唐华伟作品：书写自然的精神肖像

　　夏可君

　　中国文化的生命意志通过书写建立起来，因为书写最好地连接了自然与身体，客体与主体，尤其是线的铭写，既轻逸灵动又富有生命的气息，但是进入现代性之后，以西方油画材质为主体的绘画如何重新接纳自然的生长性，使之具有线条的律动感？

　　尽管自然界并没有线条，但在中国书写家看来，对线条的抽取，既可以拟似自然的生长蔓延，也可以用笔墨来重新塑造，以体现笔墨的表现力，但又并不同于西方的素描描绘与雕塑造型，而是书写出自然无尽生长的气息，西方雕塑与素描的坚固性是一种永恒性，但中国文化对自然生长性的拟似，是另一种永恒性，这是激活自然的可塑性。但如何在油画布面的材质上，重新激活书写的自然灵气？在宣纸上以毛笔书写是容易的，也是可学的了，但如何以油画进行？这几乎没有多少先例可以参照。

　　一个好的艺术家必须找到化解油画颜料的方式，油画颜料本身不过是一种已经僵化的工业化生产的材料，只有精神可以化解之，以视觉建构或者造型塑造是容易的，但只有通过个体的精神，以个体的血液来化解颜料，使之活跃起来，使之充满灵性，才可能焕发出迷人的呼吸，这需要艺术家持久的琢磨颜料，甚至很多年孤独而持久的工作，如同诗人里尔克写到塞尚所言的“孤独而强大”，我们就看到中国艺术家唐华伟这么多年来也是以其“寂寞而坚韧”的气质，以自己独特的艺术语言，唤醒了自然的灵性。

　　当代的油画，尤其是具有水墨精神的中国油画如何在精神层面上建构起来，一直是现代性以来的严峻课题，作为受过良好训练，而且是油画大家冯法祀先生的高足，甚至还与乃师一起合作过代表作的艺术家，唐华伟有着自己清醒的思考，在接受严格写实训练与对艺术史的严峻反思之后，他把自己的艺术创作重新归零，进行了一次彻底地“清零”，以便重新选择自己的艺术道路，重新建立自己独有的认知体系与语言方式。于是，唐华伟放弃了写实，而走向中国传统的写意，确立了“线条书写性”的新根基，但这是在油画上进行的。

　　现代性的绘画一直在面对塞尚的根本疑惑：即，一方面要有着古典造型的坚实性与永恒感；另一方面，又要有着印象派以来的未完成性与偶发自由感，即随意涂抹的愉悦；西方现代性的绘画几乎走向了分化的极致，要么借助于影像技术，而走向超写实；要么走向几何抽象，甚至走向行动抽象与黑色绘画，让绘画自身取消；那么，如何可能既保留可见形体的塑造性，还有着涂写的欢愉？这是再次回到自然，因为自然的生长性有着形体，但并非固定的塑造，这是再次回到书写性，书写可以以线条来造型，但更为自由随性，重建书写与自然的关系，以中国人对世界并不二元区分的世界观，就可以打开一条新的绘画道路。

　　唐华伟的选择就是如此，有着很多年的坚实训练与写生经验，有着对水彩与水墨关系的色彩流动性实验，找到了化解油画颜料，但又保留自然生长性姿态的方式，形成了自己鲜明的艺术语言，这个鲜活与明确，正是唐华伟自己的审美追求。

　　在这些2013年以来，以彩色线条建构起来的新作上，我们看到了线条的重生，这是如何做到的？要以油彩书写出具有水墨味道的线条并不容易！唐华伟经过了很久的实验与琢磨，在基底与笔法、以及生成的物象上，都找到了自己独特的手法。

　　首先，是基底色层的铺垫。在油画基底上下功夫，绘画是要回到材质本身上，以及对平面基底的重新处理上，因为基底之为平面，之为绘画的开始，如何既要有着平面的平面性，还有着随后空间的敞开与形体的生成，让材料保持含蓄准备的状态，保持自身的厚度，但又为随后的笔法带来可能的丰富变化，如何敷设与铺垫，蓄势待发，这是唐华伟精心思考与准备的，就是反复叠加色层，把不同颜料叠加在底层，以便被随后的笔法打开，这个准备与含蓄，乃是一种中国智慧，一切是隐而未发的铺垫状态，一直有着孕化与运化的可能性，保持内在生长的涌动，但又被色层反复覆盖了，保持为抽象性的不可见。

　　其次，笔法的书写力道。如何让油画材质具有书写的质地：既要有着线条的塑造，又要有着线条的轻盈，而且与色彩相关，既要有着色彩的绚烂，又要有着凸凹的韵致？唐华伟不是以毛笔，很多人会选择毛笔或者排笔等等，比如曾梵志，那样线条会过于宽大而且缺乏凸凹触感，唐华伟则是以油画刀，各种大小不等的画刀，还是西方的油彩与画刀，但在唐华伟手下，他却是以中国书法与绘画的线条来使用的，因为刀尖的尖锐以及力度，才可以穿透色层，让隐含的色彩得以在自由的书写中被翻卷出来，这些线条就带有色彩的丰富性，还有着即兴偶发的姿态。或者就是以纯粹的抽象线条的书写，套叠交错，笔触肯定，甚至坚定自信，有着强烈的肌理触感，宛若传统书法的锥画沙与印印泥一般的笔痕，就如同书写文本的编织，当然这是自然的文本涂写。有着单色绘画的基调，但其色调都有着唐华伟自己的考量，无论是黄色还是棕红色，都带有一种精神燃烧后的剩余感，这是现代性的精神情调，是个体生命精神强烈燃烧的记录，是精神痛苦灼热的隐秘记录，带有一种暗哑的色调与深沉，甚至黑夜的迷茫，但线条的蓬勃，坚韧的生长，无止息地蔓延，交错中的牵缠，奋发的挣脱，都是精神渴望自由生长的见证，富有强烈的触感，提高我们精神的目光，这是《易经》所言的“君子自强不息”的气概。

　　最后，则是物象的幽暗。以画刀来书写，这些线条要么是自身的重复，以其力道、色层及其生命状态的差异，书写出不同的形态，即便带有抽象表现的样式，其色调，在暗色冷感与灼热强度之间寻找着平衡，线条获得了“气韵生动”的音乐性，因为笔法本身的节奏顺着线条而自由生发。但更多时候，唐华伟走向了暗色或夜色的风景，这是唐华伟自己渴望的《彼岸风景》，《秘境》和《幽境》，总是带有一种暮色与黑夜来临的景致。为何唐华伟钟情于这样的时刻？为何他偏爱夜色中那些树枝疯狂勃发的姿态？显然这是艺术家面对了现代性的根本处境：现代性的精神乃是在虚无仓惶中个体孤独地寻找着未知的家园，这家园是心中的投射，只能孤独地穿越虚无的黑暗，无论多么优美的自然风景，都已经打上虚无的色泽，但夜色越是浓烈，内在的生命之光、内在精神的激烈燃烧，就越是灼热。在了不起的代表性《仲夏夜》这幅巨作上，向着黑夜深入的道路把我们带往了未知闪烁的黑暗，但道路两旁暗棕红色的树枝或者其他植物，一枝枝、一根根，尽管有所倾斜，却都卓然明晰，似乎都在燃烧，彼此以其温度在点燃对方，暗棕色在漆黑的底色与闪烁的星群下，就是一颗颗在呼吸的魂魄，精神获得了自身最为明确的肖像。

　　这些生长与蔓延的枝条，显现出自然内在涌动的活力，带有精神燃烧的烙印，它们就是艺术家内心激情的外在显现，它们彼此错叠，但色层分明，它们彼此触发，透出诗意的幽微之光。如同《月光下》这个作品带来的那种暗绿色的冷光，激烈而内敛，丰富而深沉，这一定是经过很多年艰苦熬炼之后才获得的质地，是艺术家自己独特精神能量所投下的色感。

　　在那些水彩作品上，我们看到了唐华伟的另一面，更为轻盈，色彩更为流动，面对写生对象，却在色彩上有着自己主动而大胆地强化，这并非是自然的再现，而是内心情感的投射，但都有着自然的抒情性诗意，有着自身情绪的真切流露，是时光的拓片，是光阴的留驻。而且水彩具有水墨的韵味，也为他油画上色层的叠加做好了准备，把水彩的流动性与薄透性带往油画的厚实，也为油画的自由涂写在感知上有所酝酿。

　　在油画中带入中国水墨性的精神，以画刀激发出传统书法的屋漏痕、锥画沙与印印泥的那种细微触感的笔踪，唐华伟油画上的线条饱满、华美而充满精神的强度与印刻的力度！因为这是时光的留驻，画家所要捕获的是消逝的时间，每一条树枝，每一道抽象性的笔痕，都是对消逝时光的追踪与挽留，因此留下了精神燃烧的印痕，笔踪本身就是时光的铭记，这也是为何唐华伟要以暗色调，尤其是暮色与夜色为绘画的底色，因为那是时间转折的时刻，那是时光消失的时刻，绘画乃是对时间之隽永的挽留，绘画不过是为时光描绘形象，这是绘画的本体论与精神上的深刻意蕴，对此敏感的艺术家，才会走得远，走的深。

 

Tang Huawei’s Painting: Drawing Spiritual Portrait of the Nature

Chinese culture’s willpower to survive is strengthened by writing, since handwriting best connects the nature and the human body, i.e. the object and the subject, especially the writing of lines, full of vigor and life. But as it goes into modern time, how could paintings with western oil painting as the main body include the nature and invigorate lines with a sense of rhythm?

Although the nature lacks lines, Chinese calligraphers could make use lines to metaphorize and to revitalize the growth of natural things, so as to show the expressive power of brush and ink. Different from western modeling in drawing and sculpting, they depicted the indefinite growing trend of the nature. Certainly, western sculpting and drawing express a kind of eternity, while Chinese culture demonstrate another kind of eternity through simulating the growth of nature, which is to activate the figurability of the nature. But how to activate the natural spirit by writing, maybe it is easier with calligraphy, but how to realize it by oil painting? Hardly there are precedents referable.

A good artist must find a way to dissolve oil paints. No more than an already rigidified industrial material, oil paint can be dissolved with spirit. It may be easier to adopt visual construction or shape modeling, but only with individual’s spirit and blood, the paints can be reinvigorated and spiritualized, and thus enchanted with charming air. It requires artists to persistently study on paints, in years of lonely and relentless works. As the poet Rilke described Cezanne “lonely but strong,” Chinese artist Tang Huawei has been “lonely and tenacious” for years, to awaken the soul of nature with his unique artistic language.

How to establish the spirit of contemporary oil painting, especially Chinese oil painting carrying on the essence of ink and wash, is always a serious subject in modern time. As a student of Mr. Feng Fasi, and a well-educated artist who once cooperated with his teacher, Tang Huawei has his own thinking. Having received strict realistic training and seriously contemplated on art history, he returned his artistic creation to zero, a complete “resetting,” in order to re-select his artistic path, re-establish his unique cognition and language system. Thus Tang Huawei gave up realism and turned to traditional Chinese freehand expression, and laid the “line writing” foundation of his oil painting.

Modern painting is always facing Cezanne’s confusion: On one hand, it should be characterized with the solidity and eternity of classical images; On the other hand, it should be also equipped with the incompleteness and occasional sense of freedom since the impressionism, i.e. the joy and happiness arisen from scrawling. Modern western painting almost diverged to the extreme, either became surrealistic with the help of photography, or became geometric abstraction, even behavioral abstraction and dark painting, concealing the characteristics of painting at all. Then, how could we maintain the figurability of object, while enjoy the pleasure from scrawling? This is a return to the nature, since the natural growth can be materialized, without fixed way of shaping; and this is a return to handwriting, using lines in modeling, but in a more free and flexible way. By re-establishing the relationship between writing and the nature, a new painting style can be created with Chinese people’s never dualized world view.

Tang Huawei has his own choice. Years of training and practice, experiment in color flows of water color and ink and wash, as well as discovery of way in dissolving oil paint into depicting the growth of nature, have jointly formed his distinctive art language. The vivid and unequivocal expression is his aesthetic pursuit.

Since the year of 2013, we have seen the reborn lines in his new artworks composed by color lines. How could he do it? It is not easy to create ink-like lines with oil paint after all! After long time experiment and contemplation, he has already summarized his own skills in ground laying, brushwork and image generation.

First is the laying of ground color. Laying ground color costs time, since painting would eventually come down to material and re-processing of ground. Ground is where painting starts, so material should keep itself as a plain plane, prepare itself at an inclusive state and proper thickness, to facilitate the possible changes of brushwork later on as the space being extended and forms being generated. How to lay and prepare the ground for sudden explosion of power, is what Tang Huawei should carefully think about and prepare for. Repeated laying is to pour different paints on the ground, enabling later opening by each stroke in the future. Such preparation and inclusion contain the Chinese wisdom, just as in the foundation building period, everything is conceiving and developing, with the growing power surging inside and being covered by color layers, abstract and invisible.

The second is the strength applied to brush. How to include the nature of writing in oil paint, i.e. lines should be created lightly, colorfully and changeably? Tang Huawei does not turn to brush, although many would choose brush or broad brush, as Zeng Fanzhi, despite lines created with brush are too wide and rigid. Tang Huawei selected oil painting knives of different sizes. Still with western oil paint and painting knife, Tang Huawei created lines in the ways of Chinese calligraphy and painting. With the sharp and forceful edge, knives penetrated the color layers, exposing the overlapped colors in the free carving and writing. The lines thus constitute rich colors, and appear free and spontaneous, or the lines are purely abstract, overlapping, affirmative and confident, strong in the sense of touch, just like the traces of awl and inkpad in traditional calligraphy, being woven together like written text, certainly text of the nature. Setting the tone as single-color painting, Tang Huawei had his own intention: No matter being yellow or brown, all the paintings seem like residues after burning of spirit. This is the spiritual tone of modernity, the record of fierce burning of individual life spirit, and secret of scorching spiritual pain. Although with such dim tone and profoundness, and even confusion in darkness, the vigorous lines, persistent growth, relentless extension, zigzagging entangling, and struggling breakthrough are all the evidences of spiritual desire for free growth. The strong sense of touch in the paintings pushed our spiritual horizon forward, which is the spirit of “constantly striving to become stronger” quoted in the Book of Changes.

The last is the dim image. Painting with knives, the lines are repeated again and again, but differed from each other in strength, layer and life state, to create different states. Even expressed in abstract form, the tone is still seeking for balance between cold darkness and burning intensity, and lines are granted with the “rhythmically vigorous” characteristics of music, thanks to the free flowing of rhythm in handwriting. But more often, Tang Huawei walked into the dim scene or dark night, into the desired Landscape on the Other Side, Secret Area and Serene Place, which all depict the scenes at dusk. Why Tang Huawei particularly favors the moment in a day? Why he prefers the crazily dancing branches at night? Obviously, the artist is facing the fundamental condition of modernity: The spirit of modernity is to lonely search for the unknown home in vanity. The home is only a projection in heart, which can only be found by lonely traveling through the empty darkness. No matter how beautiful the natural landscape is, it is rendered with emptiness. The denser the nightscape is, the fiercer the internal fire of life and spirit are burning, and the more burning hot they are. In his great, huge and representative Midsummer Night, the road running into the deep night leads us to the glimmering, unknown darkness; the dark reddish brown branches and plants, one after another along the road, are brilliantly burning, igniting each other with their own temperature; and the dark brown, against the dark ground and under the flickering stars, represents the breathing soul, thus the spirit is endowed with a most explicit portrait.

The growing and extending branches reveal the naturally surging vitality inside, and the trail of spiritual burning. They are the external representation of the artist’s passion. They cross over and touch off each other, stand out in different layers, and give off dim but poetic shimmer. Just like the dark green cold light in Under the Moonlight, the shimmer is intense but restrained, rich but profound. It is the texture obtained after years of cultivation and the color left by the artist’s unique spirit energy.

In the water color paintings, we see another Tang Huawei, depicting in a lighter style and with more floating color. In front of objects, he actively and courageously intensified colors. This is not to revitalize the nature, but to project inner self. Both are to depict the poetic nature and to express the artist’s emotion, as rubbings of time. Water color is of the charm of ink and wash, preparing ready for the application of oil paints, enabling the transition from thin and floating water color to solid and intense oil paint, and cognitively leading to the free scrawling for oil painting.

By injecting the spirit of Chinese ink and wash into oil painting, and depicting with painting knife in ways of traditional calligraphy-- writing in sand with awl,” “rain leakage through cracked ceiling” and “sealing on inkpad,” Tang Huawei drew full and beautiful lines, full of power and strength of spirit! At the moment, the artist was to capture the time slipped by with each branch, each abstract depiction. By tracking and recalling the fading past, he left the trail of spiritual burning. Each stroke is a memory of time, so Tang Huawei usually adopted dark colors, especially the color of dusk and night as the grounding. It represents the transition from daytime to nighttime, and the moment best demonstrating the vanishing time. Painting is to capture a moment as time always flies without ending, and to visualize the time. This is the ontology of painting and the profound meaning in spirit. Only the artists who are sensitive to it can go further and deeper.

Xia Kejun

PhD, Associate Professor and Curator

Renmin University of China