后雅兴：手迹与心迹
王璜生将自己的第一个综合性的个展称之为“后雅兴”，并且征求我的意见。我最初的反应是，这与他在中央美术学院美术馆做的“超有机”展一样，新颖倒是新颖，但阐释起来可是相当费劲。不过看了他的大部分作品之后，我对这个展览主题倒是十分认可的，因为他的作品与“超有机”展的作品不一样，并没有那么深奥难懂。
说到“雅兴”，“雅俗之辩”不可不察。“雅”在古代文献中的意思是标准和规范，《毛诗序》谓，“雅者，正也。言王政之所由废兴也”。《荀子·荣辱》篇谓，“君子安雅”，所谓正人君子，即“正而有美德者谓之雅。”“雅兴”即高雅的兴趣，古人认为“雅人深致”，即风雅的人才有深远的意趣。而中国古代文人最喜欢的“雅集”，是指文人雅士吟咏诗文，议论学问的聚会。“雅集”一词源于中国文化史上著名的“西园雅集”。北宋年间，苏轼、苏辙、黄庭坚、秦观、李公麟以及僧人圆通、道士陈碧虚等人会于驸马都尉王诜府邸西园，写诗作文，品茶寻韵。另一个著名的文人雅集则是晋代王羲之在《兰亭序》里所记载的“兰亭雅集”，暮春之初，群贤毕至，流觞曲水，游目骋怀，其言行诗文之雅为一时之盛。
按照我的理解，“后雅兴”也就是“雅兴”之后。在今天，古代文人的这种“雅兴”是否还能继续？王璜生的作品，其实不是提出问题，而是表达出他对于今日社会、人生、艺术的态度。在我看来，这种态度，就是走出传统水墨画中那种文人的诗意，直观视觉艺术的真实图像，在更具视觉要素张力的图像结构形式中，寻找今人的精神家园。
作为一个水墨画家，王璜生出于绘画世家，早在1980年代就已经显示出他对于写意水墨的爱好与才能，当然他的早期作品并未出脱于当时流行的写意水墨，并且也有较强的写生意味，描绘性的现实生活物象成为其表现主体。但是真正使王璜生的艺术得以升华，还是他进入专业创作机构广东画院以后，纵观那时以来王璜生的艺术创作，大体可以分为三个阶段。
第一个阶段，是90年代早中期他在广东画院时期的创作。这一时期王璜生的创作，主体是画行云、流水、草屋、星座、屏风等，概言之，画天地万物及其相互关系。以“天地”为代表的系列作品，表现了气势礴大的中国文化，着重于画面小空间与大千世界的沟通。通过对假山石、园林、花木的描绘，进而触及画家的心灵，使人在精神世界中拥有万物，与宇宙相通。这一时期，他的作品具有杯中乾坤，俯仰天地的宏大胸怀。
第二个阶段，1990年代后期至新世纪初，王璜生主事广东美术馆。这一时期，他为广东美术馆的事业发展呕心沥血，投入很多时间，没有更多的时间专注于大幅创作，转而创作了一批小幅的花卉作品。这个后来被定名为“悠然”的系列作品多为彩色的小作品，其中透露出他努力走向抽象、运用笔墨更加不拘一格，关注的重点是表现对象的抽象性关系。王璜生笔下的花瓶，和现代生活有关系，其潇洒自由的表现、着重于笔、水、纸诸中国画元素的探索。王璜生笔下的画面点划披离，落英缤纷，高扬一种自由无拘的精神。
第三个阶段，王璜生于2009年调入中央美术学院，任职中央美院美术馆馆长。这一时期，由于对中西现当代艺术的广泛接触，视野开阔，他的水墨画艺术进入一个广泛的探索时期，既有前两个时期风格的深入与延续，也开始向更加纯粹性的现代水墨艺术过渡。最引人注目的，是王璜生开始超越前期作品中那种对笔、墨、色、线综合性的均衡表现，转向对水墨艺术基本元素的深入研究，这一探索的结果，是王璜生笔下一批以线条为特色的作品的诞生。这批作品的线索可以追溯到2008年-2009年王璜生画过的树木枝条。这批作品虽然保持了中国水墨画的笔韵，但具有很强的现代视觉形式。我个人是非常喜欢这批作品的，它们具有美国画家波洛克作品中的那种行动性，从作品的观看过程中，观众可以感受到艺术家的激情以及绘画时的速度感。
王璜生近期作品中的线条非常自由，过滤掉了许多东西。但他坚持线条中有中国画的笔墨，使自己的作品保持着中国画特有的笔墨意味。当然，处在转型探索的初期，这批作品的质量并不均衡，好的作品给人以潇洒自由的感觉，个别不好的作品看上去就比较单薄。与美国抽象表现主义相似，王璜生的作品在体量上也由小品走向巨幅，他画过不少丈二的大画，但画面结构与形式却更加单纯。王璜生认为，画大画给他带来了解放感，非常愉快。当他挥笔向纸时，在画面上具有充分的线条自由，而画画的过程也由于偶然性的加入，摆脱了传统写意画的程式，使得画画的行为与痕迹都特别丰富。这符合王璜生一贯的作风，他画画要的是“好玩”和“痛快”，虽然是专业画家出身，但他一直有一种业余的心态即“无功利”的态度。而王璜生的绘画理想就是想摆脱一看就是中国画的东西，在画面上寻找更现代的语言形式和精神意象。他喜欢在线条的自由行走中传递出一种创造过程中的灵气，使画面中的空间获得流动的感觉。
纵观王璜生的水墨画，三个时期的绘画面貌有很大不同，似乎追求的旨趣方向各异。但我认为，其间有一些共同的东西。无论是写生风景或是写意花卉，我们可以暂时放弃对于王璜生不同时期绘画的整体形象的观看。专从局部观察，王璜生在不同时期的创作中，始终保持着对于单纯性的笔墨符号的组织并置的关注，对于线条、墨迹等单纯性的构成要素质量的关注。这构成了他作品中的现代性的价值。在他的三个时期的作品中，我们都可以看到，某些笔墨的痕迹，在表现物象和形体的同时，如树枝、花叶等，逐渐脱离主体形象，追随画家心绪，在画面上自由组合，形成新的视觉结构关系。与蒙德里安作品中的抽象性发展相似，王璜生近期作品中的线条的交织，其实来源于他早期作品中树枝的相互缠绕。
这种现代性的价值追求其实在石涛的时代就已经开始。相对于传统绘画要求负载政治、道德与文学（诗意）的价值，石涛将绘画的视觉性置于创作的中心地位，他突出个人基于对自我的了解，“代山川而言”，履行天赋的责任。“搜尽奇峰打草稿”的过程其实超越了传统的程式化权威结构，建立起在个人实证经验上的认识论框架。石涛正是在这样一种主体性原则上，建立起一种与个人心迹相符合的新的笔墨结构和语言形式。
王璜生的近期作品，让我想到著名画家尚扬最近在清华大学美术馆举办的重要个展，其主题是“日志与手迹”，这一主题标示了当代艺术中艺术家对于个体心性的自我品味与不断反思的重要性。在某种意义上，艺术作品中的线条与色彩，都是一种绘画过程中的痕迹，它们也是画家内心世界的外在表达。“手迹即心迹”，王璜生作品中的线条组织看似杂乱无序，其实反映了画家内心对于画面视觉构成的敏感，也映现出画家当下的心绪流淌。这种反映主体精神能量的画面形态，其实与传统文人画的诗意和雅兴无关，它们更多的不是来自绘画中的文学传统，而是来自于当下的社会现实与视觉文化环境，具有丰富的象征意象。
殷双喜 中央美术学院教授
2012年5月1日
Post Refined Joy: Traces of Hand and Heart Wang Huangsheng named his first comprehensive solo exhibition as "Post Refined Joy" and asked for my opinion. My first response was that it was quite innovative but was very difficult to interpret, just the same as the "Super-Organism" exhibition curated by him at CAFA Art Museum. However, after viewing the majority of his works, I gave high recognition to the exhibition theme because his works, different from the works of "Super-Organism", were not so esoteric.
Speaking of "refined joy", the debate of the refined and the popular must be carefully studied. "The refined" means standards and norms in the ancient literature, so-called "Refinement is Correctness" in Prelude of Mao Poem. It's the reason for the rise and decline of emperor's reign. Chapter of Honor and Disgrace of Xunzi said that "Gentlemen are satisfied with the correct path". The so called gentlemen are the "men who are correct and virtuous are called the refined." The ancients believed that "refined men have profound joy" which means only the refined men have profound joy and charm. And the "refined gathering" which were favored by the ancient Chinese scholars means the gathering in which scholars recite poetry and discuss knowledge. The word "refined gathering" originates from the famous "Refined Gathering at West Garden" in the history of Chinese culture. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Su Shi, Su Zhe, Huang Tingjian, Qin Guan, Li Gongli, Monk Yuantong and Taoist priest Chen Bixu gathered to write poems and articles, drink tea and seek rhymes at the West Garden in the mansion of Commandant Wang Shen who was the son-in-law of the emperor. Another well-known scholarly gathering is the "refined gathering at Orchid Gathering" recorded by Wang Xizhi of the Jin Dynasty in his Preface of Orchid Pavilion. At the beginning of late spring, a large number of talented people arrived. They played the drinking game, viewing the distant landscape and broadened their minds. The refinement of their words, deeds, poems and articles reached the peak of that time.
As I understand it, the "Post Refined Joy" means after "refined joy". Today, is this "refined joy" of ancient scholars still able to continue? The works of Wang Huangsheng actually do not raise a question, but express his attitude towards today's society, life and art. In my opinion, this attitude is walking out of the scholar's poetic quality in traditional ink paintings, directly facing the real image of visual art and seeking the spiritual home for contemporaries in the image structure and form with more visual extension.
As an ink painter, Wang Huangsheng was born into a paining family. As early as 1980s, he showed his enthusiasm and talent on freehand brushwork. Certainly, his early works did not free themselves from the popular freehand brushwork of that time. Moreover, they have strong sketching characters with the descriptive real life images as subject of expression. But the time for the real sublimation of his art is after he entered Guangdong Painting Academy, a professional institution for art creation. Throughout Wang Huangsheng's art creation since that time, it can be divided into three phases.
The first phase is his creation at Guangdong Painting Academy in the early and middle 1990s. The subjects of Wang Huangsheng's creation in this period were floating clouds, flowing water, thatched cottages, constellations and screens. In short, he painted all the things between heaven and earth and their mutual relations. The Heaven and Earth series expresses the majestic Chinese culture and focuses on the communication between the small space of picture and the big world. Through the portrayal of rockery stones, gardens and plants, his paintings touch the painter's soul and make people possess everything in the spiritual world and connect with the universe. During this period, his works have great mind which contains the heaven and the earth.
The second phase is from the late 1990s to the early new century; Wang Huangsheng took charge of Guangdong Museum of Art. During this period, he devoted much of his energy and time to the development of Guangdong Museum of Art and had no much time to focus on the creation of large-scale works. Instead, he created a group of small works of flowers which was named as Leisure series later. This series of works are mostly small colorful works which reveal his efforts to approach abstractness, his more unrestraint using of ink and that his focus is the abstract relations of expression subject. The vases under Wang Huangsheng's brush are related to the modern life. The unrestrained expression focuses on the exploration of Chinese painting elements such as brush, water and paper. The picture under Wang Huangsheng's brush is scattered with dots and lines like falling flowers which advocate a free spirit.
The third phase began with Wang Huangsheng's transfer to China Central Academy of Fine Arts as the curator of CAFA Art Museum in 2009. During this period, because of extensive contacts with modern and contemporary art of both Chinese and Western, his art vision was wider and his ink painting entered a period of extensive exploration which not only has the deepening and continuing of styles of the first two periods, but also begins the transition to more purely modern ink painting. The most impressive is that Wang Huangsheng began to transcend the comprehensive balanced expression of brush, ink, color and line in his early works and turned to the in-depth study of the basic elements of ink art which led to the creation of a group of works with lines as unique features. This group of works could trace back to the tree branches painted by Wang Huangsheng in 2008 and 2009. Although this group of works maintained the rhyme of Chinese ink painting, they have strong modern visual form. Personally, I am very fond of this group of works. They possess the motion sense expressed in the works of American painter Pollock. In the process of work viewing, viewers are able to feel artist's passion and the sense of speed in the painting.
The lines in Wang Huangsheng's recent works are very free and a lot of things are filtered out. But he insists that the lines have brushstrokes of Chinese painting which makes his works maintain the unique brushstroke meaning of Chinese painting. Certainly, in the early stage of transformation exploration, the qualities of this group of works are not even. The good works give a feeling of unrestrained freedom and some lesser works look insubstantial. Similar to the American abstract expressionism, Wang Huangsheng's works move towards large-scale paintings from small ones. He painted a lot of large paintings, but the picture structure and form are purer. Wang Huangsheng thinks that drawing large paintings could bring him a sense of liberation and make him very pleasant. When he wields the brush on the paper, there is full freedom of lines in the picture, and with the fortuity, the process of painting has cut loose from the pattern of traditional freehand brushwork which enriches the acts and traces of painting. This is in line with the consistent style of Wang Huangsheng, what he wants from painting is "fun" and "happiness". Although he is a professional painter, he always has the mind of an amateur, namely the "non-utility" attitude. The painting ideal of Wang Huangsheng is to get rid of what seems to be Chinese painting at the first sight and seek more modern language form and spiritual image in picture. He likes to convey a kind of divine breath in the free walking of the lines during the process of creation which gives the flowing feeling to the space in the picture.
Throughout Wang Huangsheng's ink paintings, the painting features in three different phases are quite different. It seems that they pursue different goals and directions, but I think there are some things in common. Whether it is landscape sketch or freehand flower, we can temporarily give up the viewing of the overall image of his paintings in different phases. Observing from details, we can see that in the creations of different phases, Wang Huangsheng always keeps attention on the organizational juxtaposition of pure ink symbols and the quality of pure component elements such as lines and ink mark. This constitutes the modernity value in his works. In his works of three periods, we can see that while expressing physical image and form such as branches, flowers and leaves, some traces of ink gradually separate from the image of subject, follow the mind of the painter and freely combine in the picture, forming a new relationship of visual structure. Similar to the development of abstractness in Mondrian's works, the interweaving of lines in Wang Huangsheng's recent works actually comes from the entanglement of branches in his early works.
In fact, this pursuit of modernity value already began in the times of Shi Tao. In comparison with the requirement of traditional painting to carry with it the values of politics, ethics and literature (poetic quality), Shi Tao put the visual sense of painting in the central position of this creation. He highlighted individual's self-understanding, "spoke on behalf of the mountains and rivers" and fulfilled the God-given responsibility. The process of "searching all the wonderful peaks for sketching" actually transcends the traditional and stylized authority structure and establishes the epistemological framework on personal empirical experience. Based on such a subjective principle, Shi Tao established a new ink structure and language form which is consistent with personal trace of heart.
Wang Huangsheng's recent works remind me of famous painter Shang Yang's important solo exhibition held in Tsinghua University Art Museum. Its theme is "Diaries and Scripts" which marks the importance of artists' personal taste and constant reflection on individual disposition in contemporary art. In a sense, lines and colors in art works are a kind of trace in the process of painting. They are also the external expression of painter's inner world. "Trace of hand is trace of heart". The lines in Wang Huangsheng's works seem to be organized in a disorderly way. They actually reflect not only the sensitivity of the painter's heart on visual composition of picture, but also his current flowing of mood. This picture form which reflects the spiritual energy of subject actually has nothing to do with the poetic sense and refined joy of traditional scholar's painting. The majority of them does not come from the literary tradition in paintings but from the current social reality and visual culture environment and possesses rich symbolic images.
Yin Shuangxi Professor of China Central Academy of Fine Arts May 1, 2012