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发表于 2011-3-4 12:48:20
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来自: 中国浙江金华
前言
Preface
新工笔的出现,及其近年来被逐渐接受,绝非偶然,而是中国画自身转变的必然结果。众所周知,20世纪是传统中国画被迫转型的时代。在西风东渐的潮流中,以写实造型改造中国画的语言审美,一时间成为中国画现代性转换的目标。然而,如此变革,并未给中国画带来意外惊喜,相反,却因丧失了超世俗的诗性而备受质疑。“文革”后,新学院派画家开始反思这一现象,并力图回溯传统,形成所谓的“新文人画”。但是,一方面,传统文人环境的彻底消亡,致使此种努力难以深切,而多以松快、诙谐类的现代抒情简单再造古典形式;另一方面,推动者也未曾展开严谨的理论梳理,只是将当时学院内青年画家简单集合,形成一个名词套用所有类型作品的现象,并最终导致这一尝试流于杂乱、无序。当然,新文人画之外,实验水墨、都市水墨等都构成了当时中国画力图突围的努力、尝试。然而它们要么掉入形式主义陷阱,要么成为都市表象的直接描摹,难能深入,甚至与传统资源毫无关联,并最终成为中西视觉夹缝中的孤儿。如此判断,并非为了全盘否定上述中国画于特殊阶段中的作用,而是为了理清今日中国画继而变革的内在脉络,也即了解类似新工笔这样的转变是发生在怎样的线索之中。
相对前者,新工笔画家面对中西的态度更为轻松、自由,既不背负宏观上自身价值证明的责任,也没有他者强势下的简单追随,而是从自我经验出发,选择关联性的视觉资源进行感官上的“编码重建”。如此“重建”,需要文化上的一种自信。当然,所谓自信,不是自我封闭地坚守传统。因为,如此“自信”,恰恰是文化姿态上的“不自信”,其后果是传统视觉资源成为前进的障碍,而非起点。那么,不再固步自封地自信,在这批新工笔画家中有着怎样的表现呢?通阅本套丛书,我们会发现:他们对各类视觉经验均采用了开放、包容的姿态,而非简单的肯定或否定。这使他们获得了主动性的创作途径—不再拘泥某种既定的对待过去的眼光,而是出于需要自由地选择视觉配方,并进而重建新的感官图像。于是,他们的作品,仿佛一次视觉编码的重新理解与重新组合,并于这一过程中注入他们对所用资源的自我理解,最终使之成为画面的有效组成部分。值得我们注意的是,他们对这些视觉信息的消化,并非形式上的简单挪用,而是对形式及形式背后精神体验的综合理解。就此,他们的作品虽然是在形式体验的多样性中获取,但其画面表达却具有“反形式主义”的语义诉求。直观而言,他们的“编码重组”,是将细腻的形式感剥离为自身的主观观念的经验依托,并以此为线索重新编织视觉逻辑、结构以及由此带来的叙述方式。这种方式,就根本而言,是一种源于当下精神体验的主观立场。
因为拥有了立场,他们面对中西视觉经验,就不再是样式上的重复,而是精神体验上的改造。于是,他们在纷繁的视觉图谱中寻找自己的出发点,并以此经营画面的视觉形态,呈现有关自身生存体验的描述。就此而言,他们的画作比在古典形式中寻找某些现代情绪抒发的新文人画更为直接,也更为当下。同时,较之在西方视觉逻辑中寻找东方价值的实验水墨、都市水墨,他们的画作则显现出与中国传统天然的渊源关系,而非夹缝中的孤儿。就此,新工笔向我们呈现出一种新的可能性—传统中国画在当代语境中自我突围的方向之一。
从某种角度上看,此种突围:一方面体现为在语言层面上强调传统的精神体验,而非强调简单的技术临摹—他们的作品多将东方绘画语言的积染转化为一种带有“距离感”的理性观照,在宁静、舒缓的气质中呈现它与传统的精神脉络;另一方面,新工笔以当下立场为“感官重建”的预设前提,将传统自然主义的观照方式改变为主观观念化的阐释方式,即对物象的描绘不是抒情性的自我缅怀,而是一种认知结果的视觉编造,其图像的内在逻辑具有“反自然主义”特征,并与一直以来追求改变本体认知视角的哲学潮流相吻合。就此,新工笔画家在两条线索上完成了自身与传统的系统性建设,并以此为基础实现了他们对既有视觉成果的重新发现,抑或重新编撰,从而以个人化的逻辑、视角综合出中国画当下突围的共性化体验。
于是,面对新工笔作品,我们发现,传统视觉资源不再成为中国画获取当下性的障碍。相反,在画家视觉编码的重构中,它们获得了重新被发现、被认知的机会,以至为我们的生存经验提供出别样的精神图谱,并成为中国文化自我发现的重要现象。而这,正是简单嫁接西方样式的艺术所难以具备的文化主体性,也是中国文化实现世界范围内文化版图重新书写的重要条件。
杭春晓2010年5月21日
前言
Preface
The emergence and eventual acceptance of new meticulous brush painting have not been accidental, but the necessary result of the transformation of Chinese painting. As we all know, the 20th century has been a period when traditional Chinese painting has been forced to change. In the tide of western culture, it has become the goal of the modernization of Chinese painting to replace the linguistic aesthetic of Chinese painting by realistic forms. However, such a change has not brought nice surprises for Chinese painting, but has been largely debated because it lost the poetry of detachedment. After the cultural revolution, new academic painters
have started to reflect about this phenomenon and tried to resort to tradition, forming the so-
called "new literati painting". However, on the one hand, the disappearance of traditional literati environment has failed such an attempt, which simply recreated classical forms with quick, humourous modern lyrics. On the other hand, promoters have not undertaken strict theoretical work. They merely gathered young painters of the academia and used one noun to include all
kinds of works. Their efforts finally led to disorder and chaos. Of course, besides new literati
painting, experiment ink painting and urban ink painting have been efforts and experiments of Chinese painters to break through. However, while some of them fell into the trap of formalism, others became direct depiction of urban sceneries which were very hard to penetrate, even unrelated with traditional resources. They ended up being orphans left by Chinese and Western visions. I have not made this judgement to deny entirely the role Chinese painting played during special periods, but to clarify the internal skeleton of the transformation of contemporary Chinese paintings, i.e. under what kind of clue did new meticulous brush painting change.
Compared with the former ones, the attitude of new meticulous brush painters toward China and the West has been more relaxed and free. They did not burden themselves with the
responsibility of self-proof, nor did they follow others simply out of pressure. Yet they started
with their own experiences and "reconstructed codes" of senses with related visual sources.
Such "reconstruction" required a certain confidence in culture. Of course, the so-called confidence does not mean guarding tradition in an insular way, because such "confidence" is in fact "defidence" in culture, the result of which would block the advancement of traditional visual sources, not the initial start. Then, what is the representation of an open-minded confidence in
these artists of meticulous brush painting? Through reading this book series we shall discover that they have adopted an open and tolerant attitude toward various visual experience, instead of a simplistic "yes" or "no". This allowed them to possess an active creative path, one that was
not limited by a fixed idea about the past. They chose visual materials freely out of needs and
reconstructed new sensual images. Therefore, their works seemed like a new comprehension and reconstruction of visual codes, infused with the artists' own understanding of those materials, making them integral constituents of the picture. What merits attention is that the artists' appropriation of these visual information is not a simple appropriation of the form, but a comprehensive understanding of the spiritual experience behind forms. Therefore, though their works were created out of the diversity of formal experiences, yet their representation had an
anti-formalism pursuit. To be exact, their "reconstructing code" is making delicate formal feelings into the
experience of private subjective ideas, hence reconstructing visual logic, construction and narrative modes. This method is a subjective stand that originates from current spiritual experience.
Because they have their own stand, their visual experiences about China and the West are not formal repetitions, but a spiritual transformation. They then seek their starting point out of complex visual images and create visual forms of pictures, revealing descriptions about human living experiences. Thus, they are more direct and contemporary than those new literati seeking the representation of modern emotions out of classical forms. Meanwhile, compared with experimental and urban ink painting artists who seek eastern values out of western visual logic, they demonstrate a natural connection with Chinese tradition. They are no orphans. Thus, new meticulous brush painting has demonstrated to us a new possibility, a direction for traditional Chinese painting to break through under contemporary context.
To certain extent, such a breakthrough is reflected on two aspects. On the one hand, traditional spiritual experience is emphasized on the linguistic aspect, instead of mere technical imitation. These works transform eastern painting language into a "distant" rational observation, conveying a spiritual connection with tradition through a tranquil and slow air. On the other hand, new meticulous brush painters have assumed the premise
of contemporary stand as "sense reconstruction", transforming traditional nature-oriented observation into subjective ideas. Their descriptions of natural phenomenon are not lyrical self-indulgence, but a visual coding resulting from cognition. The internal logic of their images has the feature of anti-naturalism and is in accordance
with the philosophical trend that values transforming ontological perception. Thus, from two clues, painters of new meticulous brush painting have completed the systematic construction of self and tradition. Based on this,
they have completed their re-discovery of existing visual achievements, as well as reconstruction, so that they
have synthesized the universal achievements of the current breakthrough of Chinese paintings.
Therefore, faced with works of new meticulous brush painting, we have found that traditional visual sources are no longer barriers on the road to modernization of Chinese paintings. On the contrary, while painters
reconstructed visual codes, they have been given a chance to be re-discovered and reevaluated, so that they could become unique spiritual pattern for our living experiences and significant phenomenon for the self-discovery of Chinese culture. This is a cultural sovereignty western-styled arts find hard to possess, and significant factor for
Chinese culture to rewrite itself in the cultural pattern of the world.
Hang Chunxiao May 21, 2010 |
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