由此激發起興，引動參與。“參與式藝術”（participatory art）在今天是小圈子試驗，大場合的“參與式藝術”無法跟鬧哄哄的政治運動較量。全球響應的“佔領運動”不見得都是“革命”行為，它的政治性在於“參與”，讓人期待著生命的犯禁與其不可規範的潛力。這是流行音樂會和商業操作的慶典無法滿足的。犯禁的開放精神恰恰就是當代藝術的魅力，在此文人書畫文化應該很有發言權：書畫展示歷來不容觀者懈慢，雅集就是“參與式的展示”。在今天的情景裏我們有必要把雅集重新發動，把雅集認識為“起義式的展示”，給西方近代流行的小圈子“參與式藝術”提供更深遠的歷史記憶與嶄新的時代精神。“起義式的雅集”必須在當下情景中把藝術的內涵 、與在場觀眾的生命同時啓發、同時調動起來，以致成為生命的起義。於此看來，雅集作為展示形態是極有前途的。
四．
從巨幅山水到巨幅花樹。
書畫的“六法”恆久不衰，由於它所追求的乃天地的自然神氣。是以風雲嵐霧為氣韻，川河汪洋為血液，山巒峰岳為骨幹。花樹所呈現的不外如是。
五.
體積的啓示。
前人以園林山石再造自然，所以有“文人園林”文化之勝境。徐龍森以書畫再造山石，以宣紙再植花木，那就是以畫筆建造園林，以書畫建築展廳。走進他的花樹之間，不再有泉林之想，而樂於在此閒蕩，這就是「在此」的精神。仰首四看，只見山勢撲面壓人，四周峰嶺凌雲出世，四體頓時無所適從；回頭一看樹木，猶如霧裏美人，不禁心中暗喜，幸好還有「此間花樹」。
張頌仁寫於人民共和六十六年一月
呂澎 Lu Peng
美術評論家
在絹素上用墨進行的當代繪畫可以歸納爲兩個表現方向：讓可視圖像成爲充分的閱讀內容和以筆墨本身成爲畫面的主體。新的水墨實驗，無論在大陸還是香港，大致依照這樣的方向發展。那些繁複的抽象水墨也許占滿了畫面的空間，但是，如果畫家將“宇宙”、“乾坤”這樣的宏大概念作爲出發點，畫中的內容就很容易完全進入到一種抽象的世界，一個只有畫家自己才能解釋的世界。這樣的表現實驗可能給出了一種純粹的筆墨遊戲，在繪畫語言上可以同西方的“抽象”表現發生關聯。但是，如何將一種特殊的“抽象”同“抽象”這個概念分離開來，而形成特殊的圖像內容？同時，筆墨材料本身又不簡單是一種強調表現工具的托詞？對這類問題的解決並不容易。
梁巨廷寫於絹本之上的水墨《疊》顯然不同于“抽象水墨”，因爲我們非常清晰地在畫家的作品中看到了用縝密的筆觸表現出來的山川。看得出，無論早年的學習還是基本的文化背景，傳統的山水概念在畫家的大腦裏保持了堅固的位置，這樣的堅固不僅是不可更改的，而且畫家似乎根本沒有更改的任何意願——畫面表現出畫家對這樣的堅固的興趣與迷戀。中國傳統繪畫是一種教養的知識，理解山川或者表現山川事實上經常是在閱讀歷史。對古人的表現方法、趣味以及作品中的自然與真實自然的對比，都可以構成一種知識教養的練習，所謂水墨情趣和文人內涵就來自這樣的練習。正是在這樣的練習中，我們熟悉和理解了歷史。但是，重復已經有的山水圖像是不可能的，對山水的理解也會因時間發生變化。西方藝術的影響使畫家對“山水”圖像的理解發生了根本的變化，事實上，用古人的“可望”、“可遊”和“可居”的概念既不適合於今天的真實概念，也完全不符合畫家的意圖，那些“山水”圖像不是提供物理的真實性，而是展示一種很容易想到“歷史”這個詞的觀念世界。它們以可以理解的局部構成一個需要重新去理解的整體，讓觀衆去辨析其中的內容以及含義。
簡單地重組已經熟悉的圖像不是一種特殊個人風格産生的方法，梁巨廷利用山水的局部形態，通過轉印重疊和細微的處理，將那些畫家認爲有含義的物件以及文字“埋”入重組後的圖像世界中，它們互爲穿插、遮蔽。結果，畫家保留了作爲歷史知識的傳統山水趣味，但是在畫面裏，他在筆墨經營的過程中讓這些趣味受到屬於今天的形式趣味的規範，使畫中的內容出現不同程度的陌生感。
無可質疑的是，畫家的設計經歷和設計思想非常嚴重地影響著畫面的安排。在很大程度上講，正是“設計”構成了一種閱讀的可能性，將傳統的圖像和符號重組之後的畫面需要分析性的眼光去觀看，這就是一種閱讀，一種在歷史主義者看來屬於傳統精英知識份子的閱讀。現在，畫家爲我們提供了一個明確的閱讀結構，而這種結構又是那樣地與當代的設計觀念相聯繫，使得我們很容易將那些傳統的內容分解和給予重新認識。而這正是今天的水墨藝術家希望達到的目的之一。在對歷史的圖像做精心的安排中，畫家不簡單是對原有的圖像做改造和修正，而是以顯而易見的理性設計給予重新組織和處理。這樣的風格化的製作方式將畫家的水墨同那些因抽象的目的放任筆墨或者爲重山疊水而經營位置的傾向明顯區別開來了。
梁巨廷的山水是難以遊歷的，畫家也許更希望觀衆去分析與理解畫中的繁複變化而事實上沒有自然邏輯的“山水”，這樣，人們容易從抽象的思想方面去理解那些具體的形象，進而將“山水”徹底主觀化、抽象化並問題化。因此，畫家居然通過非常易於理解的圖像世界而不是抽象的墨團將觀衆引向過去，引向廣袤的深處，這是一種符合心理習慣的方法。我們不用去揣測觀衆是否希望或能夠遊歷這樣的山川，但可以肯定的是，觀衆不可避免地要去閱讀畫家“疊”出的“山水”，從中喚起心中的疑問。
在圖像資訊泛濫的今天，保持一種穩定而系統的圖像，同時避免流行的借用，將工作限於一個特殊的範圍，這是一種成熟的立場。任何人都知道歷史的敍述需要邏輯，不過任何人都應該有自己敍述歷史的角度和方式，梁巨廷通過「疊」系列歸納出他自己特殊的歷史觀點和角度，他將那些被認爲能夠提示問題的圖像和符號忽隱忽現地隱藏在他編織的形象世界裏，無非是希望觀衆跟隨他的意圖去重新閱讀歷史。
當文字的歷史成爲一般教科書時，往往圖像敍述的歷史就變得生動和具有啓發性，而正是閱讀圖像敍述的歷史，讓我們經常可以喚起對歷史的重新認識，我們經常所說的藝術的美學影響力在理性方面的作用就在這裏。
Lu Peng
Literati Painting? Abstract Painting?
Some Thoughts on the Art of Yan Shanchun
Lu Peng
Yan Shanchun’s is an art of cultivation, an art in which is implicit a deep respect for our own artistic history. And at the same time, this is an art that requires from us a theoretical understanding of both the ancient tradition of Chinese literati painting and the modern tradition of Western abstract art.
There is no question that literati painting represents the pinnacle of the Chinese artistic tradition. For over a millennium, the forms and themes of literati art have remained essentially unchanged, free of stylistic transformations or conceptual revolutions. Rather, the development of the literati tradition has been marked by a process of gradual and subtle evolution, at the heart of which has always been the search for and perfection of what the literati call quwei – a quality that has been translated in the West variously as artistic sensibility, inner vitality, discernment and taste. This concept of quwei is intimately linked with the literati lifestyle and its cultivation of knowledge; and it is precisely this quality that has most set literati art apart, keeping it within the purview of high or elite art. The gaze of literati art is focused on the inner life of the artist, yet at the same time it is a tradition founded on a sense of historical memory, of reverence for the past. As a result, the role assigned to individual creativity within the tradition is extremely subtle. Due to its origins in the calligraphic tradition, literati painting places far greater emphasis on brushwork than on form. Another fundamental feature of the tradition is the creation of an aesthetic doctrine to encode literati artistic conceptions. Since these artistic conceptions derive essentially from the traditions of calligraphy and painting, if one does not possess a theoretical or connoisseurial grounding in these traditions one can never truly understand literati art or discern the subtle expressions of individuality within a painting.
Western abstract art has always been concerned primarily with what might be termed metaphysical expression. Its main developmental thrust has been in the visual embodiment of the most primordial inner emotions. Abstraction is thus an art that constantly confronts the landscape of the heart; and as such, it requires that the artist possess both a strong visuality and a deeply felt, almost uncontrollable creative impulse，
During the late 1970s Yan Shanchun studied at the China Art Academy in Hangzhou, previously known as the West Lake National Art Academy. This unusual institution was extremely progressive and yet at the same time was steeped in the literati tradition; and to this day it has maintained great pride in this combination of openness and classicism. During his time there Yan Shanchun was deeply immersed in the study of the lives, connoisseurship and art of early 20th century literati masters such as Huang Binhong and Pan Tianshou, and extended this also to very systematic research into (and publication of an important study regarding) the entire literati tradition which was so highly revered by them. At the same time, in his artistic training Yan specialized in Western painting and became well versed in a whole range of techniques from realism to impressionism and abstraction. In his analysis of the Western-influenced painting of artists such as Lin Fengmian, Wu Dayu, Ni Yide and Guan Liang, Yan Shanchun came to the realization that the concept of quwei not only was a common ground shared by both Chinese and Western painting but also was an intrinsic quality of the art of painting itself. His solid foundation in formalist techniques combined with his deep artistic cultivation have allowed him to travel a path completely different from that of other contemporary Chinese artists: one marked by an ability to nurture and develop his painting by cultivating his knowledge.
In his recent works on canvas Yan Shanchun employs the various media and techniques of ink, acrylic and tempura to create visual remembrances of his youth spent along the shores of West Lake. Yan spent more than 24 years roaming amid that beautiful landscape and has an intimate knowledge of each nook and cranny. In the last few years, this act of remembrance has become an integral part both of Yan’s life and of his creative work. Equally, this act of remembrance, or one could also say re-visualization, is also one of the most enduring themes of Chinese literature and art; and it is this which above all imbues Chinese painting with its strong sense of history. It is also why the Chinese literati’s pursuit of elegant brushwork and an artistic mood of reflective tranquility require that the artist who creates the work and the connoisseur who ‘reads’ it simultaneously position a painting within two different contexts: the context of art history and of personal life experience. While Yan’s remembrances/re-visualizations of West Lake are identifiably filtered through the artistic lens of painters like Huang Binhong, Pan Tianshou and Lin Fengmian, yet he has clearly developed his own independent modes of expression.
Another of Yan Shanchun’s characteristics is that he has always maintained a strong sense of equilibrium, or counterpoise: one could say he is an artist enamoured of the ‘Law of Contradiction’. In terms of form, his paintings are grounded in the principles of abstract art—yet at the same time there is always a very clear conceptual direction. In terms of expressiveness, his brushwork is both spontaneous and calligraphic, and yet always shows a quality of restraint. And stylistically speaking, while he pursues the qualities of elegance and refinement, there is also always a rough or unpolished quality, a kind of intentional awkwardness: the artist himself defines this style as ‘rough elegance’ (shengxiu). This concept of ‘rough elegance’ has never appeared before in traditional Chinese poetics or painting theory, but it is a quality we can identify in the work of Tang poet Lin Shangyin, the paintings of Yuan master Zhao Mengfu and the calligraphy of Ming artist and theorist Dong Qichang (but of course the ability to discern this quality requires that one has developed a very good eye.) In formulating his theory of art, Dong Qichang wrote that ‘a thorough grasp (shou) of technique is important in calligraphy, but one must then forget technique and seek spontaneous naturalness. A fresh conception is important in painting, but one must still have a thorough grasp of the tradition.’ I believe Dong Qichang’s concept of shou (thorough grasp or understanding) is related to Yan Shanchun’s concept of xiu (elegance), although of course Dong Qichang was speaking from the perspective of technique.
As China entered the modern era, artists looked to the West for artistic models that would help to remedy what they perceived as the stylistic stultification of Chinese traditional painting and in particular its lack of further development in terms of a formalist language. Many artists began to focus on recording scenes and narratives from ‘real life’ as a means to close the gap between the elitist world of traditional art and the rest of society. As for contemporary artists, they now tend to focus more on the fleeting realm of the senses as their main subject of expression. In theory, each of these artistic approaches has praiseworthy qualities, yet all of them tend to produce artwork that seems ungrounded and lacking in internal strength. Given this situation, Yan Shanchun’s artistic style and the creative path he has chosen to take are especially worthy of our attention and study. For his is an art that is steeped in the patina of history, but that is also moving into the future.
(Translated by Valerie C. Doran)
文人畫？抽象畫？
――關於嚴善錞繪畫藝術的思考
呂澎
這是一種有教養的藝術，一種亟待我們的藝術史認真對待的藝術。這種藝術需要我們運用古老的中國的文人繪畫和現代西方的抽象繪畫的理論來加以詮釋。
毫無疑問，文人藝術是中國傳統藝術的精華。一千多年來，它的主題並沒有太大的變化，它的形式也沒有出現過革命性的變化，它只是在一種漸漸的演進中展現著文人對於趣味的完善和追求，而這種趣味又與整個文人的生活和學養緊密地聯結在一起，並與社會大衆保持著一定距離。顯然，文人藝術作爲一種關注內心生活的藝術，它似乎更多的是基於對歷史的一種緬懷。文人藝術把個人的創造性放在一個非常細膩和微妙的位置上，它對筆法的關注更甚於對形象的創造，這是由於他們的書法傳統在起作用。另一方面，他們爲自己的藝術創造了一種意境的學說，這種學說來自他們的文學傳統。可以說，如果不熟悉他們的文學和書法傳統的人，是很難真正理解他們的藝術以及他們藝術中的個性的。
西方的抽象藝術，從一開始起就有一種形而上的思考，在不斷發展的過程中，即向熱抽象的發展過程中，它又將原始性，亦即人的最內在的一種情緒作爲表現的物件。應當說，抽象畫是一種面對內心的藝術，它需要藝術家有相當豐富的視覺閱歷、不可遏制的內在的創造衝動。
嚴善錞在70年代末就學於中國美術學院，它的前身便是西湖國立藝術院。這是一個在當時非常前衛、但同時也是一個具有文人氣質的學院，幾十年來，這種開放而又不乏古典情懷的精神，一直是這個學院引以爲傲的傳統。嚴善錞曾深入地研究過黃賓虹和潘天壽等大師們的人生、學問和藝術，乃至對他們再三致意的整個文人畫人傳統，也都做過系統的研究，並發表過富有建設性專著。同時，作爲一個西畫專業的藝術學徒，他也經歷了從寫實主義到印象派和抽象派的技術訓練。在林風眠、吳大羽、倪貽德、關良等西洋畫家的藝術風格中，他領悟到了中西繪畫的變通之處以及繪畫藝術的內在本質――趣味。堅實的造型基礎和全面的藝術修養，使他走上了一條與當代中國藝術家完全不同的創作道路：以學問養畫。
嚴善錞近期的布面畫，運用了水墨、炳烯和濕壁畫的材料和技法，用以來表現對自己的童年的視覺經驗和故鄉西湖的追憶――他在那個美麗的西子湖畔整整生活了二十四個年頭，遊邊了那裏的每一塊山石。對於年近知命的嚴善錞來說，追憶成了他生活和藝術創作中一個非常重要的部分。追憶，或者說是複現，是中國文學藝術的一個最爲永恒的主題，也正是由於這種主題不斷綿延，使中國的藝術具有了一種如前所說的歷史感。事實上，中國的文人畫中所追求的那種優雅的筆墨和恬靜的意境，都是需要創作者和欣賞者在將作品放在一種藝術史的上下文及個人的生活經驗中去創作和閱讀。當然，嚴善錞對於西湖的記憶和複現，實際上也是經過了黃賓虹、潘天壽、林風眠這些藝術大師的圖像的過濾。但是，他的表達卻有著自己的獨到之處。
嚴善錞是一個始終想在藝術上保持平衡、或者說是嗜好「矛盾律」的畫家。在形式上，他的畫面具有抽象畫的基本特質，但又具有明確的意境指向。在表現上，他是即興式和書寫式的，但又是有節制的。在格調上，他追求雅致，但又有一種生澀、拙樸之趣，用他自己的話說，就是「生秀」，即生澀而秀麗。這一概念在中國傳統的詩論和畫論中都沒有出現過，但這種趣味卻是我們常常可以從李商隱的詩、趙孟頫的畫和董其昌的書法中能感受到的，當然，識別這種趣味需要「好眼力」。董其昌在論書畫時，曾經提出過「字須熟後生，畫須生外熟」。而其中的「熟」，就與嚴善錞所談的「秀」有一定的關聯，只不過董其昌是從技術層面上來談論這一問題的。我認爲，「生秀」是中國文人藝術的至趣所在。
中國的現代藝術，一開始把注意力放在了對外部世界的觀察和描寫，試圖以此來解決中國傳統藝術在形式上停滯不前和不發達問題；後來，畫家們又開始把注意力放在對現實生活中的有趣故事的記錄和組織上，試圖以此來根本改變傳統藝術脫離生活的問題；現在，畫家們則將描寫稍縱即逝的感官世界，作爲主要表現的內容。從理論上講，這些藝術都有其令人讚歎的價值，但是，作爲一種藝術，它們缺乏一種內在的力量。因此，在這種情形下，嚴善錞的藝術風格和他的創作道路，就尤其值得我們重視和研究。他的藝術不僅具有歷史的魅力，更具有一種前瞻的動力。
Pi Daojian
Transmuting Qi into Form:
The Modern Shanshui Art of Shen Aiqi
Pi Daojian
Shen Aiqi can be described as one of the eccentric geniuses of Hubei. A true individualist, he has forged his own path all his life. He is equally at home lustily singing heroic songs as quietly contemplating the mysteries of the human and the natural worlds. But above all, it is painting that is his passion. He has been engaged in the exploration of the painting process since his youth, and in the late 1950s was already a dedicated student of the great Hubei master Xu Song’an. As the decades passed by he immersed himself in the study of the ‘six canons’ of Chinese art，creating a unique body of work grounded on the training he received under his master’s tutelage, yet very uniquely his own. For many years Shen Aiqi rarely showed his paintings to others: it was only after he celebrated his 70th birthday that he chose to share his work with the world in a solo exhibition at the Wuhan Museum of Art—an exhibition that caused a true sensation in art circles and beyond.
Shen Aiqi’s painting is majestic and vibrant, radiating a unique sense of life-force that is tangible to all who come into contact with it. Within his works are contained organic patterns of nature and energy. The monumental grandeur of his art is the same kind of grandeur (da) that the philosopher Mencius described as emerging only when the outer form expresses the vital, radiant spirit within. This is the kind of grandeur that can only arise when the artist merges with sky and earth, mountains and rivers, fusing his life-force with that of nature. For Shen Aiqi, the process of merging with nature and then expressing this oneness through his art is one of the greatest joys of painting.
Ultimately, Shen Aiqi’s way of life and his way of art are as one: and this unity is the most critical aspect of his shanshui painting, for it is within this very fusion of life and art that the contemporaneity of his shanshui art is found. For decades Shen Aiqi led a quiet and secluded existence, immersed in the private world of his art and his thoughts. While many would find this solitary life hard to endure, Aiqi’s inner joyfulness has never been diminished by it. Most of us require a certain degree of material comfort in our lives, but Aiqi is not like most people. He is perfectly content with ‘a single dish of rice, and a single cup of drink’, as Confucius put it: his only real desire is to share the discoveries of his artistic journey with others.
Aiqi has always believed that it is crucial for an artist to be independent and self-sufficient, to walk his own path. In the 1980s, when the open-door political and economic reforms were first instituted in China, most people became obsessed with escaping the scarcity they had endured for so long and sought every means possible to improve their material well-being. By contrast, Shen Aiqi’s concerns at this time were focused on the idea that ‘man and nature are as one’. Although this concept is fundamental to the Chinese philosophical tradition, it has been largely forgotten—and indeed even rejected– by people today. Shen Aiqi, however, has always held firm to this belief in the unity of man and nature. He recognizes the critical problem that has arisen in our times, when modern civilization has artificially split man and nature apart. Tearing ourselves away from the body of nature, we have performed a fatal vivisection. We have destroyed the ancient unity and made nature into an adversary—a state of affairs that is bringing disaster to our civilization.
In the 1990s, Shen Aiqi’s philosophical and artistic journey led him to a new understanding regarding the conceptualization of the cosmic creative source. Aiqi describes this conceptualization as tai 態: the unity of energy (nengliang能量) and the heart-mind (xin心). This concept of tai expresses Aiqi’s understanding of the world, of nature and the universe. To Aiqi, tai is the mother of the universe, the source of all things. The ancient Chinese philosopher Hui Shi (380-305 BCE) defined the universe as ‘the great oneness’ of which there is ‘nothing beyond’: yet Shen Aiqi insists that tai is a force vaster and greater than the universe. The world is full of energy, and this energy is in constant circulation: once a person merges with this cycle of energy, his life takes on authentic meaning. Shen Aiqi’s integration of this philosophical understanding into his daily life explains why the first act he performs in the painting process is to ‘harness qi’ (cai qi): this action is, in essence, a contemporary manifestation of the Daoist concept of yiqiyunhua–channeling the world’s energies and concentrating them into oneself, so that they become a source of creative, expressive power. When Aiqi paints, he first gathers into himself the qi, or energy, of nature, and then externalizes it through the dynamic forms of brushwork–dots, lines, ink rhythm, ink ‘breath’; through this visual externalization, he constructs a world.
The painter Zao Wou-ki (1920-2013) once said that ‘A good painting breathes’. This is the case with all Aiqi’s work: whether he is using splashed-ink (pomo) or some other method, every form he paints is infused with breath. This sense of ‘breathing’ implicit in his work probably derives from Aiqi’s creative methodology of ‘harnessing qi’, a methodology that arises organically from his very way of life, as he lives and breathes in harmony with nature. To me, Aiqi’s creative methodology can be summed up as the ‘transmutation of qi into form’, which follows a direct trajectory from the most ancient and elemental concept of Chinese art—the idea of ‘breath-resonance’ (qiyun). Within this concept of breath-resonance is contained the idea that painting is infused with and animated by the same kind of life-force that animates humans, and indeed all living beings. The overarching goal of Shen Aiqi’s contemporary shanshui painting is nothing less than the physical/visual expression of this living, breathing presence. Watching Aiqi paint, one might feel that his is a completely unrestrained, almost cathartic process, but in fact it is far more than this. For Aiqi, painting is a vital necessity of his inner, energetic life-force as well as of his daily life: it is the way he expresses his being-ness in the world. Yet at the same time, he also wants to use his art to shake people up—to awaken them–by giving them a kind of powerful visual shock. His painting at first glance seems abstract and formless, but in fact it has both pattern and form that extend beyond the painting surface itself. This pattern and form come into being through the artist’s complete energetic investment in the act of painting, through the rhythm and ‘breathing’ of the ink forms; and, ultimately, they manifest through in their emergence in our minds and hearts.
Aiqi is both deeply imaginative and keenly observant. His scope of investigation is broad, and he has made a special study of the body’s meridians (or energy channels) as defined in traditional Chinese medicine, discovering in the process that the meridians and arteries of the human body are closely aligned with those of nature’s ‘body’.
In Aiqi’s view, the mountains also have a beating heart at their centre, and so in his paintings he creates many radiating meridians, constructed of ink lines and ink dots which are in essence the physical/visual vehicles by which he harnesses, or perhaps responds to, the energy channels of the world. But whether a harnessing or a response, his creative methodology can always be defined as the transmutation of qi into form.
Aiqi’s use of the traditional brush-methods of Chinese calligraphy to create visual constructions whose vibrant aliveness shocks and stimulates the viewer is the most critical aspect of his shanshui painting. The Qing-dynasty artist Fang Shishu (1692-1751) wrote that ‘The world is created through the heart-mind, and the hand brings the realm of the heart-mind into form; this is the realm of emptiness. To manifest the void in solid form is the essence of brushwork. This is why, through their brushwork, the ancients were able to materialize the pure colours of the mountains and the elegant shapeliness of the trees, the lively tumult of the waters and the glistening skin of the rocks, creating a realm of spiritual, energetic vitality existing beyond the physical boundaries of sky and earth.’[1]
Since the Yuan period, China’s greatest artists have used the shanshui form as a vehicle to express the vitality of their brushwork, and have used brushwork to express the innermost realms of their minds and hearts. Shen Aiqi is a faithful follower of this heritage. In formal and structural terms his brushwork fully realizes the bold and unconstrained style of his teacher Xu Song’an; yet at the same time from these elements he has woven his own uniquely expressive mode.
The myriad forms and transformations of Aiqi’s paintings twist and turn like withered vines; come crashing down like falling mountain rocks; splinter and crackle like the biting autumn wind; or float as lightly as the moist spring rain. His work stimulates and enchants, and at the same time it is permeated with an energy and vitality specific to our age. This is why Aiqi’s art both captivates and challenges the modern aesthetic perception, and yet goes even further to stimulate a kind of soul-searching in the wake of the encounter. It is through this kind of impact that Shen Aiqi can be said to have broken new artistic ground and opened up a new expressive sensibility and conceptual dimension that further validates the importance of Chinese painting in a contemporary context.
Ultimately, what Shen Aiqi seeks is to share both his artistic discoveries and philosophical his thinking with others. This is why he eventually moved out of his studio to paint in the open air, between earth and sky, utilizing his unique methodology to create these huge, masterful paintings through which he seeks to knock on the door of our hearts and minds. From my understanding, Aiqi’s method of painting out in the open air is an extension of the concept of ‘harnessing qi’ that he first began to work with 30 years ago. He has always believed that man and nature should not be in opposition, that they are in fact not binaries, but are as one. His working method infuses his paintings with a strong sense of performance, setting his art apart from that of his shanshui forbears. But this element of performance is also quite different from that of modern Western ‘action painting’. This is not only because Aiqi paints out in the open air, in the midst of nature. The key issue is that Aiqi’s paintings are the direct expression of his emotional and spiritual state in the moment；and by extension, they also channel, through the actions and methodology of the individual artist, the response of traditional Chinese culture in confrontation with the age of economic and technical globalization on the one hand and the existential state of modern Chinese society on the other. His works are materialisations of Chinese philosophical thought, of traditional views on nature, and on the relationship between man and the universe. In this sense, Shen Aiqi’s shanshui painting can be considered as a form of Chinese contemporary art.
(Translated by Valerie C. Doran)
[1] The exact quotation in Chinese is: 因心造境，以手運心，此虛境也。虛而為實，是在筆墨有無間，故古人筆墨具此山蒼樹秀、水活石潤，於天地之外另構一種靈. See Fang Shishu’s original text Tianyong’an suibi (天慵庵隨筆).
一氣運化 依氣成象
沈愛其的現代山水畫藝術
皮道堅
沈愛其，湖北奇人也。一生特立獨行、與俗寡諧，愛唱大江東去，好究天人之際。他少喜丹青，上世紀50年代末師從湖北中國畫大家徐松安先生。數十年如一日孜孜矻矻精研“六法”，創作成果充棟，然其謹承師訓，鮮少以作品示人，七秩以後方在武漢美術館舉辦個展，遂引起圈內震動、圈外轟動。
沈愛其的畫大氣磅礴，能讓人感受到某種獨特的生命境界、生命格局和某種獨特的生命氣象。沈愛其畫中的“大”，也就是孟子所說的“充實而有光輝謂之大”的那種“大”。這種“大”通常是畫家把自己和天地、山川聯結在一起結果，沈愛其畫畫就是把生命與自然融匯在一起，作總體上的表達。將藝術和自己的生命狀態結合在一起可說是沈愛其現代山水畫藝術的最大特點。
幾十年來沈愛其一直沉浸在自己的繪畫與思考空間裡，人不堪其憂，愛其不改其樂。一般人對現實的物質享受都是有需求的，而愛其不同於一般人，他可以“簞食瓢飲”，他只希望自己的發現能與人共用，他認為藝術家就是要保持一種自在自為的生存狀態。 1980年代改革開放初期，當絕大多數中國人都在為改變物質生活的匱乏處心積慮地向大自然索取之時，他卻提出“人天本一”。 雖然這原本就是中國人的哲學觀，但現在卻被許多人忘卻、拋棄。愛其堅持這種哲學觀認為人和自然本來就是一體的，是後來我們人為地將它們分開了，把自己從自然裡面剝離出來，使之成為自然的對立面，這樣就給人類帶來了災難。1990年代，愛其有了他新的發現，他認為“態”是宇宙之母，是萬事萬物的根源，“態”表現愛其對這個世界的理解，最能夠代表他的自然觀和宇宙觀，在愛其看來“態”是心和能量的統一。儘管中國古代哲學家惠施認為宇宙是“至大無外”的“大一”，但沈愛其卻堅持認為“態”比宇宙更大，這世界是一個充滿能量的世界，而這種能量又是在不斷迴圈的，人一旦參與到這個迴圈裡面，生命就有了意義。他之所以要去“采氣”作畫，就是出於這種哲學思考，就是為了表達他對生命的這種理解。他的這種理解實際上是老莊哲學“一氣運化”的現代版。愛其從自然的萬事萬物之中把“氣”納入進來，再通過點、線、墨韻和墨氣，外化出去構成一個世界。趙無極曾說：“好的畫是有呼吸的”，愛其的畫就是這樣，不管是用潑墨還是用其他作畫方式，都有呼吸感。這種呼吸感或許就來源於他的創作方法論——“采氣”，來源於他的與大自然共呼吸的生命觀與藝術觀。他的這種創作方法論，按我的歸納即是“一氣運化，依氣生象”，這是對中國人最古老的藝術觀“氣韻生動”的直接傳承。所謂“氣韻生動”，意指畫和人一樣是有生命的，人是有氣韻的生命體，畫也是有氣韻的生命體，沈愛其現代山水畫藝術的整體藝術表現就是營造這活的生命體。沈愛其作畫在旁人看來極像是無拘無束的宣洩，其實並不儘然。他的作畫除了是自己生命與生活的一種需要外，更多是想通過自己的作品震動他人，在視覺上給人一種刺激和震撼。他的畫乍看大象無形而實則有形，形在畫外。這種“形”是通過他的宣洩，通過他作品的墨韻與墨氣對我們心靈的沁透不期而至的。他是一個想像力極其豐富而又善於觀察的人。他研究中國傳統醫學經絡，發現人與自然，經絡血脈相通。在愛其看來，大山裡面也有心臟，所以畫了很多像經絡的畫，他的那些墨線和墨點就是他對經絡世界的把握，或者說是一種反應，而他的創作方法論則依然仍是“一氣運化，依氣成象”。
以中國畫傳統繪畫的書寫性筆墨營造視覺上給人以刺激與震撼的活的生命體，是沈愛其山水畫藝術的重要特質。清人方士庶說：“因心造境，以手運心，此虛境也。虛而為實，是在筆墨有無間，故古人筆墨具此山蒼樹秀、水活石潤，於天地之外另構一種靈寄。”（語見方士庶《天慵庵隨筆》）元以來的中國山水畫大家，又多借山水之體格來表現筆墨，借筆墨來抒發胸中的塊壘。沈愛其很好地繼承了這一傳統，他的筆墨形體發揚了其師徐松安先生“健筆淩雲意縱橫”的豪放灑脫風格，又能獨具機杼自成一格。它們或如萬歲枯藤穿插纏繞、或如高山墜石驚心動魄；或乾裂秋風、或潤含春雨，變化出沒多端，意趣盎然。然其動勢、性象、表情前無古人，洋溢著時代的生機與活力，能有效地激發現代人的審美感知，有令人迴腸蕩氣之功效。以此之故，沈愛其的山水畫藝術為現代藝術開拓了一個新的呈現情感、表達觀念的維度。與此同時，沈愛其也以自己的藝術實踐證明了中國畫筆墨的現代價值。
耳順之後，沈愛其渴望自己的發現能讓更多的人體會到，渴望把自己的想法與更多的人溝通，於是他走出畫室在戶外作大畫，採取在天地之間畫大畫這種特立獨行的方式去敲擊他人的心扉。據我所知，這種戶外作畫的方式就是愛其30多年前提出的“采氣”之概念的延伸，他一直認為人和自然不應該是對立的，人和自然是一元而非二元的。
這就令沈愛其的藝術表達與前人的山水畫藝術很不一樣，使它們帶有某種行為的意蘊。但這和現代派的“行動繪畫”又不可同日而語，這不僅因為愛其是在戶外的天地之間作畫；關鍵在於愛其的畫是其當下心境意緒的直接表達；是中國傳統文化面對今天這個經濟與技術全球化的時代，面對中國人現在的生存狀態以一個藝術家的行為方式所作出的反應。它們體現著中國人的哲學思考、自然觀，尤其是對人與世界關係的看法。
從這個意義上說，沈愛其的現代山水畫應該就是中國的當代藝術。
高士明 Gao Shiming
一
雖然同在國美教書，我認識鄭力兄卻是近些年的事。
第一次見鄭力是在二零零八年，徐龍森特意從北京飛來做引薦，稱許鄭力是他當世山水畫技最欽服之人。我那時的工作主要限於所謂當代藝術，雖對山水一往情深，但心儀山水的原因是將其作為「世界觀的藝術」，一味留連於五代北宋的宏大山川，對當代山水畫界敬而遠之，於諸多園林化的山水更是多有腹誹。鄭力的畫我當時尚未得見原作，只從印刷品上約略有些印象。同事多年，卻要校外友人介紹相識，見面多少有些尷尬。當晚直奔畫室，一夜神聊，才真正走進鄭力的世界。
一進畫室就看到那件《晴雪》，尺幅夠大，挂在牆角，仿佛可以踏足其中。湊近細看，筆墨之精當令人嘆為觀止。此畫遠觀工謹之極，細品則可見其意淡筆真，於一切細微處皆有高度控制力。鄭力畫建筑筆致內斂，鋒含沈靜，意態從容，溫文爾雅；畫山石草木則運筆流麗鮮活，用墨秀潤儒糯，清勁瀟洒，痛快沉著。通觀全幅，仿若筆筆有其來歷，細察之卻又無跡可尋，處處自在和諧，全無刻板老朽之氣；可謂剛柔並濟，文質彬彬，氣韻流轉，生意盎然。
記得那日賞罷《晴雪》，我向鄭力兄鄭重道歉，為了以往的忽視與誤判。以前看印刷品，總以為他的畫過於依賴制作，匠氣有余而氣息韻致不足，此刻方知其本來面目。記得那日一夕長談，於山水之法、筆墨之意、賞鑒之道均有涉及，談到當世諸君「傷於技」、「傷於理」之流弊，言及唐人「空勾無皴」之真義，皆能放懷直言，各自感到收獲滿滿。我與鄭力由是訂交。這些年我終日營營碌碌，苦不堪言，鄭力則是標准的逍遙派，過著白天睡覺、夜間作畫的神仙日子，大家聚首的次數也就屈指可數。只是每逢歲末教學檢查，轉到國畫系，時常看到他教授的山水臨摹課程，知道他教學於實處用力，學生對宋元繪畫體會甚深。
跟朋友們談起鄭力，都說他是天生的「院體畫家」。這不但因其筆精墨妙，出手即有富貴氣，得金馬玉堂之相，更是由於他作畫長於寫生揣意，猶擅運情摹景，能為極盡精微之事。鄭力揚名立萬，靠的是《書香門第》為代表的一系列園林主題的作品。在這個系列中，他綴風月，弄花草，務求工致妍美，令人不知覺間如臨春日水濱，華服冶游，眼前所見皆窮妍極態，彩麗競繁。然則鄭力於典麗妍美之外，亦多作秀石修篁、漏雨蒼苔，其畫面中營構起的一座座小園，頗得園林「深靜」之旨，其幽獨清寂之境，亦足以搖曳性情。
觀摹鄭力的作品，我從中得到兩點體會：其一是工筆意筆不可分離；其二是情境意興不可分離。
工筆意筆之分野古已有之，在近世逐漸被絕對化，由技法之分轉而成為類型之別，這背后是對二者的概念化和簡化。細讀兩宋名作如《雪竹》、《早春》，當知中國畫之寫意精神不獨貫徹於意筆草草之際，同時也體現在巧密工致、極盡精微的畫卷之中。《早春》之意境和寫意筆法論者紛紜，此處不提；《雪竹》雖不似《早春》般用筆潑辣多姿，然而其狀物之精當，作風之謹嚴，卻使雪意彌漫全紙，幽寒之氣滲透入每一毫厘之間。《雪竹》雖非宇宙論式的宏章巨構，卻能自一處尋常角落中示現出天地之意境精神，恰如一滴水中適足映照出整個世界。
至於情境與意興之分，詩論、畫論中亦古已有之。王昌齡倡「詩有三境」:一曰物境，二曰情境，三曰意境。物境指「處身於境，視境於心，瑩然掌中，然後用思，了然境象，故得形似」；情境指「張於意而處於身，然後馳思，深得其情」，意境則「張之於意而思之於心，則得其真矣」。王昌齡將此「三境」強為次第，其旨在於解析詩境之微妙處。鄭力作畫則首重指事造形，妙在窮情寫物，其畫意本乎實境，筆致發自性情，一旦筆墨做到澄湛精微，則興象意境亦皆在其中──所謂意與境會，興與情偕，是故情境意興不可分離，「物、情、意」三境一體興會生發。
此中佳作是所謂《玉樹臨風》和《萬壑松風》，后者雖是客居巴黎時所做，畫卷中卻頗具山林氣，令人感物興情，窺谷忘返。《玉樹臨風》筆墨蒼潤，含剛勁於婀娜，化老辣為嫵媚，其神變之處，不讓元人。畫中雖僅一樹一石，卻蒼蒼茫茫，氣象萬千，卓然自成世界，其氤氳鴻漠之處，直達宋畫之意境。
二
鄭力兄最新創作的《故園心眼》，可以說是《晴雪》的姊妹篇。此畫經營布置別出心裁。前景只有湖石一塊，修篁一杆，花草數株，畫面主體是一堵白牆，粗看去只覺畫面甚空，細端詳則隱約可見春光盈壁，綠意滿紙。白壁上開一花窗狀如卷冊，透過花窗，但見庭院深深，別有洞天。
這件畫作的題目取自蘇軾那首著名的《永遇樂》。
明月如霜，好風如水，清景無限。
曲港跳魚，圓荷瀉露，寂寞無人見。
紞如三鼓，鏗然一葉，黯黯夢雲驚斷。
夜茫茫，重尋無處，覺來小園行遍。
天涯倦客，山中歸路，望斷故園心眼。
燕子樓空，佳人何在，空鎖樓中燕。
古今如夢，何曾夢覺，但有舊歡新怨。
異時對，黃樓夜景，為余浩嘆。
蘇東坡這首詞層層生發，一唱三嘆；其意境清幽空幻，低徊譴惓，令人蕩氣回腸，又黯然惆悵。鄭力兄生活美滿如意，既非「天涯倦客」，又不必尋「山中歸路」，自不會應和到東坡詞中之悵惘與寂寥。沒有神傷，這「故園心眼」當然也就難得「望斷」。鄭力所欲描摹刻畫者，只在「故園」。
鄭力的「故園」與觀者亦只有一牆之隔。畫中小窗內庭園清幽，草木、樓台、池榭……處處布置謹嚴；疊石疏泉，丘園林壑，其顯露隱含，應答因借，皆能深入其理，曲盡其態。劉勰論神思曰：「意翻空而易奇，言征實而難巧」，鄭力作畫則是「筆征實而愈巧」。其行筆運墨於蒼中蘊秀，又於秀中得蒼，秀潤蒼雄統而為一，故勁拔蒼潤，筆筆落在實處；物象與筆墨間不一不異，不即不離，其形容貌色本乎實情，合乎法度，卻又活潑靈動，清麗雅正。故其畫雖筆工境實，卻意興盎然，情韻不失。
園林之於鄭力，不單是他最歡喜的畫題，更是其精神徜徉之空間，心懷羈絆之所在。鄭力筆下的園林庭院，雖對景寫生，取境務實，指事造形亦工，畫中卻常有一種難言的虛幻感。蓋因其所追摹者，乃是「故園」，此「故園」，惟「心眼」可見。不獨《游園驚夢》中有刻意為之的幻影，亦實亦虛的洞簫，即使在《書香門第》和《晴雪》之中，亦有一份絲絲縷縷的幽悠之情。他近來畫於金卡紙上的幾楨留園、拙政園寫生，更是在筆墨鮮活潑辣之餘，呈現一種時光流逝中的清靜虛曠。畫中回廊屋舍，庭間花樹竹石，皆恍惚變幻，難以定格。其微妙處婉約依稀，若即若離，如水中之月、鏡中之花，隨心境起伏而興沒。
世間萬事如流水，夢裡真真語真幻，對時間的體悟即是畫者之「心眼」。這時間流逝中的故園，連廊曲徑，似往已返，秀石嘉蔭，如幽匪藏。雖是源自對景寫生，其畫面生發之際，卻有著眾多不期而然的遇合。隱約間物與境化，依稀中氤氳明滅。此境此象，於盈盈尺素間，示現氣象的即時生滅，於一方心眼中，照見物象的扑朔迷離，當然，也照見留連於故園中的好時光。
丁酉清明急就
Gao Wei
Hsu Yu-jen…and his World of Fine-Brush Ink-Wash Painting
Gao Wei
Ancient Chinese thought that the world was composed of the five basic elements of gold, wood, water, fire and earth. In Hsu Yu-jen’s fine-brush ink-wash painting, however, the world is composed of interconnected small dots and extremely fine lines. Furthermore, this world takes the shapes of squares, circles, rectangles, triangles, and irregular geometric forms. It might raise some brows that these paintings are called ink-wash painting at all. Who has ever seen a Chinese ink-wash painting dominated with geometric forms? Such a contrast is astonishing indeed. In our mindset, traditional Chinese ink-wash paintings should portray natural images such as rivers, mountains, flowers, birds, fish, and insects and convey through them the spirit, charms, connotations and the way of the world in the traditional Chinese culture. That is why when we as spectators are faced with Hsu Yu-jen’s brand-new ink-wash paintings, we are provoked to think twice over the definition of the artistic form.
Who Says that Ink-Wash Shall Not Be Painted in This Way?
Surprisingly, the creator of these works received formal training in painting.
Over 30 years ago, Hsu Yu-jen graduated from the National Taiwan Academy of Arts (National Taiwan University of Arts). The school is the former “National Academy of Arts” (renamed later as “National Taiwan Academy of Arts”) established by Mr. Cai Yuanpei and Mr. Lin Fengmian by the West Lake and has a long-standing history of innovation on the basis of the tradition. However, tradition was dominant at the school when Hsu Yu-jen studied painting there.
In his own words, Hsu Yu-jen “muddled” into the school, for he did not start learning painting until 6 months before he had the entrance examinations. As a young man, he liked traveling and making girlfriends. To go to college, he left Jiali, a rural town in South Taiwan and went to the metropolitan Taipei. He had a sudden revelation one day and fell in love with books on arts. He then frequented the library and read all the books in the school within half a year. In the mean time, he also started painting. As he did not receive much systematic painting training at the beginning and learned painting by himself, he had a distinct style that set him apart from others. “I think my painting is special. It is different from the works of anyone else. I did not know the so-called ‘style’ then, but I felt that I could really paint! I found out my potentials and my passion for artistic creation. I began to follow this direction which I liked and made do with the schoolwork.”
As his painting deviated so much from the traditional techniques taught in the classroom, and the teachers merely followed the traditional standard in grading the works, Hsu Yu-jen had a hard time graduating from the school. The teachers had a poll on his grades. Almost all the teachers in the department of ink-wash painting found his works problematic, while only Mr. Hong Ruilin, a teacher from the department of oil-painting, recognized his talent and made sure that he could finish his degree. After this incident, Hsu Yu-jen did not regret his choice, but followed his “rebellious” path firmly.
“I Aim to Find an Absolutely Original Style of Ink-Wash Painting”
With his concern for the social reality, Hsu Yu-jen began to experiment on different materials and forms, such as sculpture, oil-painting and ink-wash painting, etc. In the recent dozen years, Hsu Yu-jen has been endeavoring on the innovation of the Chinese ink-wash painting.
“Look at my ink-wash painting. You can hardly find any predecessor of this style. Although I used the fine lines, they are different from the traditional fine-brush works. I aim to find an absolutely original style of ink-wash painting. It will be totally different from Western paintings as well.”
Hsu Yu-jen turned all the “don’ts” in traditional Chinese ink-wash painting techniques into “does”. He made use of these skills and created a distinct style out of them.
He returned to the starting point of any painting. Although the ink, paper, inkstand and brush are ancient tools, he does not regard them as ancient elements, but basic and modern ones similar to pencils and pens. Hsu began to adopt dry brushes, short strokes to paint dots and broken lines. The freehand brushwork in traditional Chinese painting was thrown away. Everything in his painting is a combination of dots, lines, and planes.
Meanwhile, Hsu Yu-yen is very good at thinking in the reverse way. He overthrew all traditional structures of ink-wash painting, and adopted the horizontal and vertical lines, triangles, and cubes which were discarded in former ink-wash paintings. “If I go back to the tradition, I will never be able to get out. So I began to paint ink-wash painting in a geometric way. I began by painting out my spiritual world, and later added some other subjects.” The houses that people invented are rectangular, circular, and triangular in shape. The pattern of the waves is triangular. The radial of the sun, moon and stars are straight lines, whereas the trees are shaped in a shallow rectangle…All these are turned in the reverse way. Hsu Yu-jen’s works may be resemble sketches or woodcuts, but it may give the spectators a totally different experience when they study the original works. The small dots in the shape of the paramecium are the smallest units and are integrated in the works by the painter.
In terms of perspectives, Hsu Yu-jen does not adopt the Western focal perspective, nor does he use the cavalier perspective in traditional ink-wash paintings. He is more concerned with the abstract relationship between different objects. While he was painting, he would read many pictures and albums and sometimes place some bizarre objects together. These things remind him of the stories that moved him in the past. Within an ink-wash painting, some part takes the perspective from above, some takes the straightforward perspective, some takes the focal perspective, and others takes the perspective from below. Hsu Yu-jen pointed out that blank space can give rise to wonderful perspectives. “I would base all the perspectives on the blank space. There are many perspectives in a painting. I would follow my instinct in drawing and express more with blanks.” Hsu Yu-jen said in self-mockery that he was old now and had to rest every now and then while drawing, as his eyesight was failing. He had a new idea when he watched his painting from a distance in his rest. “My idea would often change at this time. I started out in a certain direction, but ended up in another. It gives me the feeling of touring around the world.” Hsu Yu-jen said that he felt as if he were shuttling between different spaces when he drew different parts of the same painting. “It’s like diving in the sea: I dive into the sea from the land and watch the colorful world underneath the water.” Hsu Yu-jen compared the wonderful feeling of creation to diving, with which he is most familiar, as he grew up by the sea. “I wish to draw as if I were playing a game. The space in my painting is fluid and yet discontinuous. I wish to draw with my own characteristics.” The ideas are interpolated in Hsu’s ink-wash paintings. “There are many original seeds of ink-wash painting in my mind. All I do is sow them and let them grow by themselves.” He pursues simplicity and leaves many things unexpressed. Simple and clean as his paintings are, they are also rich and have a flavor of spatial montage. It is based on this characteristic that different parts of Hsu’s paintings can be magnified and made into separate paintings. Every point in his paintings is a seed and every part is independent. This is truly inspiring. “My friends told me that my paintings can inspire their ideas.”
So is the case with his thought over the number “four”. The number “four” has been a taboo in Chinese culture because it is homophonic with “death”. Many public places, such as hotels, floors, and car license plates would avoid the number “four”. “Four” is equal to “death”. “I like four, for death connotes life.” You can find four trees or stones in Hsu’s paintings. Four sometimes also represents the painter’s sentiment towards the ecological pollution and the damage that human beings caused. “When I brush ink onto a piece of thin silk, the drying process of the ink itself is a dying process. However, the painting comes to life. The completion of a painting marks the end of a creative idea and of the relationship between the painter and his work, but it also marks the beginning of the communication between the painting and the spectators. Chinese people comprehend ‘four’ as ‘death’, whereas the Indian scriptures regard ‘four’ as alive. So life and death are constantly converting to each other. The dichotomy is always dynamic.” Rebel as he seems to tradition, Hsu Yu-jen has a profound insight into the mutual conversion between yin and yang in the traditional Chinese culture.
Original Forms Shall Be Connected with the Content
However, he does not search for innovative forms for their own sake. “I have worked on ink-wash paintings for many years and experimented many forms. A precondition for an artist to select a form is that it shall express his instinct. That is to say, original forms shall be combined with the instinct. It cannot come out of nothing, but shall be based on reality. We shall not search for forms for their own sake, or we would be chained by the shapes.”
The renovation in the forms of fine-brush ink-wash painting is closely related to the reality in China. Hsu Yu-jen grew up in Taiwan. In his childhood, Taiwan was still an agricultural society. “The farmers would walk barefooted. It was the case when I was a junior high student.” Later when Taiwan was opened up to the outside world, factories were set up everywhere. The agricultural society became industrialized, and pollution also arose in the process. The destruction began in the 1980s. Taiwan faced serious environmental pollution and excessive cultivation. As more and more damage was done to the environment, the coastal areas suffered from more floods and other disasters. The situation was more and more serious and later Taiwan suffered from the 921 earthquake. “When I was small, I did not have the feeling of instantaneous destruction of the living space. I worked in U.S. and came back to the countryside in Taiwan. The seashore used to be very clean, but suddenly garbage was everywhere. The environment was changed so much. The almost instantaneous impact on nature is absent in ancient ink-wash paintings, but in modern times, we have to face this problem almost every day. ”
When he went to college in Taipei, Hsu Yu-jen found the scenery in the ink-wash masterpieces similar with what he saw in childhood. The mountains and rivers in the paintings are elegant with profound charms. Hsu thought that to draw mountains and rivers in the traditional way is actually a process of recollection, as Taiwan has long ceased to be what it was. Taiwan suffers from serious environmental pollution, and so is the case with Mainland China, or even with the world as a whole. This is a question that human beings cannot afford to neglect. Hsu decided at that time that he would draw the contemporary environment and ecological situation with ink-wash painting. “I think that there should not be only one method of ink-wash painting. One of the reasons is that by simply inheriting the traditional ink-wash paintings the painters would be divorced from reality, which is actually a regression. Another reason is that I would have never succeeded if I had chosen the traditional method, as modern painters cannot be compared with their predecessors in the 5000 long years in the ability in handling forms and expression. Ancient Chinese wrote with brushes. They lived in a different natural environment and had different states of mind. I have to find out my own original method.” Hence we find the “view of the mountains and rivers” in Hsu’s original fine-brush ink-wash paintings: bare stone mountains, leaveless trees, water and stones, or waves and sand patterns. Stones are a typical image in Chinese ink-wash paintings. As Taiwan suffered from excessive cultivation and forest exploitation then, the entire mountains were left bare. Hsu did the job of measuring in the past, and is especially concerned with the environment in the mountainous areas. “I remember that I found the entire mountains were changed when I did the measuring.” He collected various documents on the earthquakes, excessive cultivation, and pollution in Taiwan to draw his “paintings on Chinese mountains and rivers”.
The ancient Chinese lived in an agricultural society with the atmosphere of the traditional culture. They read the various classics and scriptures and were immersed in the Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist ideas. Today China is on its way towards an industrialized society. We also read ancient classics, but the life we live is drastically different. The society nowadays is a multi-dimensional, multi-layered information society integrated with economy, politics and culture. Meanwhile, we are also faced with many practical problems. It is obviously not enough to simply return to the tradition.
Hsu’s paintings are full of reflections over industrialization and death. Though there are no human beings in the painting, traces of human interference can be found in the geometric forms, triangular mountains, rectangular block-like trees, and the triangular wave patterns. The sea enclosed by a cement dam is like a beast in the cage. The treeless triangular mountains are related to the excessive cultivation problem. The four withered trees express the painter’s sorrow at the destruction of the forest. The triangular wave pattern is also related to the dams. It can be said that Hsu Yu-jen created a painting of the site of nature after the industrialized civilization, or the death of nature under the pollution of the industrialized society. Hsu Yu-jen portrayed the post-industrialization site through ink-wash painting and expressed his light, nostalgic sentiments. In contrast to the desolation on the earth, the straight rays emitted from the sun, the moon and the stars are symbols of eternity. These rays bring hope to his paintings. Hsu Yu-jen viewed this issue from the height of the entire universe. The fact that life is transient spurred Hsu Yu-jen to pay attention to images of eternity. The paintings also embody his reflections over the time.
Renovation and Inheritance
Most people think that Hsu Yu-jen painted his works with fine points. “I actually painted with brushes. Brushes, inkstands, and ink are brilliant inventions of the Chinese people. Western people would not understand our feelings when creating with the traditional drawing tools. Japanese people did a good job in preserving the tradition. They have been using them since Tang dynasty. Nowadays important documents are still written with brush and ink in Japan. There are many ways of handling the brush in Chinese tradition.” Hsu Yu-jen is very passionate towards the traditional ink-wash painting.
Although Hsu’s paintings portray a polluted, damaged world, they are clean and simple and the mountains in them are almost semitransparent. Why are his works so clean? Hsu explained that it was difficult to find a clean thing nowadays. “I painted the scenery clean and present a complicated state in an absolute, pure way. I think this is in accordance with the spirit of the blankness in ink-wash painting.” Chinese paintings attach special importance to blanks. “Or the space in Western jargon. What I mean is the ideas about the space, not necessarily the structure of the space. Actually the entire science of ink-wash painting is about nature.”
According to Hsu Yu-jen, Chinese paintings can stand repeated appreciation if the spectators are familiar with and feel deeply for the traditional culture of ink-wash painting. Chinese ink-wash paintings are apparently very similar, but they are very refined in details. You may feel different things when you see the painting in your twenties, thirties, and even seventies. It is not like the works nowadays, which are shocking at first sight, and turn bland and flavorless when seen repeatedly. Ink-wash painting is a special branch of human artistic creation. “Among all the ancient civilizations, only the tradition of the ink-wash paintings in China has never been interrupted. No other art developed in this way in the entire world. Oil paintings in Europe had many forms and did not develop along the same line. In modern times, all the traditions of oil painting were overthrown. Why do so many Chinese painters love portraying stones, mountains, and flowers in the thousands of years? Are they crazy? No. They love painting these objects, as they find many touching, subtle, precious things that modern people cannot comprehend. The paintings are very touching. Emperor Huizong in Song dynasty was good at refined paintings of flowers and birds and at calligraphy as well. We have to absorb the nutrition of the tradition while making innovations. Few took the time to feel the refined details in the paintings. The tradition is old, but it would never die. It has been alive for thousands of years. Isn’t that amazing? Ink-wash paintings contain a lot of traditional philosophy, in which the Taoist view of nature is dominant.”
Chinese ink-wash painting was called “painting and calligraphy” in the past. Ink-wash painting and calligraphy are regarded as belonging to the same discipline. Most ancient Chinese students would learn calligraphy for several years and turn to painting. Most painters are calligraphers as well. Nowadays calligraphy was separated from painting. “Painting and calligraphy” is also closely connected with poems and articles. The two employ symbols and images and complement each other with many philosophical insights. Hsu Yu-jen inherited this tradition and often wrote his poems or articles on his ink-wash paintings. For instance, on an ink-wash painting of the sea, he wrote the following words in his idiosyncratic handwriting, “the sea flows continuously…nothing but the drifting forms…transient…transient…transient…transient…” It is a beautiful image.
His perspective of painting is also differnt. Hsu Yu-jen said that he now approaches the western paintings in a different way. He used to watch western paintings in reference to the aesthetic ideas and theories. Now he would watch them from the perspective and ideas of Chinese painting, especially Chinese ink-wash painting. There are a lot of overlapping between different cultures, though the superficial forms are not the same.
However, there are many fixed forms in Chinese ink-wash painting. It is difficult to make major changes within the fixed, sophisticated forms of ink-wash painting. “It is hard to create something of your own within a fixed form. That’s why we have to break this frame. I cannot boast that I owe a great deal to our tradition. I cannot return to the traditional times. The times changed, and so did I.”
Traditional Way of Life in Accordance with Nature
Hsu Yu-jen likes dawn and dusk very much. While watching the sky lightened up or dims away, he is fascinated with the elapse of time. The ray in the room would change in accordance with the light in the sky. He also likes seeing things in the dark. This is related to the habit he formed in the environment where he grew up. He seldom turns on the light wherever he lives, be it New York, Taipei or Beijing, except that he has to read or work. He likes to have dinner in the open and said that he could watch the stars while eating. “Such a natural living state would foster my introspection. I would be stirred emotionally. I try my best not to be bound by artificial values. The values that one accumulates in action is the biggest shatter to mankind.”
Most people do not view themselves from the values of the nature. Hsu Yu-jen often wishes to be reincarnated into a tree in his next life. “A tree stands still. It blossoms and bears fruit, and dies as it is. Humans have to die as well.” He always bears such a Taoist philosophy of the nature in his mind, which is integrated into his world of ink-wash paintings. “Humans have to suffer a lot. It is much better to live as a small tree, which grows in the cracks of stones, or as a bird, which can fly everywhere, or even as a stone. The traditional mindset is more resilient and open-minded.”
As he likes nature, Hsu Yu-jen built his two studios in a natural environment. One of his studios is located in the back of the Yangmingshan National Reserve. “When I painted in the forest, I felt as if I were an ancient Chinese who painted in the cottage in the mountains. I like this house very much. This is a spiritual and spatial connection, a connection to the natural world outside. Man and nature become closely related and can communicate at any moment.” When I asked him whether he would feel isolation when living alone in the mountain, Hsu Yu-jen said that several fellow artists also live there. “I have several friends who can drink with me. I have a really close friend who is a pottery artist. We often drink together.” Hsu likes the feeling of drinking. It is mind-freeing and relaxing and can expose one’s true personality. “Wine is a great friend. You have to handle your relation to it, become good friends of it, but you shall not be controlled by it. You would become more active in thinking when you are fully relaxed.” It is said that Hsu Yu-jen drank three times with Gu Long, a well-known Chinese writer. “Gu Long is a great intellectual, although he writes swordsmen novels. He is very liberal in character. This is a special character that is bred in the culture of the Yellow River Valley.” Hsu has adhered to the tradition to make friends through wine and tea.
Having grown up by the sea, Hsu Yu-jen also likes seashores and islands very much. He found a cement house in Hualian on the eastern coast of Taiwan and made it another studio. The flat, blue, and wide Pacific Ocean is right outside the veranda of the studio. “Taiwan is very small and the skyline is always hindered from view. The skyline here is really open. The western coast of Taiwan has a view of the sea as well, but it is not quite as pretty. The eastern coast is wide and the mountains are steep. The sight of the sea is boundless when I view it in the embrace of the mountains. This is the place where I would stay on the eastern coast of the Pacific Ocean. I like observing the wide ocean and the subtle changes of the seawater: at dawns, the sun rises in the east, and the sea changes within minutes. At dusk, mists arise and the sea is changed every instant. The sea unfolds different scenery at different times within a day and in different seasons.”
Hsu spent many years in U.S. He worked as part-timer, marketing executive, and jewelry designer, but he never stopped painting. “When no one would by my painting, I would work, save money, and continue painting.” He forged ahead in this way. “I would keep notes and diary while working. I wrote down my thoughts, drew many drafts, and explore new methods of creation. I never stopped such practices. Self-training is really very important, for it is also an accumulative process for painting. Many thoughts would have be lost if I had not jotted them down. Once they were written, they were materialized and accumulated.” Hsu said that many of his creative ideas were “old stuff that resurface on the lake”. While accumulating his experience and thoughts, Hsu also likes instantaneous imagination and thinks that only blind instinct can give rise to art, a typical trait of the Pollux people. “There are many doors in the world. You have to open them slowly and break them.”
Hsu has been improving himself through such reflections and self-trainings. Now his paintings have been collected as precious artistic works by many overseas museums and private owners.
“Recently I am interested in moving the real space to the sky, or the so-called universe.” Perhaps in the near future, we will witness again the outstanding expression of Hsu Yu-jen’s endless imagination on ink-wash painting.
許雨仁……和他創造的細筆水墨世界
高偉
古人用金、木、水、火、土五種元素來概括這個世界最基本的構成，而在許雨仁所建構的創新細筆水墨世界裏，世界是由小點和極細的線綴連而成的。而且，構成這個世界的形狀是方形的、圓形的、長方形的、三角形的、和不規則的幾何形體。更有甚者，這些作品還號稱是水墨作品！有誰見過這滿眼都是幾何形體的中國水墨？這樣的反差讓人驚訝。印象中的中國傳統水墨都是山山水水、花鳥魚蟲這樣的自然物象，承載著中國傳統文化的氣、意、韻、道；而面對許雨仁所創造的一個全新的水墨作品，不由得我們不去思考其中的嬗變。
誰說水墨不可以這樣畫？
畫出這樣水墨畫的畫家竟然還是科班出身。
三十多年前，許雨仁畢業於國立藝專（現在的臺灣藝術大學）水墨畫系。追溯起來，臺灣的國立藝專與一九二八年初蔡元培、林風眠先生在杭州西子湖畔創建的“國立藝術院”（後改名國立藝術專科學校）是一脈相承的，向來有在傳統中創新的傳統。不過許雨仁當年在學校學畫畫的時候，傳統的勢力還是佔了上風。
考大學前半年才開始自學畫畫的許雨仁，用他自己的話說，當初是“混”進學校的。年輕的時候喜歡遊山玩水，喜歡交女朋友。從臺灣南部鄉下的佳里到了臺北這樣的大都市上學，有一天，忽然自己開竅了，變得很喜歡看藝術方面的書，於是就開始去圖書館借書看，在不到半年的時間就把學校的書全看完了。而且開始自己亂畫，因為一開始是自學，並沒有受過多少系統啟蒙教育，反而讓他的畫區別與他人。“自己覺得蠻特別的，跟別人畫的不一樣，那時候還不知道所謂的個性。當時的感覺是我真的可以畫畫了！我感覺到自己的潛力，對藝術創造的熱情，越來越喜歡沿著自己的路走，學校那邊就應付過去了。”
因為畫法跟學校教授的傳統技法不太一樣，老師又按照傳統眼光評分，當年許雨仁的畢業問題頗費周折。老師們評分投票，幾乎所有的水墨畫系的老師都認為他的作品有問題，而只有油畫系科的洪瑞麟老師力保他畢業。而經歷這樣的事情以後，許雨仁並不“悔改”，反而更堅定了他的叛逆之路。
“我要找到一個水墨畫的絕對原創”
根基於現實主義的關懷，許雨仁開始嘗試各種材質，立體、油畫、水墨都嘗試。包括這十幾年，許雨仁一直在嘗試中國水墨的創新。
“你看我的水墨畫，幾乎看不到前人的影子，雖然我是用細筆斷線，跟工筆畫還不一樣。用這樣的方式，我要找到一個水墨畫的絕對原創。與西方的畫又完全不同。”
以往中國水墨畫法中的一切忌諱，許雨仁全部把它們“變廢為寶”，為自己所用，成為自己獨特的招牌。
徹底回到畫畫的最原點。墨，紙，硯，筆雖然是古老的工具，但不把它們當作古老的元素，而看作一個基礎而現代的元素，就跟拿鉛筆，拿鋼筆一樣。許雨仁開始用幹筆、小筆畫點跟斷線。以往水墨的潑墨寫意全沒了。畫面上所有的東西都是點線面的結合。
同時，許雨仁非常善於利用反思考和逆向思維。傳統水墨架構都打翻：全部用以前水墨畫中摒棄的水平線、垂直線、三角形和立體形，儘量避開了傳統水墨的構圖。“如果回到傳統，又走不出來了。所以我就開始用幾何的想法來畫水墨。我一開始先從自己的內心世界開始畫，後來又加如了其他東西。”人發明的房子是方形的，圓形和三角型的，水紋是三角的，日月星辰的射線是直線，樹是細長方形的……所有的一切，都反其道而行之。許雨仁的作品，看縮小的印刷品，可能會覺得象素描，又有點象版畫，其實，看原作卻完全不同，一個個如同草履蟲一般的小點成為最小的單位，被畫家有機的安排在畫作上。
在畫畫的視點上，許雨仁不用西方的透視，也不太用中國傳統水墨的散點透視，而更看重物象之間的抽象關係。許雨仁畫畫的時候會看很多圖片和畫冊，有的時候甚至會擺很多奇奇怪怪的東西，這些東西能喚醒許雨仁記憶中感動的影子。一張水墨畫裏面，有的視點是從空中向下看的，有的是平視，有的帶有透視點，有時候視點是從地上向上看。許雨仁提到，留白能產生奇妙視點。“我會把所有的視點歸到留白裏面。一張畫裏面有很多視點，用留白來想旁邊的東西，靠直覺來畫。”許雨仁自嘲年紀大了，眼睛沒有以前那麼好，畫一會就得停下來休息。正是在休息時遠觀自己的水墨畫，又產生了新的想法。“往往這個時候會有變化，本來想這樣的，結果又想那樣了。有一種遊山玩水的感覺，仿佛遨遊天地間。” 許雨仁說在畫一幅畫面中不同部分的時候，就仿佛是從一個時空進入了另一個時空，“跟在大海裏浮潛有點象。從陸地一下進入了海裏，在海裏看水下面的繽紛世界”，從小生活在海邊的許雨仁用最熟悉的比喻來形容他作畫過程中的妙境。“我希望在一種遊戲的感覺中畫畫。我水墨畫面的空間是流動的、跳躍的，想把這幅畫畫得更特別。”許雨仁的水墨，畫面中的想法是交錯的。“我的內心有很多水墨原創的種子，我就播撒進畫中，讓它去生。”而他也在追求一種簡單的美感，想要那種留白的感覺，畫面雖然很乾淨簡單，但卻很豐富，有一種空間的蒙太奇的味道。正是基於這樣的特點，許雨仁的畫，每個部分切下來，再放大又會變成另一張畫。他水墨畫裏面的每一個點都是一個種子，每一部分都有獨立性。讓人很受啟發，“朋友們說我的畫能幫助他們產生某種想法。”
對“四”的觀念也是一樣。因為諧音的緣故，中國文化當中向來是很忌諱“四”這個數字的。很多公共的空間，比如旅館、樓層、車牌號碼都會避免用“四”。“四”就是“死”。 “我喜歡四，是因為死就是生。”在許雨仁的畫裏面，可以看到四塊石頭，四棵樹等等。四有時候代表畫家對人類對生態破壞污染的的一種感傷。“用筆把墨畫到絹上面，墨蹟乾了就是一個死亡的過程，但同時畫活了；畫完一幅畫是一個創意終結的過程，意味著畫家和畫關係的結束，但卻是作品與觀者交流的開始；我們中國把“四”理解成“死”， 印度的宗教書又認為四是一個“活”的東西；所以死和生都在向對方轉換，並不是一成不變的。”許雨仁看似對傳統反叛，其實，他對中國傳統文化中的陰陽轉換悟的很透。
創新，形式要跟內容相聯繫
但是，尋求創新的形式並不是為形式而形式。“水墨我做了很多年，也嘗試了很多種方式。藝術家用一種形式來表現，前提是這種形式跟內心的感覺要共鳴——原創的形式要跟內心的直覺結合，不可能憑空而來，一定有一個現實的原型，不能為形式而形式，這樣才不會被型所綁住。”創新的形式必須有現實基礎。藝術，只有對當代社會狀況有所反映才是有價值的。
談起創新細筆水墨形式上的改變跟中國的現狀息息相關。許雨仁從小生活在臺灣。在許雨仁小時候，臺灣還是一個農業社會。“鄉下人甚至打赤腳，不穿鞋，直到我上初中還是如此。”臺灣後來就開放了，到處蓋工廠，從農業化社會進入到工業化社會，污染也跟著進來。破壞從八十年代開始，臺灣碰到很嚴重的環境污染和亂墾，環境人為的破壞，靠海風災多，水災也多，情況越來越嚴重。接著又發生了臺灣921大地震。“以前沒有瞬間空間毀滅的感覺，我在美國打工，回到臺灣鄉下，海邊本來很乾淨，忽然變地到處都是垃圾。整個環境有很大的改變。環境瞬間的衝擊在古代的水墨中是沒有的，但是在現代，幾乎每天都會面臨這樣的問題。”
許雨仁在臺北念書的時候，看著那些名家的水墨畫就覺得是小時候記憶中的情景，畫中的山水都是那麼雅致，意韻深遠。許雨仁在思考，用傳統的方式畫水墨中的山水，其實是依靠回憶在畫水墨，因為臺灣的現狀早已不是如此了。污染不僅僅在臺灣，在大陸的狀況也一樣，甚至在全世界也一樣，是人類面臨的不可忽視的問題。許雨仁當時就考慮，要用水墨來畫出當代的環境和當代的生態。“我感覺水墨不應該只有一種畫法。一個原因是當下承襲的傳統水墨畫脫離現狀，只是簡單的遵循傳統，這其實是一種退步；另一個原因是，從傳統我肯定走不出來，因為幾千年累計的水墨的功力，形式上的能力，繪畫表達能力，都不及古人。古人都用毛筆寫字，整個環境也不一樣，人的心態也不一樣。我要尋找到屬於自己的原創。”於是，我們看到許雨仁目前創新細筆水墨作品中的“山水觀”：光禿禿的石山，幾乎沒有樹葉，排列著一些枯樹，不然就是水和石頭，水波和沙紋。石頭在中國水墨畫裏是最基本的一個典型代表，臺灣那個時候由於砍伐濫墾厲害，整個山都露出來，許雨仁以前做過測量的工作，特別關注山區的環境。“我記得當時去測量，發現整個山都變了。”他收集了臺灣地震的、亂墾的、污染的各種資料來畫他的“中國山水畫”。
古人生活的環境是農業化社會下、中國傳統文化的氛圍，讀經史子集，浸淫於儒家、道家和禪宗思想；今天中國已經進入工業化社會，我們也讀古書，學習古典，但現實生活已經完全不同，現在的社會是一個多緯度，多層面的經濟、政治、文化一體化的資訊社會裏，同時也面臨著很多現實的問題，僅僅簡單的回歸傳統，顯然是不夠的。
在許雨仁的畫裏面，充滿了對工業化、死亡的思考，他的水墨畫中雖然沒有人的痕跡，但是畫中的幾何形體，三角形的山，長條木塊似的枯樹，三角形的水紋處處留下了人為的痕跡。畫中被水泥堤圍住的海就像是籠中之獸，沒有樹的三角形的山與山的被開墾有關，四根枯木表達著對樹木砍伐後綠化造成破壞的傷感，三角形的水紋和水壩不無關係。可以說，許雨仁描繪了一幅自然世界在工業文明之後的遺跡——在工業化社會的污染之下，自然的死亡。許雨仁用水墨來描繪這個工業化之後的遺跡，以一種淡淡的傷感的筆調。而太陽、星星、月亮等星球所散發出來的直線的光芒卻是永恆的，他們的光輝，讓他的畫中有一絲希望之意。許雨仁從宇宙的高度來看待這個問題。萬物一瞬間，世界只是暫時的，所以才讓許雨仁不自覺的關注起一些永恆的意象，這裏面也帶著他對時間的思考。
發揚中間有傳承
大部分人認為許雨仁的畫是用針筆劃的，“其實我是用毛筆劃的，毛筆、硯、墨是中國很了不起的發明，用中國傳統繪畫工具創作，是西方人不能體會的。日本人用的很好，他們唐朝就延續用這個，現在日本重要的檔還是用毛筆磨墨來寫。中國的毛筆運用是很豐富的。”許雨仁對傳統的水墨充滿了感情。
儘管是畫被污染、被損害的世界，許雨仁的畫顯得很乾淨，又很簡單，能看到很透的山。為什麼把水墨畫這麼乾淨？許雨仁說現在要找到乾淨的東西很難。“我處理的很乾淨，用很絕對很單純的方式來展現一個複雜狀態的，我認為這是延續水墨的留白精神。” 中國畫講究留白，“用西方的話來說叫空間。我說的是空間的想法，不是空間的佈局。其實整個水墨都在講自然。”
許雨仁說，如果對中國書畫水墨的傳統文化有瞭解和深刻感受的話，看中國畫是回味的，很耐看。中國水墨表面上很雷同，但是又很細緻。在二十歲看是一種感覺，三十歲看又是一種感覺，七十歲看可能又變了。不象現在的作品，初看被SHOCK一下，多看就不太耐看，再看就什麼也沒有了。水墨是很特別的人類藝術創作的一支脈絡。“全世界所有的古文明，只有中國的水墨書畫沒斷過。全世界沒有一個藝術是這樣發展的。歐洲的油畫也有很多種形式，它不是單一的脈絡，而且在近代，整個形式都顛覆。中國畫山，畫石頭，畫花，幾前年為什麼有這麼多人這麼愛呢，那些人是瘋子嗎？不是的，是因為裏面有很多讓人感動的、微妙的，現代人不太瞭解的寶貴東西，人類手繪的很感動藝術。宋徽宗花鳥就很細緻，書法也很好。創新的同時也要吸收傳統的營養。很少有人去感受這種細緻的東西。雖然它很老，但是它永遠都不會死。幾千年都這樣，很奇妙。水墨裏面蘊涵了很多傳統哲學，以道家自然觀為主。”
中國水墨以前叫書畫，水墨和書畫是同源的。以往大部分人練習幾年書法然後再來畫畫，能畫的都能寫。現在把書法分裂出去了。書畫往往也與詩文相輔相成，或寓意，或象徵，充滿哲理，相得益彰。許雨仁秉承了這一特質，往往在他的水墨畫上寫他的詩文。比如，有一張畫海的水墨畫上就用他特有的字體就寫道：“海海流流不斷…只是形形體體浮浮淺淺，那暫時的…那暫時的…那暫時的…那暫時的…”意境很美。
甚至看畫的角度也不一樣，許雨仁說現在看西畫不太一樣，以前會用西方的美術觀點美術理論來看西畫，現在會用中國看畫的觀點、中國水墨的觀點來看。精神領域有些東西是相通的，雖然形式不一樣。
不過，中國水墨有很多固定的形式，在微妙的水墨的固定形式裏面做一些很大的改變，這是不容易的。“在固定的形式裏面，要達到一種創作，一種屬於你自己的東西，很難，所以才要打破這個框架。我不敢說秉承那麼多傳統，我是沒辦法回到那個時代。因為時代變了，我也得變。”
傳統的因循自然的生活方式
許雨仁最喜歡黃昏跟天亮這兩個時間，看著光線慢慢變亮或者變暗，那種流逝的感覺，讓時光變得很奇妙。房間中的一切光線都會隨著天光在變化。他也喜歡在黑暗中看東西。這跟小時候的生長環境和習慣有關係，不管在哪個地方，紐約、臺北或者北京，晚上都很少開燈，除非是要看書或是做事情。吃晚飯，也喜歡坐在外面吃，他戲言可以邊吃邊看星星。“這些自然的生活狀態，會影響我達到內觀，你會感到某種感動。我儘量不讓人創造的價值觀來束縛我自己，人在行為過程中累積的價值觀是對人最大的束縛。”
大部分人很少站在一種自然的價值觀來看自己。許雨仁常常想下輩子變成一棵樹多好，“站在那邊就可以不動了，它可以開花結果，死了就死了，人也是要死的。”這種中國的老莊哲學自然觀一直在他心裏，這與水墨的世界是一體的。“人漂泊多苦，樹長在石縫裏面多好，小小的；變成一隻鳥多好，可以到處飛；變成一塊石頭也好。傳統的意識形態來說還是要更達觀，要想得開。”
因為喜歡自然，許雨仁把兩個畫室都放在大自然的環境中。在陽明山國家森林公園後山有個畫室。“住在森林裏面畫畫的時候，我覺得自己就像古人在山中的茅屋裏畫畫一樣。買了這個房子以後我很是喜歡，這是一種精神與空間的連接，與外面自然世界的連接。人跟大自然的關係變的很近，溝通是隨時的。”當我問他一個人在山中是否會覺得與世隔絕，許雨仁說，有幾個藝術家朋友也住在那邊。“有幾個好的酒友，有一個關係特別好，做陶藝的，經常一起喝酒。”許雨仁喜歡喝酒的感覺，很豪爽，讓人完全放鬆，能看出一個人的特質。“酒其實是一個很好的朋友。嘗試著跟它處理好關係做很好的朋友，而不要被它所控制。達到某種放鬆的狀態，思考會更靈敏。”據說，當年許雨仁還跟古龍喝過三次酒，“古龍是很了不起的文人，雖然他寫的是武俠小說。他的性格也特別豪爽，這是中國黃河流域文化發展出來的很特殊的性格。”以酒會友，以茶會友，這種古已有之的方式一直被許雨仁所推崇。
小時侯在海邊長大的許雨仁也喜歡海灘和海島。他在臺灣東海岸花蓮，找了一個水泥房子作為畫室。上了畫室陽臺外面就是太平洋，整個寬的、平的、藍色的海洋。“臺灣是很窄小的，看東西老是被擋住，這邊的視野真的是太開闊了。臺灣的西海岸也可以看見海，可是西海岸沒那麼漂亮，東海岸很寬，而且山很陡，真的是靠山背海，一望無際。這是我在太平洋東海岸的一個落腳點，去感受海洋的寬闊和海水微妙的變化：日出的時候，太陽從東邊的海邊出來，海面千變萬化，幾分鐘就變了。到黃昏有起一些霧，海面上霧氣濛濛，那是一種很瞬間的變化。一天中變化多端，春夏秋冬又不一樣。”
曾經在美國待了好多年，打工賺錢，做過行銷，珠寶設計等等好多工作，畫畫一直沒有斷過。“以前沒有人買畫的時候，打工存錢再畫畫。”許雨仁就是這樣執著與畫畫。“打工的時候會寫雜記和筆記，很多感觸會寫下來，畫一些草圖，亂寫亂塗，做一些對自己創作的探討，一直沒有斷過。自我訓練是很重要的，為畫畫做積累。很多想法，不寫下來也就忘記了。寫下來就累計下來了。” 許雨仁稱自己的很多想法和創意是從“湖底下翻湧上來的陳年舊物”。 在積累的同時，雙子座的許雨仁也喜歡瞬間突現的想像力，認為只有盲目的衝動才會有藝術。“世界有很多門，你要慢慢開，要把它打破。”
許雨仁就在這種自我總結、自我訓練中提高，現在他的畫已經被很多海外的博物館和私人所收藏，價值不菲。
“我最近趕興趣的是把現實的空間移到天空，所謂的宇宙，我現在很感興趣。”可能在不久的將來，我們又將見到許雨仁那永不枯竭的想像力在水墨上的出色表現了吧。
Qiu Zhijie
The Slow Victory of Plants: On Luo Ying’s World of Flora
Qiu Zhijie
Quiescent and devoid of human presence, Luo Ying’s world is populated instead by orioles in flight, and a spectrum of trees and flowers: lotus rising from ponds, bamboo and pines, rose apples and cherry blossoms, all lush and flourishing. This is a land of peach blossoms, of angelica and orchids, a place where dreams of marvels and memories of past loves might flourish, where a rare deer might appear, or a simple plant reveals healing powers. Here duckweed floats untethered to the water’s surface, as rafts of reeds travel across the watery expanse, and perch swim freely for miles.
Over thousands of years, the roots of such plants have become deeply entwined in the souls of Chinese people. In Chinese art, trees and plants function as symbols and metaphor, they are objects on which we fix our gaze, and anchors that help us to ground our lives. In its earliest appearance in ancient oracle bone inscriptions, the character for art (yi) was represented by a running man carrying a plant in his hands. In later seal script, this plant now appeared implanted in the ground while the entire people kneels by its side, cultivating the earth. In the modern simplified character for art (艺) we can still clearly identify the kneeling leg and foot, while the plant, now at the top of the character, has multiplied. There are no other people so filled with a sense of worship and gratitude towards plants as the Chinese. For thousands of years it has been said that trees and plants alone can understand and reflect our true selves; in fact, the plant world has become a kind of community for the solitary and the lonely. Just as with plants themselves, the legacy of Chinese art is not characterized by slashing and uprooting, but rather by quiet and patient cultivation.
Using plants as material in building architectural structures, the Chinese people never placed their faith in the indestructability of the hard and the firm; rather they believed in the power of sustained endurance, and this is a power that plants have revealed to us. The supposedly indestructible palace of King Taihang fell to the ground in the face of the enduring strength of the Foolish Old Man and his descendants. In the face of a cataclysm, plants yield to the destruction of the axe, to the inevitability of falling and withering, and yet in their hearts they are waiting. When the storm passes, plants regenerate and bloom again. The tomb of a monarch eventually becomes a fertile ground where plants grow and flourish. The victory of plants is slow, and relentless.
And thus, the world of plants that traditional Chinese people—that traditional Chinese art have/has constructed, is replete with species imbued with characteristics that are valued and respected: the noble resignation of reeds in an autumn lake, the melancholy of harvested fields of millet and wheat, the cold harsh endurance of the alfalfa, and the hopelessness of the gathered thorn-ferns.[1] The mulberry trees glow in the setting sun, and the spiciness of ginger increases with age. In Song and Yuan paintings there is a tradition of depicting ancient trees in winter forests: this is an image that has long become encapsulated in our lexicon. Only those who aspire to the life of an anonymous recluse may earn respect as a noble scholar. In this kind of world, both the person who does not suffer from loneliness and the tree that is not old and withered are ignominious. It is taken for granted that only the moral person can find comfort and make his dwelling in such bitter, indifferent and frigid conditions. These paintings of withered trees and wintry forests represent a cultural sensibility, and have gradually become a touchstone of our language; they have become the trademark of the moral scholar in the same way that the humble dish of Yuxiang shredded pork becomes the test that distinguishes a master chef.
Chinese painters today lounge behind their floor to ceiling windows, turn on their air conditioners, play recordings of ancient guqin music on their expensive stereo systems, and open bottles of fancy Bordeaux wine; and yet, which of them does not attempt to insert into their work some of those qualities of bitter, wintry desolation, of loneliness and world-weariness, that permeate those ancient paintings?
Luo Ying’s world of plants is not of the kind characterized by an enforced condition of bitter cold and desolation. To the contrary, her world is full of vitality and life-force, like the first plants formed on Earth, as the biologist Thomas Huxley described in his essay Evolution and Ethics:
The native grasses and weeds, the scattered patches of gorse, contended with one another for the scanty patches of surface soil; they fought against the droughts of summer, the frosts of winter…. One year with another, an average population, the floating balance of the unceasing struggle for existence among the indigenous plants, maintained itself.[2]
Here different species of plants are engaged in a constant life and death struggle. But Luo Ying’s world is not characterized by the typically western narrative of a battleground where the strong devour the weak and the law of the jungle prevails: rather, her summer plants are always lush and blooming, and her autumn leaves glow with a quiet beauty, each following in perfect order the seasons of the Earth.
Her world does not belong to the primordial plant world described in Evolution and Ethics, because her world is full of the traces of human existence: tiled floors, garden railings, a cluster of chairs, even gates and stairways, or an empty couch. Yet it is also not the world of the traditional Chinese scholar’s garden, where the frustrated court official could vent his woes, or where the rich and complacent could retire and enjoy the elegant props that allowed them to imagine themselves as roaming through a wilderness of mountains and forests. To the contrary, in Luo Ying’s world we actually find western-style outdoor furniture. The metal railings and chairs have a flavor of Art Nouveau, and even the architecture of the walkways and the style of the flower vases have a distinctly western flavor, complete with street lights and sun umbrellas—these are the kinds of accouterments we would expect to see in modern European art, in the paintings of a Duffy or a Matisse. These are the symbols of an era in which civilization was confident in its belief that it had conquered Nature, when the critique of the machine age was yet about to unfold. These objects are past symbols of the bourgeois and hedonistic lifestyle.
Coming to this point in our analysis, it appears we are on the verge of labeling Luo Ying as either a painter of urban life, or as a painter of contemporary gardens: her use of colour and of ink—the gorgeous effects of the pale pinks and soft greens juxtaposed with or melting into the light ink wash, and the way she integrates the boneless style of painting with calligraphic line—goes against traditional stylistic conventions of brushwork and is completely devoid of the spirit of sparseness and bitter wintry desolation of past masters. All of these details conspire to create an association in our minds with a kind of hedonistic spirit, a judgment which would at least make us feel comfortable that we know what we are dealing with here.
And yet, let’s not be too hasty: moving beyond the details to the overall composition, we find that it is telling us a very different story. Every inch of the composition is infused with a certain traditional Chinese sensibility. These are not the mountains and woodlands of a Chinese scholar-recluse; these are realms hidden within the structure of our city, and they bring with them a sense of unease. Of course, it is the plants—these are not the plants so carefully tended by the gardeners of the scholar-gentleman, they are infiltrators that were long hidden under the long cloak of traditional painting schools and have found their way into our contemporary world. Even now, when they silently appear alongside the streetlights, and the shadows of trees fall on quiet, empty streets, they have yet not forgotten that they once were celebrated in the ancient Book of Songs and Songs of Chu; and they have never abandoned their stature as symbols. They use wind and moonlight as secret codes, and are ready at any time to join together with the army of wild plants growing in the mountain fields on the outskirts of the city, poised to turn this city into a pleasure ground for plants.
In Luo Ying’s world, plants are paragons of patience, experts of waiting; they gather around empty corners of the city where people don’t go, growing higgledy-piggledy all over the place and ever ready to expand their territory. Why are there no people? Because these plants have taken on a human personality. They are not interested in invading the air-conditioned, glass window-protected space of some museum for literati art. They are agitated, because they are always prepared for the worst, to be cut down or uprooted here in the city. These are not the kind of plants accustomed to playing at world-weariness and resignation, these are plants prepared to face their destinies head on. This is the same destiny of traditional Chinese culture in a modern world where the law of the jungle prevails.
Whenever I think of the stench of Chinese farming villages, I feel so moved I want to weep. The reason for the continued use of foul-smelling cesspool pits in rural villages is not because Chinese people are too stupid to design underground sewer systems, it’s because the night soil in these pits is a valuable treasure, used to fertilize the soil to maintain its vitality. When I was a little boy I used to watch the people in my native village plant beans and astralagus in the period between seeding the early rice and harvesting the late rice; they looked like the purple alfalfa flowers that the ancient explorer Zhang Qian brought back from the Western Regions. Later, when I did some studying, I realized that both the stems and leaves of the bean plant and of the astralagus are the best material for fertilizing the fields. After thousands of years of farming, the nourishment of the soil in China’s limited farmland has not yet been exhausted: this soil still feeds such a huge population, which is reliant on just that way of life; and this way of life is the life of plants. Plants rely on the bees and the butterflies to transmit their love letters to each other, and then offer up their food to us.
The nature of Chinese people is the nature of plants.
And so we can empathize with both the unease and the vitality of Luo Ying’s world of plants. This is a struggle for a way of life. This is a statistical study of just how much tolerance there is for traditional Chinese people in this mundane world. This is where a light shines on the humblest thatched dwelling. This is where one cannot always distinguish the orchids from the wormwood. This is where every tree and bush conceals a warrior.
September 13, 2015
(Translation by Valerie C. Doran)
Qiu Zhijie is an artist and curator, and Dean and Professor of the School of Experimental Art at the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
[1] Note: Many of Qiu Zhijie’s references to the emotional qualities associated with plants are paraphrases or direct quotations from Chinese classical texts, where a particular plant plays an emotive role in particular scenario. For example, the reference to the hopelessness of the gathered thorn-ferns is from the poem ‘Cai Wei’ (‘Gathering Thorn-Ferns’) in the Xiaoya section of the ancient text Book of Songs (Shijing). In this poem, soldiers fighting on the battlefield far from their homes long for their families while gathering thorn-ferns. Thus an allusion to ‘gathering thorn ferns’ indicates a separation from and deep longing for home. Many such quotations from classical texts have become sayings with which the majority of Chinese are familiar.－Trans.
[2] Quoted from Thomas H. Huxley, ‘Prologemena’, in Evolution and Ethics, (New York: 1896), pp. 1-2.
植物的勝利姍姍來遲 – 讀羅穎的花草世界
邱志傑
藝術家／策展人／中央美術學院 實驗藝術學院院長
羅穎的世界寂靜無人，這個世界鶯飛草長，雜樹生花，芙蓉出水，椿萱並茂。這個世界有桃之夭夭，有沅茝澧蘭，有竹苞松茂，有棠棣之華，蕉鹿之夢，蓼莪之思，葑菲之采。這裡萍飄蓬轉，一葦可航，純鱸千里。
這些植物在一個民族的靈魂裡盤根錯節、瓜葛相連已經數千年。在中國藝術裡，植物從來都是象徵的喻體，凝視的對象，安身立命的倚靠。從甲骨文開始，「藝」字就是跪著的人手捧著植物，。到了石鼓文中，這株植物已經被植在土裡，那一整個民族正在一旁蹲跪著培土。即使到了簡體字的「艺」字，這跪著的腿腳依然清晰可見，頭上那株植物依然生生不息。再沒有一個民族對植物這樣地充溢著由心而發的膜拜和感恩。以至於數千年來，所有聲稱只有植物是自己的知己的人們，其實形成了一個孤獨者的共同體。也像植物一樣，中國的藝術傳承，從來都不是披荊斬棘式的砍伐和摧折，從來都是默默地耐心地養成。在寫遍芭蕉之後，菊老荷枯之時，一再地，枯木逢春，柳暗花明，茅塞頓開。
中國人住在植物構造而成的建築中，他們從來不相信堅固的不朽，他們更相信不息的力量，這種力量正來自植物的啟示。不朽的太行王屋，在不息的愚公家族面前轟然崩塌。每當玉石俱焚之時，斧柯交加之厄，植物們偃服，飄零，承受踐踏，心懷等待。風過之後，植物總會重新挺立，重新繁茂。帝王將相的陵墓，遲早終將成為植物的沃土。植物的勝利，總是姍姍來遲。
因此，傳統中國人——傳統中國畫所構造的植物世界中，充滿了人格清高的物種，充滿了蒹葭秋水的無奈和黍離麥秀的傷感，充滿了苜蓿生涯的清冷和採薇者的絕望。每每在桑榆暮景中，撿拾著老辣的薑桂之性。宋元以來的中國畫中古木寒林的傳統，已經成為一個標準句式。不嚮往隱遁的生活，不足於稱名士高士。在這樣一個世界中，不孤獨的人和不枯萎的樹都是可恥的。苦澀、淡漠、清冷的世界才是有德者的居所。這古木寒林的畫面，及其連帶的一整套趣味，慢慢地成為一句套話，就像廚師考級時必考的魚香肉絲，成為雅士的身份證。今天的中國畫家，在落地玻璃窗內，打開空調，用高級音響播放一曲古琴，呷一口波爾多的紅酒，然後，誰的筆下沒有幾筆自古以來的苦寒和蕭瑟，滿紙的落寞與厭世。
羅穎的植物世界卻不是這樣一個有幾分強裝的苦寒。她的植物世界生機勃勃，有如《天演論》中的天造草昧，是「怒生之草，交加之藤，勢如爭長相雄。各據一抔壤土。夏與畏日爭，冬與嚴霜爭……憔悴孤虛，旋生旋滅。菀枯頃刻，莫可究詳。是離離者亦各盡天能，以自存種族而已」。物種在這裡方生方死，此起彼伏。然而羅穎的世界卻又不是西方式的弱肉強食的生存競爭的戰場。這裡夏花爛漫，秋葉靜美，一切都在時序和地理的秩序中。
所以這個世界當然又決不是《天演論》中的天造草昧，這個世界已經到處都是人的痕跡：一片地磚，一排欄杆，幾把椅子，甚至於一角門巷，數段台階，一把空空的躺椅。它們甚至不是中國傳統園林中那些用來讓官場失意者長吁短嘆或讓得意者假裝嚮往山林的道具，這是一些西式的戶外家具。鐵欄杆和椅子都帶著新藝術運動以來的鐵藝風格，甚至有西式的建築迴廊和花盆，甚至有路燈和遮陽傘——這些道具我們在杜飛和馬蒂斯時代的歐洲畫面裡看到過，那是一個人類充滿自信地自以為征服了自然之後的時代，對於機器的反省就要展開。這些器物，曾經是中產階級和享樂主義的符號。
解析至此，我們幾乎要把羅穎定義為一個都市生活畫家或現代園林畫家了：她的用色和用墨——粉紅和嫩綠在淡墨中的交錯斑斕；她用沒骨和兼工帶寫的畫法規避了傳統中國畫中骨法用筆蒼老用筆的律令，驅盡了殘破和苦寒趣味；所有的這些細節，似乎都傾向於把我們推向一個享樂主義的印象，這樣一個解釋就能讓我們安分了。
但是且慢，整個畫面告訴我們的卻又全然不是這些。有一種傳統中國的氣質正彌散在這個世界的每個角落。它不是中國隱士的山林，它就在我們這座城市的秩序中潛伏，帶來一種不安。對了，就是這些植物，這些植物從來沒有甘心地接受園藝工人的修剪，它們只是一個漫長傳統派來潛伏在我們這個當代的臥底。甚至於當它們默默地和路燈為伍，把樹影落在夜靜無人的街頭時，它們也從來沒有忘懷自己在《詩經》和《楚辭》中的身份，它們從來沒有放棄象徵的地位。它們用風和月光作為暗號，隨時準備和城市周邊山野裡的植物大軍裡應外合，把這座城市變成植物的樂園。
在羅穎的世界中，植物是一些耐心的等待者，它們總是包圍著無人的都市一角，旁逸斜出，枝柯交錯，隨時準備蔓延。為什麼無人，因為這些植物就有人格。這些植物沒有準備把自己安放在空調玻璃房裡的古木寒林博物館裡，它們不安分，它們隨時準備在城市裡遭遇摧折。這不是那種習慣化的表演著厭世和無奈的植物，這是一些擔當著命運的植物。這是傳統中國在一個弱肉強食的現代世界中的命運。每次我想起中國農村的臭，都感動得想哭。中國農村的糞坑，不是中國人蠢得不會設計下水道把糞便排放出去，而是這些糞便都是寶貝，是用來讓土壤保持肥力，讓資源循環。我小時候看家鄉的人在兩季禾苗早稻和晚稻中間，在田裡種豆和紫雲英，也就是張騫從西域帶回來的紫花苜蓿，後來讀書才明白，豆根豆葉和紫雲英，都是最好的肥田的材料。幾千年的農耕，中國有限的耕地，土壤的營養沒有耗盡，養育了這麼多人口，靠的就是這種生活方式，這種生活方式，就是植物的方式。植物拜託蜜蜂和蝴蝶傳遞情書，一定供奉出食物。這是一種謙卑和禮貌的生活。相比之下，動物都是掠食者。
中國人都是植物性的。
因此我們理解了羅穎的植物世界中的不安和活力，這是一場生活風格的爭鬥。這是這座塵世中還能容下多少傳統中國人的統計學。這裡蓬蓽生輝，這裡蘭艾難分，這裡，草木皆兵。
二零一五年九月十三日
Yu Jian
2011
陳恆作品
陳恆早年學的是水墨，後來又深入油畫，造詣深厚。近年油畫水墨並進，但似乎並不想走時下畫界流行的中西合一之路。油畫就是油畫，水墨就是水墨。左手寫丹青，右手塗油彩，如果彼此間有滲透，也是在道的層面。兩者陳恆都得心應手，而且自成氣象。何謂現代意義上的畫家，我以為不在理論、觀念、主義，而在於對新形式的應用和把握。行家對陳恆油畫的評價極高，幾年前香港的漢雅軒悄悄地辦過一次個展，策展人張頌仁認為：「陳恆的畫焦點是放在內在的精神層面，呈現出濃厚的宗教意味」。畫展之後，作品全部被藏家收走，只是流星般在畫廊晃過一下，如今已難覓蹤跡。我是少數幾個得見原作的人之一，至今還記得面對他作品時的那種激動。當時曾經為這個畫展寫過一文，叫做《齊白石之後》。陳恆是苦行僧，多年住在北京，只是潛心畫畫，不與碼頭上熙熙攘攘的各路交往。不自我張揚也不宣傳，彷彿古代匠人，作品一出爐，就送到客戶家去了。所以他雖然已經畫出傑作，卻沒有成為名人，像個地下工作者。
最近幾年，陳恆、馬雲和我，漫遊藏區、大理、建水、蘇州、敦煌……對中國文化有更深感悟，交談甚多。我有時會接到他從北京打來的電話，正要過綠燈，只好停下，聽著他在2000多公里以外，隔著大片大片的高山、平原、河流、沼澤說什麼「信仰轉移了，只剩下曾經為宗教所激發的藝術這個問題，我們可以再談談」之類。有時候我一邊望著對面的攤子上的人在打麻將，一邊與他討論莫蘭迪或者八大山人。
這批水墨畫，是陳恆最近幾年沈思琢磨的結果。油畫就是油畫，水墨就是水墨。這一點與我不謀而合，新詩做新詩寫，舊詩做舊詩寫。有無相生，世界之豐富在有之萬千，深邃在無之難以定形。最近時代，人類為全球化所迷惑，貿易主導的通波及一切，不可通者亦強為通之。海德格爾有悟，嘗言，「我曾經十分笨拙地把語言稱為存在的家。如若人是通過他的語言才棲居在存在之要求中，那麼，我們歐洲人也許就棲居在與東亞人完全不同的一個家中。」東西方住在不同的家中，上帝創造巴別塔不僅僅分裂世界，也是為了豐富世界。世界之通，在感受上，精神上，不必在語言上、地理上、生活方式上、藝術上，這些方面應該像費孝通先生所說的，各美其美，世界大同。文明的厚重、深邃、豐富多姿恰恰在於世界不通的部分，不可取代的方言、特產、氣候、人種等等。讓上帝的歸上帝，該撒的歸該撒。語言上的民族主義在這個全球化時代是一種前衛。通只是在碼頭上，而不是在畫室深處。水墨畫是一種中國習俗，油畫是一種西方思維，如何在這兩種南轅北轍的藝術樣式中找到可以通為一的道路，我還真地看不出來，這其實是一條時髦的現代主義迷途。但是，藝術樣式是個人的才能可以把握的，現代意義上的天才，我以為正在對新形式的把握上。百科全書式的人物為何出現在文藝復興時代而不是中世紀，因為新的形式出現了。水墨畫有千年歷史，油畫進入中國已經近兩個世紀，出現陳恆這樣的藝術家是必然的。
西方文化影響中國，我以為最重要的不是思想主義，而是方法。陳恆琢磨繪畫，不僅在構圖佈局筆法（在塞尚那裡，他琢磨出幾何）甚至包括顏料配方。形而下者謂之器，許多人不屑，陳恆卻從形而下的琢磨而抵達形而上，從器到道。這種琢磨很笨，但非常根本，賁象窮白，貴乎返本，本是什麼，器也。陳恆是本源性的藝術家，他有根基，從根基出著手。
這批水墨是他2010到2011年之間的作品。這批畫，耐看自不必說。我可以不吝其詞地說，厚重、大氣、大巧若拙而又不野。可謂文質彬彬，有君子氣象，補壁，真個是滿室生輝。 水墨畫雖是表現，但大部分水墨依然拘泥於某種現實的寫意。陳恆突破這種寫意，塊面和線條本身被賦予精神性的力量，顯得更為抽象。我感覺他其實是在後退，似乎回到紋身的時代，為自然紋身，只注重它的力量而忽略它的象。但這種紋身不是原始的，而是文明的後果。陳恆從八大山人、莫蘭蒂那裡得到啓示，他試圖深化那些已經被大師意識到的東西。
但他不是僅僅從意境上著手，他是本源性的藝術家，陳恆喜歡思考繪畫如何開始。這些畫給我印象更深的是他創造了一種全新的水墨畫與世界的關係。
「天門中斷楚江開， 碧水東流至此回。 兩岸青山相對出， 孤帆一片日邊來」
彷彿是一種解放，彷彿回到了繪畫的開始處，畫幅再次呈現出一種頓悟、出世般的清新。
傳統畫幅的邊被取消了。畫幅本是沒有邊的，就像古代世界的紋身，邊框將畫幅囿禁是一種雅馴。陳恆非歷史地處理畫幅的傳統結構，漢字不再是題跋，而是畫面的主要構成，線條、塊面，並直接將整個畫幅開放性地帶入天地之間。
水墨畫長於表現，這是水墨畫的材料和工具本身決定的。水墨畫無法寫實，只要在用水墨，就是表現性的。中國水墨之難於突破，也就在於這種宿命式的表現主義。因此以往大家，無不尋求在表現上有所突破。這種突破在工具、材料上很局限，突破往往在畫家精神世界與宇宙大千的關係上，也就是如何看世界上突破。
陳恆改變了一點點。讓漢字的象形性回歸本位是一點。另一點，通常的水墨畫的變化都是在意境的處理上，陰陽黑白濃淡或者寫意工筆的分配。但陳恆的改變卻不僅此，他重構了畫幅與世界的關係。以往，水墨總在尺幅之內，與世界有一個畫與非畫面的自治關係。陳恆取消了這個邊界，這些畫是開放性的，沒有邊界，彷彿只是宇宙中的天然一物，宇宙只是畫面的延伸或入侵。時空關係的改變不僅在於畫面內部，非邏輯地、夢幻般地錯置象的關係，感受性或者理性地重構，也在於整幅畫與天地的關係，畫面彷彿置身於山壁，創造了一個場，無論大雁或者芭蕉，都隱去自身，形隱藏著的形而上之力得到強烈的表現。畫幅只是置身於一個宇宙之場中的一物，就像天壇、民間門神畫與周邊世界的關係。門神和天壇都是開放的，因為它們必須與天地神靈直接交感，不能有框。泰山石刻也是這種關係。溝通與宇宙自然之最後邊界，給人的印象不再是畫幅之內而是萬物之間。
裝裱也成為創作的一部分，根據畫面，裝裱各不相同。畫幅不再是一張完工的宣紙，只要交裝裱行框起來就可以了。一幅作品作為整體與空間的關係不再是自治的，而是開放的。
陳恆這些畫給人一種活起來的感受。這種革命性的結構最動人的是它不是那種野怪黑亂的標新立異，而彷彿是本來如此，傳統只是被移動了一點，這不是反傳統的斷裂，而是經驗的復活。這些畫其實回到的是開始，繪畫的開始之處。繪畫並非從尺幅之內開始，而是從大地上開始，從紋身開始，隨便它是什麼身。從自由開始。文要建立的人與世界的出世關係，文明，以文就是照亮。但文明過度，藝術的革命就要回到紋。
說到底，陳恆著眼的是藝術與世界的終極關係。形式、技巧對於他來說，都是次要的。但這個關係必須從形而下處著眼（材料、結構、筆法等）而不是從觀念到觀念。陳恆只不過是回到紋而已。這是一種經驗而不是標新立異。
後繼者可以在陳恆的這種突破中看到更多的可能性。
張頌仁說他的作品有宗教感，我以為陳恆的宗教精神並非在教堂裡面作畫。而是中國式的為天地立心，人皆可以成聖賢，他從根基上入手，創造出水墨畫與大千世界的新關係，復活了我們已經遺忘的那些經驗。
2011年12月5日星期一 在昆明
Yu Jian
2007
來自中國遙遠外省雲南的陳恆是我們這個時代的一個異數。
雲南有27個少數民族。異數是這個省的存在根基。在這個全球化日益征服著大多數的時代，只有異數能夠引領我們守住那些最後的根基。
異數並非通常理解的標新立異，恰恰相反，標新立異已經成為我們時代的主流文化，新的媚俗者可謂滔滔者天下皆是。陳恆的藝術立場卻過於古典、不合時宜、孤獨因而顯得相當前衛了。傑出的藝術家必然是悖論的承擔者。「前衛」並不總是在所謂的前面，世界是圓的，而不是一條無休無止的直線。如果你總是前進，你最後會來到出發的地方，如果你後退，你會遇到那些前進的人們。歐洲的文藝復興也許是這方面的例子之一。西方最近200年來，一直在取消上帝，但最近的思潮是，還是得回到上帝那裡去，否則人們就沒有根基了，遊戲就越來越乏味了。其實，世界在基本的方面一步也沒有前進過，否則過去的五千年的文明就不可能「道法自然」。
陳恆是我們時代藝術家中深諳此道的鳳毛麟角者之一。談論陳恆的作品不需要創造時髦的術語，而使用那些已經成為文明史之常識的經典語言卻是必須的。
有一次，我與陳恆在橫斷山脈的四川省一側旅行，我們步行來到一個信仰苯教的藏族人的村莊中走下，那古老的村莊位於高山之巔，白色的石頭房子里供奉著千年前的神靈。我們在蘋果樹下乘涼的時候，再次談起了齊白石，這也許是我們第１０１次談論這位偉大的畫師。我相信，齊白石的名字在這個地區是第一次被提到。那是一個乾旱的夏天，空氣中熱浪喧囂，微風從岩石上吹下。後來我們又經過一棵巨大的柏樹，下面坐著七八個白髮蒼蒼的老太太，她們正在唱古歌求雨，我們聽不懂她們的歌詞，但那歌聲使人心靜。她們在祈求最基本的東西，莊嚴、肅穆、深邃，就像在教堂，她們以神說話的虔誠來祈求一場雨。那個黃昏我們跟著她們的諳啞的歌聲穿越時間回到世界的開始，一個靈魂出竅的時刻。
二十世紀以降的中國藝術家，如果他依然是古代那種順天承命的藝術家的話，他必然是齊白石以後。齊白石是個高峰，令人仰止。中國現代藝術史的幸運是，我們的最後一位巨人不是一個中世紀的遙遠之人。作為藝術最高標準的保持者，如果繼續者，不是齊白石以後，是誰以後呢？齊白石令人絕望。這個時代離他如此之近，完全生活在他的呼吸中。但現代藝術的另一個幸運是，油畫進入了中國，新的可能性迅速地出現了。
油畫在齊白石的時代進入中國。給現代藝術製造了一個錯覺，人們以為齊白石永遠結束了。人們把油畫視為一場一刀兩斷的革命，水墨與刮刀、調色板是根本不同的工具。齊白石隨著文房四寶一道被廢黜了，就像宣統皇帝被趕出了故宮。但事情沒有那麼簡單，也許藝術家在過去一百年里欣喜若狂，他們終於得以用新工具開天闢地，從０開始。但一個世紀過去了，我們發現，什麼也沒有開始。
油畫作為來自西方的工具，20世紀的中國藝術家們一直在利用它來畫「什麼」。油畫在西方也許並非工具，從海德格爾對文森特·凡高的解釋，我們可以看出，就是在西方，油畫也在向著非工具性的自在者發展。西方藝術起源於對自然的模仿，藝術被視為探索世界的科學的一部分。例如繪畫對天文學中透視理論的影響。這種科學觀在20世紀被逐步拋棄，當西方意識到「藝術是直覺」（克羅齊）開始反動「物理性繪畫」，已經是20世紀的事情了。西方20世紀的「表現主義」其實與中國藝術悠久傳統的某些因素暗合，但不同的是，中國式表現的最高境界是「雅」。「雅」可以說是中國藝術的上帝。雅，就是詩意，詩意是古代中國藝術的最高境界，也成為藝術家們的噩夢。對「雅」的突破或者回歸其實一直是中國藝術的魅力所在。西方的表現主義最後卻抵達「觀念」。20世紀的中國的現代藝術模仿的是西方式的「表現」，藝術成為意識形態的工具。
２０世紀的「拿來」，從根本上說，都是工具理性支配，一切拿來的都是為了用。20世紀對雅的革命是使藝術意識形態化，現代藝術其實一直在意識形態的空間平面上擴展。藝術的叛亂與標新立異只是觀念、主義、「畫什麼」的大膽推進。在八十年代，這種觀念反叛還有著具體的對象，而在九十年代以後，「畫什麼」只是藝術家們如何「先富起來」的各種策略了。為了保持「反抗」的姿態，藝術家們甚至可以虛構「黑暗」，因為這樣才有買方市場。「畫什麼」從政治正確的「靈魂工程師」已經轉為「道在屎溺」，「賣掉，怎麼都行」。「中正之聲，日漸日微」。有人甚至宣稱，關於藝術語言的探索，在全球都已結束。中國藝術家的任務只是拿來，藝術只是工具，過去是改造世界的工具，現在是改善生活水平的工具，已經成為共識。如今幾乎已經沒有人再從倫勃蘭那裡「拿來」，連印象派、野獸主義……都由於「無用」而被拋棄了，聰明的藝術家們直接從每年的威尼斯雙年展拿過來。西方青睞中國當代藝術在觀念上的種種越來越誇張的突破，儘管這些突破已經沒有任何底線，最高標準只是能否賣掉、反叛對象已經虛無。西方也慶幸這些突破從來沒有超越西方各種傳統的藝術語言，我的意思是，西方壓根兒就沒有考慮過為他們如此看好的中國當代藝術是否出現了塞尚或者畢加索「以後」，這是不可能的。中國現代藝術永遠是——「毛以後」。
而從有效的藝術史來看，歷史依然在期待齊白石以後。經過一個世紀的喧囂，最後一位偉大者依然是齊白石。歷史將要選擇天才來復興雅的傳統。
拿來主義的為我所用在技術層面上也許是對的，但拿來主義席捲一切，成為本體論。中國生活的形而上層面不是通過上帝而是通過雅來確立。藝術並非實用者，藝術乃詩意之棲居。２０世紀工具理性盛行的可怕的後果是，詩意被嚴嚴實實地遮蔽了，詩意在意識形態、觀念、主義、知識走馬燈般的喧囂中已經缺席。
我們生活在一個乏味的世界中。這是一個反自然的時代，虛構盛行，「道法自然」作為傳統中國的「道樞」已經鏽跡斑斑。
陳恆是個例外。
陳恆不相信一切已經結束。
他落後於時代全方位的奧林匹克運動，從陳舊的齊白石開始，接著畫。
「大雅久不作。吾衰竟誰陳」。「正聲何微茫，哀怨起騷人」（李白）
一百年的「拿來」並非勞而無功，至少，它使油畫在中國「合法化」了。一個齊白石以後的藝術家必然面對兩個傳統，齊白石們的傳統和「拿來主義」的傳統。大多數藝術家無視前者的存在，他們更心儀１９６６年以來的新文化，從０開始令他們輕鬆，獲得新觀念比在如何畫上前進一毫米容易多了。這涉及到世界觀的問題，藝術是為了越來越流行的中國現代藝術新方針「賣掉，怎麼都行」，還是過去時代的那些老生常談，比如「丹青之興，比雅頌之述作，美大業之馨香．宣物莫大於言，存形莫善於畫。」（陸機）
陳恆是一個把「筆墨」視為存在本身而不是工具的藝術家，他繼承的是一個悠久的世界傳統。陳恆考慮的不是畫什麼，而是如何畫。其實什麼都可以畫，世間一切皆詩，重要的是如何畫。
與西方把繪畫視為「外形的模仿、製造「（柏拉圖）、「按照自己的形象畫出和塑出神的樣子」（色諾芬）或者「創造沒見過的東西」不同，「道法自然」的中國藝術傳統是在家的。「夫畫者，成教化，助人倫」（唐：張彥遠）「人禽、宮室、器用皆有常形……欺世盜名者，必托於無常形也（宋 蘇軾）。常：恆久、經常；法典、倫常、普通、庸常。常、教化、人倫都是家事、家常。古典藝術家為人生為家而創造而不是為社會、時代或者展覽會上的公眾而創造。齊白石是一個在家的畫家而不是展覽館畫家，他表現的是常。油畫在過去的一個世紀中，完成了它的合法化過程。但油畫依然沒有取得山水畫的那種資格，人們會把把文房四寶自然地放在家裡，但沒有人會把油畫鏟和調色板視為文具。在我看來，油畫在中國一直是工具而不是文具，油畫在中國開闢了展覽館的空間，但它沒有進入家中。早期中國油畫先輩因為與東西方古典傳統氣脈未斷，油畫還在家門口徘徊過一陣，但後來就跟著革命徹底上路了。
文具，是對存在的尊重、順應。《說文解字》說：「文：錯畫也」。錯畫就是交錯的花紋，與文身有關，《禮記·王制》雲：「‘東方曰夷，被發文身’。孔疏：文身者，謂以丹青文飾其身。’」文身，首先是對身的尊重，「人之初，性本善」，因為對身、對生的感激，贊美，因此以丹青文之。文身就是文明，身是黑暗的，是詩意之所在，但只有文，只有丹青才將存在的詩意照亮。這就是雅，雅就是被「文」明的詩意。大塊假我以文章（李白），天地有大美而不言，這就是「道法自然」。
工具，是對存在的改造、革命。《說文解字》說：「工，巧飾也。象人有規矩」。巧，技也。工就是技術，技術不是創造，而是根據圖紙、規則來製造，中國20世紀的現代藝術，說到底，基本上是根據西方的圖紙在製造。
工具理性植根在西方思想中。展覽館其實是教堂的延伸，展覽館是改造帶有原罪的靈魂的教室。傳統中國的藝術世界是在家的，它不是認識改造世界的意識形態，不是拯救世界的工具，不是所謂的「社會雕塑」。
意識形態、觀念、主義、知識都是實用者，此一時彼一時。意識形態是可以說出來的種種主義、觀念。而雅則是道可道，非常道。沒有是非，「天地無德」，乃是那穿越時間的永恆者。中國世界的意義系統不是依靠宗教、意識形態支持，而是靠詩意支持。當我們說詩意的時候，並非艷俗美學或波普藝術所嘲弄的風花雪月。詩意存在於大地世間，文使其明，中國文明的源頭是「道法自然」。自然乃詩意所在，但詩意被原始的黑暗遮蔽著，只有文才能照亮。文，先是紋，然後才是文。文雅，文而後雅。
「雅者，正也。言王政所由興廢也，大雅不作，則斯文衰矣」（《李太白全集》楊其賢語）雅在中國，對於藝術家來說，既是上帝也是暴君。雅馴從宋以後，越來越令人窒息，已經近於福柯所謂的「理性就是酷刑」。20世紀顛覆了雅的傳統。但雅與上帝不同的是，雅與人生不是分離的，它有一個「天人合一」的基礎。雅不只是藝術的最高典範，也是家、日常生活的典範。它不是高踞於日常生活之上的宗教。顛覆雅與顛覆上帝不同，後者並不影響生活方式。雅基於常，對雅的顛覆，最終卻是對家的顛覆，對常的顛覆、對存在的顛覆。
對雅的顛覆導致的是故鄉的喪失。
這是一個「在路上」的時代，人們正在普遍地喪失故鄉，並以喪失故鄉為榮。齊白石以後，意味著藝術如何重新回到家中。「在路上」是現代藝術的宿命，也是它最媚俗的方向，現代藝術真正的先鋒派方向其實恰恰不是八十年代以來的那些標新立異，而是回家。
「在路上」已經一個世紀了，現在已經出現了塵埃落定的跡象。我們已經厭倦了無休無止的從「0」開始，厭倦了推倒重來，厭倦了「拆」，厭倦了居無定所。
回家的陳恆出現不是偶然的。
回家，回到常識，這是陳恆作品的基本出發點，他要表現的是只存在於故鄉的詩意。
家，就是沒有什麼特殊者被認識、理解、解釋、分類、剝離、獵取、批判或贊美、被作為對象。世間一切皆詩，正是在這一點上，陳恆越過是是非非的時代，在「家常「上與齊白石聯繫起來，他在家常的詩意上呼應著齊白石。
但陳恆的家與齊白石的家不同，作為當代人的家，這個家已經不是存在本身，而是一種記憶。在１９６６年以後的中國，家已經「彼岸化」了，詩意缺席，詩意已經不是在場者，而是一種記憶。陳恆的家是一種對家的回憶。
陳恆必須為自己回憶一個家。這是一個卡夫卡式的噩夢，尤利西斯已經永遠被流放，但他終身的使命是回到那個記憶中的家裡面，流放就是回家。如果他放棄了回家，放棄了記憶，他自己就不存在。陳恆的作品不是意義空間的開發性競賽，而是時間的延續。
他在兩個方面意識到時間，歷史的自然的時間和畫面內部的時間。他知道在何處與齊白石們的那個悠久傳統聯繫。他也創造著他個人的時間，他的畫非常緩慢，色彩和線條是生長出來的而不是構思的，或者說，構思在時間中被取消了。我們在他的畫面前停下來，而不是掠過。他的畫不是某種關於「為什麼」的問題或者答案，而是一個沈默自在的存在者。那是家裡面的某一部分，你可以與這些畫一道過日子，而不會被它驚動。現代主義的大部分作品都有入侵者的暴力性質，令人惶惶不安，激越人去思考生活之惡、世界之末日。而陳恆的作品卻像某種老傢具那樣，令你安心，他創造了一種精神性的故鄉。
「道法自然」在這個全面反自然的時代中，不自然地被昇華起來，已經類似宗教。陳恆與齊白石們不同的是，如果齊白石是一位偉大的文人的話，那麼陳恆之流更像是捨身飼虎的聖徒。
如果畫什麼並不是一個問題，那麼陳恆要畫的只是如何畫。把回家理解為只是把油畫處理出水墨的效果未免簡單。刮刀永遠不是毛筆，但倫勃蘭就是齊白石。詩意並不區別這兩者，詩意可以棲居於齊白石也可以棲居於倫勃蘭，詩意可以使齊白石的作品從大白菜老鼠偷油出發而具有宗教感，也可以令倫勃蘭超越宗教而具有人間煙火氣息。
陳恆的作品感動我們的是它所表現的那種感激之情。這是對存在的感激。天地之大德曰生，感激的就是這種「生」之大德，感激把我們拋到存在中的那個無名力量，「天地無德」，這種「生之大德」，並不是一個觀念，一個是非，在著而已。陳恆並不是懷舊者，懷舊是一種意識形態，是對「革命」的反動、批判。懷舊是一種做作，所有的意識形態藝術都是做作，做作就是「工」，藝術創造的衝動不是來自心靈，不是「道法自然」的感動，而是反自然地對存在進行分析、理解、解釋、判斷、歸類。因此陳恆的作品中有一種大歡喜在，令人安靜。
陳恆的作品每一幅都是一個場，動人的是具有返魅力量的氣象。線條、色彩、造型、光、痕跡、凸凹，就像一個巫師召喚神靈的現場，我們被畫面本身感動，而不是被某個謎底、意義感動。詩意並不是虛構，詩意存在於象中，象不是模仿，不是寫實，不是像，是恍兮惚兮，其中有象。詩意是家常的。既不太似而媚俗，（所謂自然主義、現實主義）也不過分誇張變形以欺世（所謂抽象）恰倒好處，執其中。
在陳恆的作品面前，任何闡釋都是多餘的。因為他創造的不是觀念，而是家。就像古代中國的作品從來沒有前言或者主持人、文本闡釋那樣，畫面本身巨大的存在感足以令周圍沈默，把我們帶回到看，我們彷彿通過他的畫面第一次來到了世界上，看到我們遺忘已久的家。
「我志在刪述 重輝映千春！」（李白）
二〇〇七年季春在昆明