杨小彦

　　断送一生棋局里，破除万事酒杯中。清虚事业无人解，听雨移时又听风。

倪瓒《述怀》

　　翻读七零后生唐华伟的水彩和油画作品，恍惚间有一种远古的感觉，但眼前作品又明显具有当下的针对性，是一种出世的“心境功课”。

　　唐华伟是个内省的艺术家。他在自述中描述了艺术的三重境界：第一层是描摹物像，第二层是情感投射，第三层是返归内心。他慎重指出，第一层为俗事，悦人眼目，讨人欢心；第二层为半俗事，自我放逐，假外娱狂；只有第三层是真境，心闲气静，独语清虚。

　　有意思的是，这恰恰是学艺者的三个步骤。凡入艺门，第一步是学习如何观察，如何绘制，以达视觉之真实。第二步开始学习探寻艺术语言，到极端时甚至以为无风格无以有个人表达。然后，经过漫长的实践，才渐渐了悟于心，知道艺术者乃心境也，修内心以达外观，作品只是修行的一种痕迹。而且，痕迹也有第次之别，只有到了无痕迹之时，绘画似自动生成，人随画走，画从人意，才是让人陶醉其间的事业。我不知道这是否就是倪瓒所称道的“清虚事业”？世无人解，偶尔听风听雨，感慨万千，如此而已。

　　有意思的是，唐华伟的艺术实践中，有两个现象是与之终极目标相违拗甚至是相冲突的，一是，他的恩师是老一辈油画家冯法祀；一是，他的艺术门类是西方油画。

　　冯法祀是徐派正宗传人，又是上世纪五十年代苏联油画的当然承袭者。关键是，他是属于那一代有代表性的艺术家，对人生与社会有着强烈的入世精神，是为人生而艺术的奋斗者。观看冯老一生的艺术事业，无不和社会变革密切相关。他是主动介入革命，在风浪中寻找与确立自己艺术风格的革命艺术家。相较而言，唐华伟却是出世之人，至少渴望出世，有着日益强烈的出世倾向。既如此，他又如何向恩师学习？

　　同时，唐华伟选择的画种是舶来品，而不是传统水墨。但是，从他的自述中，从他的作品中，乃至从他行文的惯习中，却分明透露出传统的因子。这证明中国远古传统对这位年轻艺术家的创作产生了举足轻重的作用。他常常从传统的思维中观察当下，又从当下的观察反思传统。这一双向思维正是构成他的艺术实践的奇妙基础，让他一直处在不无空灵的游移状态中，像基因四处漂浮那样，寻找着变异的可能。

　　唐华伟跟从冯法祀又异于其师，这里有两重意义，一是时代的确产生了巨大的变化，为人生而艺术的方式，已经完成了从外在号召式的公共图式转变为寻找内心情思突显个人对世界认知的风格表达。在这里，对于唐华伟来说，革命已经成为遥远的背景，潜入到历史深处并闪烁着无穷的幽光，以其精神性召唤新一代艺术家的永恒变革。唐华伟清晰地意识到他和老师之间的差异。我还以为，正是他意识到这一差异，他才认为能够师从一位老资格的革命艺术家是幸运，在这里，差异恰恰是内容，是他认识自己的最初坐标。他更多地从冯老那里意识到的一种坚定前行的勇气与胆量。冯法祀正是依恃着这一勇气与胆量而成为时代精神的有力的表达者与创造者。对于新时代来说，唐华伟的目标不正是希望自己的艺术也能够成为当下时代的重要的一种精神形式吗？正是在这一点上，他和乃师价值观重合，他跟随乃师而又走自己的路。

　　至于油画，包括水彩，也许是命定，也使有几分偶然。在我看来，这些都不重要。重要的是，当唐华伟面对所谓外来的画种时，他所采取的艺术态度却是个人的。他正是通过个人联结传统与当下，让时代精神贯穿古今而迫使时间消遁隐形。

　　油画进入中国已经有上百年的历史。回顾这一段历史，油画所发挥的作用，抛开价值评价，完全是传统绘画所无法取代的。油画的社会性、油画的入世精神似乎是天生的，就像传统水墨的出世与淡泊也是天生一样。直到后来，环境宽松了，我们才开始知道，原来西方艺术，当然包括油画，原来也是一种很出世的、很纯粹的精神样式，而不独社会性。从某种意义看，这就形成了中国当代艺术的一个开端，一个直接与当下时代相互联结的精神性的开端。但是，之前中国油画却在保持与发挥其社会性的同时，还有一个民族化的问题。也就是说，中国革命艺术界一直纠结的问题是，仅仅只有一个舶来品的艺术样式，民族精神是否会因此而消亡。从某种意义看，传统绘画其实也正是依赖这一焦虑而保持了它的崇高地位。结果就很有意思了，以《开国大典》为例，题材的入世性和风格的民族化构成奇特的镜像，压迫着像董希文这样的敏感的艺术家的内心良知。

　　幸好，时代变了，到了唐华伟能够独立思考与实践时，环境已经不存在类似董希文这一类民族化的压力。但是，自由的描绘却不能解决先前所带来的问题，如何使油画这一外来画种具有中国性，仍然成为油画家的焦虑之所在。但是，从某种意义看，也正是这一情境造成了前所未有的机会，让年轻一代艺术家如唐华伟，得以从容处理发生在画法与感知方面的可能冲突，而把这一冲突转变成为内在的勾连。

　　从唐华伟的作品看，不论是水彩还是油画，他是主动地去解决这一问题的。在色调方面，他坚持一种主观性与当下性的结合，让色调成为梦境的同义词；而在描绘风格上，他有意突出一种流畅的特征，让原来只发生在传统水墨中的对线与墨的运用，转变为一种有效的油画语言，而在布面上寻找到精神性的对应。当他面对纸质时，他同样机智地把水、色、笔三者结合为整体，而让原本轻盈透明的水彩呈现出了少有的浑厚与深沉。上述的实验的关键之处是，油画不能失去其材料的表现力，水彩也不能失去其原本特征，而又逸出旧日格局，呈现出崭新的面貌。

　　在我看来，指导唐华伟的仍然是内心的驱动力，而不是对画种特征的外在强调。对他来说，油画和水彩都只是方便之门，落实到画面上的，原则是其心迹的外化，是一种痕迹的自然流露。对唐华伟来说，如何在绘画过程中保持一种敏感，让痕迹，也就是笔色水油混合成一体的落点，成为与心灵互通的存在。这样一来，他就必须保持一种狂热，让偶然性在狂热过程中自动生成。在这里，定式是他的敌人，排除定式以追求一种前意识状态，一种成熟之前的短暂的天真，才是他的追求。

　　为了达成这一追求，他甚至把身体的运动也放在绘制过程中；或者说，他把绘制过程看成是让身体自动运动的媒介。他在实践中发现，身体的挪动状态和手的自动挥动具有某种可喜的天然联系，绘画过程只是对全身力量综合分配的一个极其偶然的过程。这一点使他惊喜若狂，因为他明白，这样一来，绘画就成为生成，笔触、色块、浓淡和流畅与板滞，将混然一体，色调也在这一体当中生成，最后，作品成为生命完成的标志，而让观众沉思。

　　唐华伟究竟在多大程度上达到上述所说的境界，倒是一个值得讨论的问题。但我想，至少他在主观意识上是明白其中的意义的，他希望他的画就像自我的生命体一样，在他的引领下去自动生成。我想这也可以解释隐藏在他的绘画中的激情，饱满而不那么完美，有一种冲刺的欲望，但已突然中止在某种效果当中，不再前行。这一点真是无法与人解释，更是旁人在欣赏时往往难以觉察的部分。结果是，唐华伟不知不觉地陷入到一种惶惑当中，而把自己的艺术实践看成是一个无法达到终点的挣扎过程。幸好他对终极意义有领悟，所以他把这一过程看作是生命的一种功课，像修佛那样，日日新，日日新，逝者与来者同时聚于内心，而引发无法平抑的激情。

　　于是，我想起本文开始所引用的倪瓒的小诗，而意识到在唐华伟意识深处，他其实是把艺术看作是一种一厢情愿的、终生达成的“清虚事业”。于风中，于雨中，于流驶中，生命的意义渐次完满。心迹笔痕无我诗，是因为我已完全消融在自动生成的痕迹当中，而让诗潜入内心。

　　不知我这结论是否道出唐华伟内心之万一？其实这也不重要，重要的仍然是无穷无尽的对生命的领悟。生命的多样性决定了艺术的丰富性，只要持开放态度，纵然徒剩风雨更又如何？

Poetry in Heart Without Ego

--Reflections upon Tang Huawei’s Artworks

Indulging oneself into chess game,

Forgetting about the worldly conventions to drinking,

Dedicating to quiet but lonely work not understandable to others,

Listening to wind after rain stops.

--Telling from the Heart, by Ni Zan

Reading through Tang Huawei’s watercolor and oil paintings, the 1970s generation’s creations may give you a false impression of returning to the ancient time, but indeed they target at contemporary issues at the same time. They are really the detached “mental assignment” finished when standing aloof from this mortal life.

Tang Huawei is an introspective artist. In his self-narration, he described the three realms of art: First, to copy the image; Second, to express emotion; and Third, to externalize the inside. He specially pointed out, in the first realm, art is still confined to convention, to please audience; in the second realm, art is fixed to semi-conventional things, to self-exile; and in the third realm, art is settled down to mental peace and emptiness.

Interestingly, these three realms stand for the art practitioners’ three steps. For art followers, the first step is to learn how to observe and how to paint to realize the visual vividness; the second step is to explore art language, even to the extreme extent of no personal expression without personal style; and then the third step is to understand that art is to cultivate the inside after long time practices, revealing the artist’s footmark in self-cultivation. However, the cultivation can also be divided into different levels. Only when the artificial cultivation is free from any trace or mark, paintings are created automatically from heart. By that time, painter follows the heart and painting flows from heart, and art becomes the artist’s enchanting and enjoyable undertaking. I don’t know whether this is the “quiet but lonely work” advocated by Ni Zan? Maybe this is indeed something not understandable to others, so artist could only sigh emotionally to wind and rain, no more than that.

Ridiculously, two facts in his artistic practice ran against or even conflict with his ultimate aim: First, his teacher is Mr. Feng Fasi, the old generation oil painter; and Second, his major is western oil painting.

Feng Fasi is the authentic successor of Xu school, and the absolute inheritor of USSR oil painting in 1950s. The key point is that he was a representative artist in his generation, with the strong spirit of dedicating their life to the society, and a struggler for life and art. In retrospect, it can be seen that Mr. Feng’s lifelong artistic career was closely related to social changes and reforms. He actively involved in revolution, as a revolutionary artist finding and establishing his own artistic style in fighting and struggling. Comparatively speaking, Tang Huawei has gone away from convention, or say, desires to stand aloof from mortal life at least, and the intension is becoming increasingly strong. Thus, how could he learn from his teacher?

Meanwhile, Tang Huawei selected an imported artistic form, instead of traditional ink and wash. But in his statement, in his works and even in his way of writing, obviously showed is the traditional element, which proves that Chinese tradition has been significantly influencing the young artist’s creation. He observes the current in the way of traditional thinking, and reflects on tradition with the observation of the current. The two-way thinking laid the foundation of his artistic practice, enabling him to stay in a floating state, as if he is the gene floating all around and looking for the possibility of variation.

Tang Huawei studied from Mr. Feng Fasi, but differs from him, because of two reasons: First, great changes have taken place in the era, so the artistic practice for life has turned into the expression of style highlighting individual’s cognition to the world from the public schema as an external appeal. In such an era, revolution to Tang Huawei has become an ancient and remote background, shimmering in the deep and distant history, and calling for the new generation artists to carry out reforms with its spirit. Tang Huawei is clearly aware of the differences between his teacher and him. Because of his sober awareness of the differences, he believes in, I think, the good luck of learning from the old and senior revolutionary artists. Here the differences are just the details, the original coordinate enabling him to know himself. He was enlightened more by Mr. Feng’s courage and boldness in striving forward. Just with the courage and boldness, Mr. Feng became the great expresser and creator of the spirit of an age. In the new era, is Tang Huawei’s goal to establish his art as an important spiritual form of the current age? In this regard, he shares the same values as his teacher, so he closely follows his teacher but in a different way.

As for oil painting, including water color, it seems as the fate, and maybe involves some occasionality. To me, nothing of these is important, the only thing important is that Tang Huawei adopted an individualized attitude towards art in the front of the said foreign painting types. By linking himself to tradition and current, he led the spirit of the time through yesterday and today, and forced the time to conceal its trace.

Oil painting has been in China for more than a hundred of years. In retrospect, oil painting has been playing an irreplaceable role in contrast with traditional Chinese painting, despite of its value. It seems that oil painting is born with sociality and spirit of worldliness, just like the traditional ink and wash is born with detachment and the spirit of unworldliness. Later on when the environment became more tolerant, we came to understand that western art, including oil painting, represents actually a pure and unworldly spirit, not only sociality. In a sense, it initiated contemporary Chinese art, and ignited the spirit directly inter-relating to the current age. However, oil painting was facing the problem of nationalization, while maintaining its sociality, i.e. Chinese revolutionary art circle was worrying whether the national spirit would perish with the imported artistic style. In this sense, traditional Chinese painting secured its supreme position, thanks to the concern. The result is interesting. In the Birth of New China, the unique image featuring worldly subject matter and strongly nationalized style tortured the conscience of sensitive artists like Mr. Dong Xiwen.

Fortunately, the old age has gone. When Tang Huawei could independently think and practice, the environment was never facing the pressure of nationalization like what Mr. Dong Xiwen had to face. However, depiction without restriction still cannot solve the previous problem, as oil painters are still worrying how to nationalize an imported painting genre. But in some sense, it is just the circumstance that created the unprecedented opportunity, enabling the younger generation artists like Tang Huawei, freely deal with the possible conflict between painting skills and cognition, and further turn the conflict into inter-connection.

In Tang Huawei’s works, no matter being water color or oil painting, it can be seen that he was actively solving the problem. In tone, he combined subjectivity and contemporaneity, and turned tone into the synonym of dreamland; In style, he meant to highlight a kind of smooth characteristics, turned the application of line and ink in traditional ink and wash into a kind of effective language of oil painting, and found the spiritual correspondence on canvas. When painting on paper, he again intelligently made use of water, paint and brush as a whole strategy, and empowered the inherently light and transparent water color with rarely seen depth and strength. The key to the said experiment is that oil painting cannot lose the expressive force of its materials, water color cannot lose its original characteristics, while they should go beyond the old form, and take on brand new appearance.

To me, what directed Tang Huawei is still the internal driving force, instead of the external emphasis on characteristics of painting genre. To him, oil painting and water color only provides an access to externalize the inside spirit, and enables the natural flow of inner self on canvas. To Tang Huawei, it is how to maintain the sensitivity in painting, i.e. how to connect each stroke, the dropping point of brush, paint, water and oil with the painter’s soul. In this way, he must keep himself passionate and enthusiastic to automatically create the occasionality in the process. At the moment, fixed formula is his enemy, but the pre-consciousness beyond it and the transient innocence before maturity are his true pursuits.

To realize the pursuit, he even integrated body movement into the process of painting, or say, he considered the process of painting as the media of automatic body movement. In practice, he found that there are some natural and delightful relationship between body movement and hand movement, and painting is an extremely occasional process to comprehensively allocate the strength of all body parts. This discovery pleasantly surprised him, since he understands that painting is generated in this way, together with tone, as strokes, color lumps, shade, smoothness or stiffness are mixed together; and eventually, the artwork created becomes the symbol of life, arousing the audience’s contemplation.

To which extent did Tang Huawei reach the above realm is a question deserving some discussion. But I believe he understands the meaning inside subjectively at least. He hopes his paintings were automatically generated under the guidance of his, just like the life entity of his own. I think this explanation reveals the passion behind his paintings, saturated but less perfect, with the desire to sprint, which does not go further after being suspended in a certain effect. It cannot be explained indeed and usually can be ignored by others. The result is Tang Huawei unconsciously fell into a kind of confusion and apprehensiveness, and considered his artistic practice as a resultless struggle, without the possibility of reaching the destination. Thankfully, he knows well about the ultimate meaning, regards the process as a kind of cultivation for a Buddhist in life, seeks for progress every day, harmonizes the past and the future, and triggers the insuppressible passion inside.

Thus I was reminded of Ni Zan’s poem quoted at the beginning and aware of Tang Huawei’s belief in art deep in his heart as a relentless and lifelong pursuit after the “quiet but lonely work not understandable to others.” Going through the wind, the rain and the time, he gradually enriched the meaning of life. It is the poetry in heart without ego, because the ego is completely harmonized into the automatically generated brush strokes, and the poetry naturally flows into the artist’s heart.

I am not sure whether the conclusion has told a small portion of Tang Huawei’s mind? It doesn’t matter much actually, what matters is still the unlimited comprehension to life. The diversity in life determines the colorfulness of art. With an open attitude, what if only wind and rain, even storm are left for an artist?

 Dr. Yang Xiaoyan

Professor of Sun Yat-sen University, art critic and curator

June 20^th 2015

Qifu Fuyang Room, Guangzhou