含道暎物

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​文：付晓东

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空间站将于2017年7月1日推出“含道暎物”蒋国蓉个展，这是继他“朝晖夕阴”个展之后，蒋国蓉在空间站举办的第二次个展。蒋国蓉以树木和树林作为关照的对象，空间与作品给观者提供了一种亲密的包围感，使栖居者经由树木这种中介，进一步体验到自然世界的家园感。作品使观者如同游园者一般，既如同在林中散步，又可以在高大茂密的树木下乘凉。这些树木是人与广大世界联接沟通的纽带，又是自然与人亲密无间的永恒的对话。蒋国蓉通过一种切实的观察，用林木建构出一个多变开放，又稳定持续的空间，明与暗、软与硬、平缓与起伏，波动与条痕，不仅在二维上充满节奏，又幻化出三维的深度广度的空间。他说：“这个世界就是我要你们看的真实的世界。”

 

“长时间的观察树，你会发现每棵树木都不一样，它们的枝干在肆意的生长，树叶给树干各种各样的形式。”他把树理解为一种活生生的，能动的，创造性的，物理的在场。树形无法虚构，每棵树都具有自己的独特之处，仿佛在昭示每棵树都有自己的主体，不是一棵景观之树，更是一种世界之物，宇宙之物。剥离开层层叠叠的对树的文化想象的积累，从蒋国蓉客观冷静到极致的刻画树的手法，就可以看到树的本真，在时间的间隙之中，在场域的断裂之处，树的存在骤然出现。正是一种纯粹的在场，一种存在的澄明。

 

在蒋国蓉的画面中，树以生命中心的方式构建环境，形成了一个完备而独立的生命圈。它们或高大挺拔，气度非凡，或遮天蔽日，华盖繁郁，以一种威压和笼罩气氛，使空间结构突然瓦解和失衡，不断的向纵深展开，使画面成为一种体验性的降临。

 

既有西方强调塑造、构成、斑斓，又有着东方重意境、格调、脱俗的美学内涵。“含道暎物” 把老子的“道”引入审美领域，是审美活动中非常重要的因素。道，源于中国传统文化，是老庄美学理论体系的精华之一。“含道暎物”倡导人们在反映自然的时候，应该先有自己完整的主观境界，并且以境界为美，以体验为审美，以自然为美的极至，这既是道家的美学体系，也是中国古代的传统美学体系。“含道暎物”之道，可使我们联想到胡塞尔的现象学里所提到的“意向重构”问题，及海德格尔所提到的“此在-世界之中的在”问题。由此可见，无论东方西方，都是创作出一个具有重构价值的“物”作为审美对象的客体，由“道”入“物”，以达“畅神”，这也是南宋宗炳山水画的最高追求。他认为“万趣”与神志融合之后，才会物我一体，使自己精神舒畅，并显现出“道”来，即达到绘画美学的最高境界。

 

蒋国蓉以其坦率自然的语境，用超乎大胆的明朗又绮丽的颜色，表现那些晨昏暮霭，山林野风的自然之景，从而形成了天然华美的鲜明绘画风格。近年来，他犹如“师法自然”的魔术师，一直用他所特有的方式——用绘画的语言来研究自然，探索以一种永恒的不变的形式去表现自然，以及“天人合一”的思想倾向。人与自然的和谐关系，以“生”为本，又以“乐”为最高境界，使他从追求“自然”实在的形状和永恒的视觉，开始转向表现自我，转向探讨人与自然的融合，和保持与自然平衡的生活方式。塞尚认为：“画画并不意味着盲目地去复制现实，它意味着寻求各种关系的和谐。”蒋国蓉通过探研视觉艺术的基本构成点、线、面、色相的绘画语言，不断摸索新的艺术思想，不断创作把绘画与自然结合，来重新解构自然，强调艺术和自然并行存在的和谐。艺术家面对大自然物象的表现,不拘泥于实际，对物体描绘是不墨守成规的处理，而是反映它能在内心深处激起的某种情感，大自然广袤而又清静，使得他的艺术生命也是自然的，无欲求的，大道至简，欣赏是这样，创作亦是如此。

 

“我真正有兴趣的并非本质上的大自然，但自然确实是一种能为我所用的精妙语言。” 这句来自享誉全球的视觉装置艺术大师奥拉维尔·埃利亚松的话语，同时亦是艺术家蒋国蓉最深的体会，艺术和自然只是相似并不是相同，如何更好地把“色彩间的对比和他们的相互关系”这一色彩原则运用在自己的画中, 蒋国蓉他花费大量的时间去观察和研究绿色这一种非常难以描绘、掌控的颜色，他感知是光赋予了自然和绿色某种神奇的透亮。郁郁葱葱的群山与树林在太阳的光照中散发着诱人凝视的光辉，艺术家通过自己的直觉感受、接触、分析，大胆的铺陈，自由的泼洒，他赋予了绿色这一色彩更多的微妙、丰富的变化，从而使绿色的自然物象色相获得最大限度的色彩节奏、韵律美感，在复杂的变化中又趋于整体的和谐。蒋国蓉每天面对自然这一既不狂放但又不拘谨的对象，以隐逸平和的创作状态深入其中，感知玄妙，畅达内心，使得他形成了属于自己的色彩体系，真正做到了画如其人。

 

蒋国蓉有着自由的童年，少年时即表现出对大自然天生的亲和力，大自然让他觉得亲近、放松、舒服、愉悦。蒋国蓉在自己成都郊区的工作室过着半隐居的生活，一如宋元时期的隐士崇尚自然无为的人生态度，寄情山水。中国绘画的书写方式让他深为着迷，山水画作为中国古代传统绘画中最重要的一支，历经数代传承屹立不倒，古人在传承中创新，在传统中突破，题材大多为隐逸仙游，寄情山水等等，但其格物写实的精神和“澄怀观道”的美学理想都和今人蒋国蓉的创作状态高度契合。蒋国蓉崇尚从自然景物中挖掘事物丰富的内在精神，然后把自己对绘画的感悟融入到绘画里，他那保持与自然平衡的生活方式和创作状态，也许就是大卫·霍克尼所说的那样：“也许我看世界的方式和别人不太一样。但我确实仔细审视过自己是如何观看的，这对我很重要。”

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Epiphanies of Tao

 

Space Station will launch Jiang Guorong’s solo exhibition Epiphanies of Tao on July 1, 2017, which, following his exhibition Morning Sunlight – Nightfall Shade, is his second solo exhibition held in Space Station. Trees and woods came to be his subject-matter; and the spaces of these works provide with the audience a close sense of being compassed, in which the resident, through trees as a mediation, feels a nostalgia for the natural world. His works made the viewer, like a visitor, walking across the woodland as well as relaxing under the luxuriant trees. These trees are the link of man to the world, and the eternal dialogue between nature and man. Jiang, by practical observation, constructed with trees a space, which is changeable, open, stable, but continuous, a space that is bright and dark, soft and hard, flat and undulating, filling with fluctuation and streak, not only in two dimensions is full of rhythm but extends its depth and breadth in three dimensions. “This world is the real world that I want to show you”, said Jiang.

 

“After a long observation, you will find that every tree is different: their branches grow recklessly, and the leaves make out the shape of trunks in various forms.”

 

Jiang understood the tree as a living, dynamic, creative, and physical presence. The shape of a tree cannot be invented; each tree has its own uniqueness as if the tree has its own body: it is not just a tree in a landscape, but also a thing of the world, hence of the universe. From Jiang’s extremely objective characterizations of trees, peeling off the accumulation of cultural imagination of trees, it would be seen that the authenticity of trees, at the gap of the time as well as at the fractured loci of the field, emerged with their existence, which is a pure presence and a clarification of existence.

 

In Jiang’s pictures, the trees construct the environment in the form of life center, forming a complete and independent life circle. They, lofty, outstanding, or canopying, lush, make the space structure sudden collapsed and disordered with a kind of coercive and shrouded atmosphere; and continue to expand in depth, so that the picture has become a kind of experience of falling.

 

Having not only the aesthetic connotations of the concepts of shape, composition, and gorgeousness emphasized by the West, but also that of the artistic conception, genre, and otherworldliness highlighted by the Orient, Epiphanies of Tao, introducing Lao Tzu’s concept of Tao into the aesthetic field, is a very important factor in aesthetic activity. Tao, derived from Chinese tradition, is one of the essences of the aesthetic theory system of Lao Tzu and Zhuang Tzu. The principles of Epiphanies of Tao advocate that one should maintain a completely subjective state before representing nature, and take the state as the beautiful, and appreciate this experience as such，and regard nature as the utmost beauty, which belongs to the Taoist aesthetic system, hence to the Chinese traditional aesthetic system; on the other hand, seem to be reminiscent of the issue of Edmund Husserl’s intentional reconstruction in his phenomenology, and that of Martin Heidegger’s Dasein ist Sein in einer Welt. Both the Orient and West, thus, created a “thing” with reconstructive value as aesthetic object, with “Tao” mirroring onto the “thing”, achieving to “cheerful mood”, which is also the highest pursuit of Chinese Sansui Paintings by Zong Bing, a painter and critic lived in Nan Dynasties, who believes that all interests assimilated into mind will achieve the state of subject-object as a whole, to the extent that the subject feel comfortable, with the epiphany of Tao, that is, the highest level of painting aesthetics.

 

Jiang, in his naturalism context, depicted the twilights, woods, and mountains of the natural landscape in boldly bright and flamboyant colors, which forms a distinctive and gorgeous style of painting. In recent years, Jiang, like a conjuror who is following nature, had been in his own way, in which he inquiries into nature in the language of painting, to explore an eternal form to embody nature and the idea of the oneness of Heaven and Man. The thought of harmony between man and nature, which rooted in the physis, and which taken the joyfulness as the highest realm, diverted him from the pursuit of real shapes and eternal vision to self-expression, and the inquiry into the fusion of man and nature, and the balance between nature and lifestyle. As Cezanne put it, “Painting doesn’t mean copying the reality blindly, rather, it means seeking harmony in all relationships.” Jiang, through the study of constitutes of visual art, comprehending points, lines, planes, and color languages, continued to explore new artistic ideas and to create the combination of painting and nature to reconstruct nature, emphasizing on the coexisting harmony between art and nature. The artist, in the face of the appearance of nature, did not rigidly adhere to the reality. The depiction of objects, instead of getting stuck in a rut, reflected certain emotions that they can arouse in the heart. The vastness and tranquility of nature make his art life natural and no desire. The appreciation is so, and the creation.

 

“What I am really interested in is not nature in nature, but it is really a delicate language that can be used by me.”

 

This words, came from the world-renowned visual device art master Olafur Eliasson, is also the deepest experience as to the artist Jiang Guorong. For art and nature are merely similar not the same, in order to, more reasonably, apply the principle of the contrast among colors and their mutual relationship, he spent a lot of time to observe and study the green which is very difficult to describe and control; and perceived that it is by the light that the virescent transparency is informed. The verdant woody mountains and trees exuded seductive splendor in the sun, while the artist, feeling, touching, analyzing, boldly expatiating, and capriciously splashing, gave the green more subtle and rich changes, so that the green natural images obtained the maximal color rhythm, and approached the overall harmony in the complex changes. In face of nature that is neither untamed nor reserved, Jiang, giving insights into it in a hermetic state, perceived the abstruse and smoothed down the inner, so that he formed his own color system, being truly like his paintings.

 

Jiang had a carefree childhood. He, as young, showed an affinity for nature. Nature made him feel close, relaxed, comfortable and cheerful. He lived in semi-retreat in his studio on the outskirts of Chengdu; and as the hermits lived in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, he advocated a natural inaction attitude towards life, abandoning himself to nature. Jiang was deeply fascinated by Chinese Sansui Painting, which, as one of the most important Chinese ancient traditional painting, has been passed from generation to generation, and in which the ancients innovated in the inheritance and made breakthroughs in the traditional themes, e.g. retreating, wandering on the way, abandoning oneself to nature; however, Jiang’s creation state is largely lined up with its realism spirit and the aesthetic ideal of “Clarifying the Mind to Apprehend Tao”. Jiang, advocating the mining of the inner of things from the natural features, put his perceptions into the paintings; and maintained the balance of nature and lifestyle and the creation state, perhaps as David Hockney put it, “Maybe the way I see the world is not as the same as others’. But I did look carefully at how I watched it, which was important to me.”