The Artistic Conception of Imagery Art

— Paintings of Artist Xinsheng Wang

郑勤砚

Zheng Qinyan

   我还从未与鑫生先生谋面，无数次电话那头的声音，无数次欣赏他的画作，无数次被深深地打动……

我想试着就从作品出发来解读王鑫生和他的绘画艺术，也许这正是一种最直接最真诚最动人和最能看到其绘画本质的方式。

   草根系列是鑫生先生作品中令人动容的一个系列。这个系列作品反映了美国社会下层人的生活，比如失业工人，街头浪人，越南老兵等。我从鑫生先生的夫人宋老师那里听到了这样感人的故事：在一个下雨的早晨，鑫生先生驾车正路过休斯顿的一条平常街道，当看到街边一个乞丐时眼前一亮，这个乞丐虽然衣衫破旧，但很整洁，虽面容无助，但依然掩饰不住曾经的清秀。面对形象很有特点的人时，艺术家特有的眼光另鑫生先生突然有一种想主动认识他的愿望。正在这时，绿灯亮了，车子必须前行。当鑫生先生掉头折回时，又不见了那个乞丐的身影。鑫生先生心中郁闷，为没有机会帮助这个乞丐而心生自责。但是乞丐那活生生的面容和坚定的眼神在他眼前久久挥之不去。从此，每次经过那条街道，他都要刻意地四处寻找，看看可否能再与他邂逅。终于有一天，在一个平凡的街角，当那张熟悉的乞丐的脸又一次跃入鑫生先生眼帘时，他兴奋地走上前去拉起他的手说：我终于找到你了。之后，他带着这个乞丐来到画室，送他衣物，让他吃饱穿暖后开始倾听他的遭遇，他的故事，两个人像久违的故友一样促膝长谈。正如鑫生先生所讲：“我曾经创作过的《美国街头》系列很多都是以越战老兵为题材,他们的生活状态很多人不是很了解，就连美国人也不尽然都知道。这些老兵曾经历了长达近十年的越战，亲眼目睹了恐惧、血腥、生死。当重返家园时却无法和现实生活融入，只能靠在街头行乞度日，我就是想把他心中真实的东西表现出来。”

后来，这个乞丐成为了鑫生先生草根系列作品中主要的人物之一，他以这个乞丐为模特画了多幅作品，每一幅表现手法和面貌都不一样。有的像柯勒惠支的版画，用大块面的对比色块来表现乞丐世界的阴阳两重天，有的又酣畅淋漓地挥洒着乞丐曾经浪漫的情感世界，有的则像是被分裂的精神和人格令人触目惊心。当我们读这些作品时，乞丐眼神中时而呈现出无助，时而沧桑中掩饰不住的心酸、恐惧以及心中依然存有的对未来生活的向往都自然流露。特定时态下人物的肢体语言和神态展露了人物丰富的内心世界。在画面中，我们看到的是作为艺术家捕捉对象神态的敏锐能力，是运用色彩语言的大胆畅快，是意象画手法在人物画上的大胆尝试，同时还看到画家一颗敏感、善良、富有同情的心。

   是什么样的经历造就了这样一位在中西方艺术语言中自然游走的艺术家王鑫生？是什么让他东方的意象化形式在其油画创作中打下深刻的烙印？又是什么让他在旅美二十余年的艺术生涯中魂牵梦绕？带着这样的问题，让我们追随王鑫生的足迹从东方到西方来探索他深邃丰富的内心世界。

   小鑫生最初接触绘画是大概6岁的样子，父母都会画画，特别是母亲，国画的底子很好。她出生于一个鞋商家庭，在旧社会家庭条件还算不错。父亲在当时虽然很有才华，但已经是一个破落的商宦家庭，又是老生子，生活能力比较弱，即使是婚后基本上也是母亲在支撑着9个子女的大家庭。小鑫生的第一位启蒙老师是陈景堂先生,他从六岁到十三岁这个阶段跟随陈景堂先生学习中国绘画达七年之久，在国画技巧和总体理论上从老师身上受益匪浅，不仅培养了绘画的兴趣，学习到具体的绘画技巧，也根深蒂固地将写意绘画观念融入到自己的艺术生命里。中国绘画追求写物之生意的境界，追求意境高远的表达，强调笔墨韵味的自然抒写，这些都在鑫生幼小的心灵中打下了深刻的烙印。老师陈景堂认为鑫生是一个在艺术上有非凡表现能力的人，他曾说，中国画不是画出来的，是抒写出来的，是倾泻出去的，是内心的一种自由表达和情感宣泄。这样的话对小小的鑫生产生了深远的影响。

   小鑫生的第二个启蒙老师叫孙成鲁，笔名叫孙迅。自1958年相识时，小鑫生已经学国画好几年了。当时父母亲已经成立了“五三画社”，主要是出售字画和帮人画一些广告。孙成鲁是鲁迅美术学院的学生,才华横溢，后来成了鑫生父母的笔墨朋友,天天在五三画社里，讲述着俄罗斯绘画和油画的世界。这让当时还在学习国画的幼小的鑫生内心萌发了对油画简单又浪漫的憧憬。他觉得油画是另外一个天地,那种色彩,那种不同的空间深深地吸引着他。孙成鲁在私下教授给鑫生一些简单的素描和基本西画色彩知识，他在油画的色彩和表现力方面有着很多独到的见解,至今忆起，鑫生依然觉得受益匪浅。

   少年时代的两位老师，一中一西，在王鑫生早年的艺术经历中都产生了重要的影响，同时也开启并预示着他在艺术道路上追求的目标和方向。

   到了美国以后，生存的问题是第一位的。很快王鑫生发现在美国想要靠绘画为生就要了解美国绘画市场，有人说，美国是一个毁灭艺术家的地方，同时也是一个成就艺术家的地方。他走访了很多画廊，发现了一个问题：美国没有他自己文化特定的艺术形态。不像法国、意大利、俄罗斯、中国这些国家有典型的属于自己的绘画语言，只有具有特定艺术特点的艺术家才能在美国得到认可，特别是外国艺术家。王鑫生开始了自己长期的也是艰难的思考和摸索。从接触油画到后来,王鑫生一直坚持挑战自我的原则，在绘画技巧上和表现形式上经历了几次变革，比如写实、印象、表现等风格形式都有尝试。曾经困扰他的有两大问题，一是如何将写意融入自己的油画表现语言里。由于在学校时期俄罗斯画派的绘画语言已经深入到骨髓里了，如何让自己突破色彩的局限性和画面的严谨，将写意的观点在画面中植入的同时又在与前人不同的风格下展现自我，这是需要去尝试和创新的。二是“贯穿”。在表现性题材中来抒写自己，融会贯通中西方的这些艺术观念上的差异，并将其在油画作品中自由地融合和表现，这正是王鑫生所追求的。譬如“荷”的系列，一边听着古筝音乐，一边作画，将画刀与色彩混合成一幅交响，意境上将音乐融入到画面里，心跳和画刀会支配着色彩随着古筝的“韵”而生发，这是王鑫生惯常的作画状态。在尝试把意象的元素带到油画表现时，画刀的魅力得到了升华，此间艺术家物我两忘，真是一种片刻的宁静和享受。但融会中西绘画理念在人物题材表现上是个难题，让画面中人物在简单的勾勒下活生生地“站”在观画者的面前，在王鑫生的人物题材里都在尽可能地去抓“神”，也就是把人物生活中最能体现他的内心情感的一面表现出来。国画人物讲“态”，所以在特定环境下，一个表情和一个动作足以说明其一生悲欢离合，痛苦迷离。对“意象式”造型方式深有体悟的王鑫生在其人物造型上可谓自由酣畅，声色俱在，他自由、自主、意象、虚拟而又真实地处理着他眼中和心中的形象。

   一次偶然的机会王鑫生又重新读了朱光潜先生《谈美》的书，书很旧了,但书的内容却令他印象深刻。其间提出的“美是事物呈现形象于直觉时的特质”一语另他深有感悟。每个人对“美”的理解是直观的，艺术离不开知觉和想象。中国绘画美学认为，美是要在物理世界之外构建一个情景交融的意象世界，而“意象”就是美的本体，也是艺术的本体。这是绘画本身的基本立足点。没了“意象”就没有所有的绘画语言。写实之后的浪漫主义，以后的移情论、表现主义和现象学美学都是沿着这个路子走下来的，尽管它们之间也存在重要的差异，但根本源于“意象”。抓住了“意象”就抓住了中国传统美学和西方现代美学的契合点。因此，王鑫生逐渐坚定了在自身的绘画语言上突出中国意境并结合表现主义的形式而形成一种特定的风格的道路。

   晚明陈继儒有段话说：世人爱书画而不求用笔用墨之妙。有笔妙而墨不妙者，有墨妙而笔不妙者，有笔墨俱妙者，有笔墨俱无力者。力乎？巧乎？神乎？胆乎？学乎？识乎？尽在此矣。可见在笔墨之间，或西洋之色彩之中，最终表现的其实还是人自己本身。懂得这个道理，则可进得出得，无可无不可。王鑫生先生的绘画艺术意由心生，象在形外，俱是最朴素的情感表达，我看到了，知晓了。同时期待着快快与他见面，继续对他的艺术世界的进一步追问和对话。

 2011年于中央美术学院

I never met Mr. Xinsheng Wang face to face, but I have been deeply moved thousands of times by his voice at the other end of the phone line and his painting art.

I hope I could interpret Xinsheng Wang and his painting art just from his works, which might be the very way that is the most direct, the most sincere, the most touching and the best to reveal his painting essence. 

Small Potato series might be the most touching series among Mr. Wang’s works. He reflected the life of lower class peoples in America, such as unemployed workers, the homeless and veteran from Vietnam War. I have ever heard such an impressive story from Ms. Song, wife of Mr. Wang, that in a raining morning, Mr. Wang was driving along a common street in Houston, when a beggar at the street got his attention at the first sight. This beggar, although in old and shabby clothes, but he looked clean and under a helpless facial expression, people could saw his ever existed comeliness. Facing characteristic people, the special insight of an artist suddenly drove Mr. Wang to take on a will to know him. Yet at that very moment, green light was on and he should start his car and go ahead. When Mr. Wang turned back, the beggar had already disappeared. Mr. Wang was depressed and he felt sorry for couldn’t help the beggar. Yet the vivid face and determined look left deeply in his memory. From then on, he would look around intently to see whether he could encounter that beggar again whenever passing that street. Finally one day at a common street corner; when the familiar face of that beggar jumped into Mr. Wang’s eyes, he went forward and picked up the beggar’s hands excitedly, saying, I ultimately found you. Later, he brought the beggar to his studio, gave him clothes and foods, and then Mr. Wang started to listen to his story. They talked like old friends who met again after many years apart. Mr. Wang said, “Many paintings of my ‘American Street’ series chose veterans from Vietnam War. Most peoples, even American have no idea about the living condition of these old soldiers. During the ten-year long Vietnam War, these veterans experienced horror, blood and death bodily. However, they cannot adapt themselves to the reality of life when returning to their hometown, so they could only beggar at the street. What I want to do is to represent his true thoughts.”

In the following years, this beggar became a main figure in Xinsheng Wang’s Small Potato series; he created many works with this beggar as his model and his approaches were different in each of these paintings. Some reflected the totally different worlds of a beggar with contrast colors like the printing works of Kollwitz; some depicted the ever romantic emotional world of beggar in freehand style and some looks startling like split spirit and personality. When we view these works, the helplessness in beggar’s eyes, the sorrow and terror generated in vicissitudes that cannot be concealed, as well as their naturally shown yearning for future life are vivid before our eyes. Colorful inner world of figure was displayed by his body language and facial express. In these pictures, we could see the sensory acuity of artist in catching peoples’ airs and his boldness in color controlling as well as freehand style adoption in figure painting; meanwhile, we also see the sensitive, kind and compassionate heart of Mr. Wang.

What experiences nurtured such an artist like Xinsheng Wang who could work so freely and skillfully with artistic languages of both the East and the West? What makes his oriental imagery form imprinted so deeply in his oil painting creation? What has always been on his mind during his two decades life in America as an artist? With these questions, let’s explore his colorful inner world following after Xinsheng Wang’s footstep from the East to the West. 

Little Xinsheng picked up painting brush for the first time when he was 6 years old. Both his parents painted and his mother was quite good at traditional Chinese painting. She was born in a family of shoe seller which was not bad in old society. Xinsheng’s father, although talented, was living in a declined rich family; as the youngest son of the family, his father was relatively weak in capability. Even after Xinsheng’s father got married, the big family with 9 sons and daughters was still supported by Xinsheng’s mother. Mr. Chen Jingtang was the first teacher of little Xinsheng who tutored him Chinese painting for seven years from when he was 6 to 13. Xinsheng benefited a lot from this teacher both in traditional painting technique and theory, which not only nurtured his interest and specific skill in painting, but also planted the idea of freehand painting deeply into his artistic life. The imagery realm, sublime expression as well as ink taste and natural expression of brushwork have all impressed young Xinsheng profoundly. Mr. Chen Jingtang believes that Xinsheng has extraordinary capability in artistic expression. Once he said, we are not drawing but expressing and outpouring Chinese painting, which is a kind of free expression unbosoming of inner feelings. This saying generated profound impact on young Xinsheng.

The second teacher of young Xinsheng named Sun Chenglu, nicknamed Sun Xun. When they met in 1958, Xinsheng had already learned Chinese painting for many years. At that time, his parents established “Wusan Painting Study”, they mainly sold paintings and calligraphy works, and meanwhile they also draw some advertisement for others. Sun Chenglu was a very talented student of Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts who later became a painting friend of Xinsheng’s parents. He came to their painting study everyday and talked much about Russian painting and oil painting. Thus a simple and romantic expectation for oil painting sprouted in little Xinsheng’s heart, who was still learning Chinese traditional painting at that time. He realized that oil painting is a totally different world of which the color and different space attracted him a lot. Sun Chenglu taught Xinsheng some basic knowledge of sketch and color in western paintings. His unique understanding in color and representation of oil painting benefited Xinsheng a lot.

The two teachers of his boyhood, one of Chinese style and another western, produced important influence on Xinsheng Wang’s early art experience. Meanwhile, they enlightened and predicted his goal and direction on the way doing art.

Arriving in America, the first step is to survive. Pretty soon Xinsheng Wang discovered that if he wants to live on painting in America, he should get familiar with the art market of this country. Some people said that America is a place both damages artists and fulfills artists. He visited many galleries and found a problem: Different from France, Italy, Russia and China, who has their own painting language, there is no special artistic form belonging to the culture of America. Only those artists with unique characteristics could be recognized here especially foreign ones. Xinsheng Wang started his long term meditation and exploration which was tough. He has been keeping to the principal of self-challenge ever since he got in touch with oil painting and he has made several revolutions both in technique and form of expression and what he has tried included styles of realism, impressionism and expressionism. Two main problems have bothered him then, one is how to merge freehand style into his own oil painting language; he need to try and make innovations in breaking through the limitation of color and composition when planting his freehand style into picture while keep being different from others under the deep planted painting language established when he was learning from Russian School paintings in university. The second problem is to “unify to be one”; what’s pursued by Xinsheng Wang is precisely to express himself in expressive subjects while unify differences in artistic concepts from the East and the West, moreover, to freely integrate and represent them in his oil painting works. For example the “Lotus Series”, he mixed palette and color to be a symphony in his painting accompanied by Chinese Zither music. The rhythm of Zither is merged into the picture under the palette, which is the common state when Xinsheng Wang paints. While trying to bring elements of imagery into oil painting, glamour of palette has been sublimed and the artist devotes himself completely into the world of art, what a peaceful and beautiful moment! However, unify painting ideas of the East and the West has been a historically difficult problem. In order to make figures under his simple outlining “stand” vividly before audiences, Xinsheng Wang tries his best to catch their spiritual “expression”, namely the innermost emotion of people in life. “Expression” is emphasized in traditional Chinese figure painting; therefore, under specific environment, a facial expression or a motion is enough to show the whole life of a person. Xinsheng Wang who has profound understanding about “imagery” modeling could do perfect on it and figures under his brushwork are vivid and colorful. He could treat images in his eyes and heart freely, independently, in imagery, illusory and spontaneously true to life way.

By an accidental chance, Xinsheng Wang re-read Zhu Guangqian’s “Letters on Beauty”. The book was old but its content is impressive. He was deeply enlightened on the theory proposed in this book that “aesthetics is the characteristic of matter when its image is represented before intuition”. Everyone’s understanding of “aesthetics” is intuitive and art cannot be independent from cognition and imagination. It is regarded in Chinese aesthetics that beauty is to construct an imagery world out of physical world while “imagery” is the essence of beauty and art. This is the basis of painting itself. Without “imagery”, there is no painting language at all. Romanticism after Realism, as well as the following Empathy theory, Expressionism and Phenomenological Aesthetics all followed the same path although differences exist among them. Yet the origin is always “imagery”, which is the critical point where Chinese traditional aesthetics could be unified with the Western Modern aesthetics. Therefore, Xinsheng Wang gradually fixed the form that highlights Chinese imagery while combining with Expressionism on the foundation of his own painting language, thus a unique style of himself is established.  

In late Ming Dynasty, Chen Jiru said that people love painting but they do not study the subtleness in brushwork and ink. Some are good at brushwork but not good enough in using ink while some are quite the other way; some do perfect in both brushwork and ink while some others are weak in both. People could well see the painters’ skill, wisdom, capability, insight and knowledge from this, namely ink and brushwork. So ultimately, it is always people himself that is represented no matter in Chinese ink and wash paintings or in Western colors. Knowing this principal, one could paint freely without any limitations. Mr. Xinsheng Wang’s painting art is created by his heart. Essence could be seen out of form. I understand that all these paintings are his most modest expression of feelings when I saw them. Meanwhile, I expected eagerly to see him and continue to make further questioning and dialogue with his world of art.

2011

At The Central Academy of Fine Arts