南山、丘壑与漫游

　　许江

　　湖东的南山路，是美院师生心目中的校园路。春天，那浅浅的绿被雨水洒在枝头，又从树穹的顶端慌慌地漫下。一水一绿，入夏，已是一街浓荫。那绿树与绿阴揉杂一起，绿变得葱郁，像是一份庄严的庇护，如伞如盖。

　　秋天来得晚，落叶轻飘，行人并不觉出南方的凉意。突然，在某个黄昏，异样的夕照匀匀地洒落，一抬眼，只见金黄的穹窿。短短几天，那金色就从枝上滑落，落满街廊。天上地下，浑浑然一片，让人同时赞叹与感伤金秋的浓郁。

　　冬天果然来到。即便雪日，南山路仍然用她的骨干构起一种素色的浑满。南山路上有多少人行走，美院人的心情却是不一样的。每天的匆匆一过，日积月累，淀在心中的却是绿的浓郁，叶的飘零，端得那般沉甸甸。

　　正是这条南山路南端的荫深处，一座绿色的砖房中，有一个"雁南艺术工作室"，时常举办画展和艺术活动。雁南，就是童雁汝南，实名演义，实地盘活。童雁在南山路已经有许多个年头了。

　　童雁其实年轻，却蓄了一把胡子。胡子与长发连在一起，衬着一双忧郁而敏感的眼睛，架着一副眼镜，整张脸所剩不多。因此，他的面庞总有些模糊不清，端详他，却有匆匆一瞥的感觉。回过头去，这张脸的印象又颇难忘。

　　童雁画了很多画，主要是风景和人物。去岁初夏他去浙北皖南写生，带回十数张两米多高、三米多长的巨幅风景，展出时把雁南工作室撑得满满。我曾建议他到室外的实景中办展。那大尺幅的画面置入景中，实景与画景连在一道，最易让人感到画家的观看。

　　童雁的这些画中总有一条地平线，浓浓地蜿蜒在天边，时而与远方的山脊沟梁相连，时而与林陌的黑瓦山墙错叠，浑浑然连成一片。那景物像是受了天边的牵引，向着远方聚拢，身形匆忙，意态朦胧。

　　这风景仿佛构成了行走列车上的一道景观，一种浑沌呈现却又无边伸展的丘壑。那山岭在跑，田陌在跑，云块在跑，景物混沌不清了，影影绰绰，仿佛丘壑。丘壑者，大地的隆起与沉陷，浑浑茫茫，如在目前，如在远方。

　　是风驱赶着景物，塑造着丘壑，指示着恒永的遥远。那风来在何方？在心，在心中对自然意态的捕捉与追赶，在观日常景物如丘壑的某种情心。那心中的风从景上拂过，正是风景的真意。童雁眼追心追，来去匆匆，又分外认真。

　　童雁笔下的人物一群一群地向我们走来。童雁这十几年来画的人物数以百计。这些人物肖像亦如风景，影影绰绰，形态各异。永远的正面头像，蓦然闯入眼中，待要仔细端详，那像却又兀自模糊起来。

　　那意写的笔，总在眉眼处大胆地构画出某些岁月沧桑的痕迹。那像仿佛陷落在这样一团肆意挥洒的笔触之中，时而清晰，时而模糊。末了，那像又在眼目的逡巡中，被无端地抹平，五官被收回到面庞里去，就如风在骨象上拂掠。我们仿佛与这些像匆匆一面，擦身而过。这像记录的不是那人，而是与那人蓦然相遇、擦肩而过的瞬息印象。

　　童雁那双敏感而忧伤的眼睛看到了什么？这十几年，这百千张肖像真实地记录了他的所见。画家无非画自己的所见，童雁不想做得更多，总是将肖像留在某个瞬间，某个远非完整却非常真实的瞬间。对于这样的瞬间，童雁看清楚了吗？我们也看清楚了吗？那瞬间的、模糊的清晰是否可能？

　　童雁时时处在一个散漫的状态之中，去承受这些蓦然出现的浑沌一团的"像"。这种"像"是不允许太清晰的，是需要一种生命的"漫态"去与之遭遇的。童雁与这些群像彼此塑造，把自己塑成匆匆一瞥的心灵漫游者。

　　所以，当我们面对这一群群无声息的、纠结着沧桑的笔触、浑然的影调的肖像之时，我们同时所面对的是童雁式的观看，或者说是那种漫游中的心灵。

　　我们并不努力地看清那人，而是去捕捉那种尚在混沌之中的状态。我们并不刻意追求视觉焦距的明晰，而是去琢磨心思相遇相浑的瞬间。这状态和瞬间常常叠映而为浑茫的丘壑，如云山、夜山、雨山一般，寂然一片。

　　那面庞脸形变为丘壑之时，也如丘壑一般沉默无语，化作整体的意态沉吟。五官陷入沟壑之中，细节让位给了影壁一般的岁月流痕。

　　这生成的主角常常是我们自己，是我们如此这般地赶在清晰地"看见"之前，把握到的朦胧的"所看"。正是这种"所看"引领着我们捕捉生活的瞬间，体验那不经意的留意，守候不期而然的确然。

　　我们仿佛被带到那个观看的现场，品赏某个观看生成的瞬间，在猝不及防之时，肖像背后的隐语正被看见，面庞丘壑的沉吟正被聆听。当我们对这种丘壑有所感悟之时，我们也正领受某种观看的诗学。

　　还是那条南山路。童雁一路走来，有漫游的散脱，又有丘壑的滞重。今日中国青年画坛颇多魅艳的一族，抓住某种生命的情征，赐予夸张的性感表象；或多玩世的一类，将近代史资源把来玩讽，将人性的弱处兀自虐玩。

　　无论是前者的"魅姿"，抑或是后者的"玩风"，童雁全无。他只有独立的"漫态"，那一任生命在人世道途上的随性漫步，那人与世界同在的无涯际的精神漫游。这种"漫态"正是南山路的真态，童雁的身形融化在其中。南山路走不尽，我们只是走在她朝朝夕夕的肖像上。

　　许江

　　2007年8月16日

　　西湖南山三窗阁

　　The South Hill, Gullies and Rambling

　　Xu Jiang

　　The South Hill road to the east of the lake is the campus road in the hearts of teachers and students from China Academy of Art. In spring, a light green is splashed on the branches by the rainwater, and then overflows down hastily. One water, one green. As summer approaching, the path is gradually shaded over by green trees, whose crowns mingle with their shadow, making the green more luxuriant, as if a solemn protection, in a way of an umbrella, or a great cover.

　　Autumn comes late. The shedding leaves fell lightly and silently. The walkers on the path can not perceive the southern cool. However, suddenly, at one certain dusk, an unusual glow of sunset spreads evenly. Looking upward, a golden vault greets us. In a few days, that gold slides from the branches to the paths and the corridors. The sky and the ground are formed as an integrated mass, bringing an admiring and sentimental sense for people towards the strong autumn.

　　And finally winter comes. Even in snowy days, the South Hill road still constructed a kind of plain integration and fullness with her backbone. There are many people walking on the South Hill road, but the moods of the people from China Academy of Art are different. Passing here hurriedly every day, but what accumulate over a long period in their hearts is the density of green and the wandering of the leaves, which is authentically heavy.

　　Exactly at the shady depths of the south end of the South Hill road, in a green house built of brick, there is the Yan Nan artistic studio, where art exhibitions or relevant activities are often held. Yan Nan, namely Tong Yan Ru Nan, is an artist revitalizing himself with his real name at his original domain. Tong Yan has already been here for many years at the South Hill road.

　　In fact Tong Yan is young, but he cultivates a nice bit of beard, which connects with his long hair, setting off his somber and sensitive eyes. In addition, because of a pair of glasses he wears, there is not much face left. Therefore, his face is always somewhat vague. However, when one look him carefully, one will have a sense of hurried glance, while turning back, the impression of that face will be felt quite unforgettable.

　　Tong Yan draws a lot of paintings, mainly of scenery and figures. He went to sketch to Zhejiang and south Anhui last early summer, taking back ten-odd pieces of landscape paintings more than two meters high and three meters long, which stuffed his studio while being exhibited here. I once suggested him to exhibit them outdoors where the pictures with such a big scale may merge into the real scene, and through such means the watching of the painter is apt to be felt.

　　There is always a horizon in these pictures, it considerably winds in the remotest place, sometimes linking with ridges or ditches, sometimes flickering among the black tiles or walls in the field or in the forest, and merging with them completely. Scenes seem to be drawn by it, gathering together towards the distance, hastily and vaguely.

　　Those scenes looked as if they were views from a walking train, stretching illegibly but boundlessly.  The mountain ridge is running, the field path is running, the cloud mass is running. The scenery chaos is indistinct, therefore it looks like hills and gullies. Hills and gullies, like swelling or sinking parts of the earth, are vast and boundless, sometimes as if at present, sometimes in the distance

　　It is the wind that drives the scenes, forms the hills and gullies, and indicates the permanent remoteness. Where does the wind come from? It comes from the heart, from pursuing and catching the meaningful appearance of the nature, and from a kind of sentient attitude with which one will appreciate the usual scenes as meaningful hills and gullies. The wind from the heart breezes over the scene. That is why the word scenery in Chinese is Feng Jing, which means wind and scene. Tong Yan pursues it with his eyes as well as his heart, coming and going in a hurry, but particularly seriously.

　　The figures created by Tong Yan are coming up to us group by group. More than one hundred figures are created for over ten years. Like his landscape paintings, these figures are also vague, presented in every shape. They are invariable facades, suddenly barging into the viewers' eyes, however, still, those figures are becoming vague as being watched carefully.

　　The meaningful brushstrokes always draw some trace of vicissitudes of life at the parts of eyes and eyebrows with a bold hand. It looked as if the figures fall into those unruly brushstrokes, sometimes clear, sometimes vague. Finally, those figures are smeared off for no reason as viewers' hesitating gazes moving on them, the facial features are withdrawn inward, as if the wind is passing over their spiritual bones. It seems that we run into them and then go away in a hurry. These pictures do not written down those people, but the impression of the sudden meeting.

　　What has that pair of somber and sensitive eyes of Tong Yan been seen? In those ten-odd years, these hundreds of figures factually record what he has seen. Painters draw nothing but what he or she has seen. As for Tong Yan, he does not want to do more. He always keeps the figures at a certain moment, a moment far from intact but very true. At such moment, does Tong Yan see clearly? Do we see clearly? Is that momentary and vague clearness possible?

　　Tong Yan is always in a slack state to greet these vague figures appearing suddenly. This kind of figures can not be too clear. They need to be greeted with the slackness of life. Tong Yan and these figures shape each other, and in this way, the former is shaped into a soul-rambler, glancing casually in a hurry.

　　Therefore, as we are facing the crowds of silent figures entangled with brushstrokes full of vicissitudes and integrated tinge, we are at the same time facing the watching of Tong Yan's type, or facing a kind of souls in rambling.

　　We do not distinguish those figures with great effort, whereas we try to catch the kind of state still in chaos. We do not pursue the perspicuity in visual focus, whereas we ponder over the moments of the meeting and the merging of thoughts. Such states and moments often overlap and reflect with each other, turning into integrated hills and gullies, and forming a whole silence, as cloudy hills, evening hills, or rainy hills.

　　When the shape of faces turn into hills and gullies, they, also, are silent like hills and gullies, muttering as an meaningful integrated appearance. The facial features fall into the gullies, while the details give way of marks of time, looked like a worn screen wall.

　　The prompters of such turnings are no other than ourselves. It is ourselves rushing through to grasp the vague seen before we see clearly. It is just about this kind of seen that leads us to catch the moments in life, to experience the careless care, and to wait for the uncertain certainty.

　　It seems that we are taken to that spot of watching, to appreciate a certain turning-watching moment. At an unexpected moment, the riddle behind the figures is being caught, and the muttering of the figures or those hills and gullies are being listened. When we feel something from this kind of hills and gullies, to some extent, we are receiving a certain poetics of watching.

　　Still in that South Hill road, here comes Tong Yan, with an attitude of a rambler, facile and graceful, as well as of the heaviness and stagnancy of hills and gullies. In the circles of Chinese young artists, there are a lot of fascinating fellows, who catch some feeling characteristics of life, and express with exaggerated sexy appearance; and there are also a lot of cynical fellows, who take the resource from Chinese modern history, and toy with the weaknesses of human nature cruelly.

　　Tong Yan has neither the former's fascination nor the latter's cynicism. The only thing he has is the independent rambling attitude, an attitude of letting his life alone rambling along the ways of the mortal world, and an attitude of boundless soul-rambling while human and the world merge together. This kind of rambling attitude is exactly the real state of the road in the South Hill, where Tong Yan's figure merge into it. The South Hill road is endless, and we only walk on her everyday image.

　　Xu Jiang

　　August 16, 2007

　　In the Pavilion of Three Windows, South Hill, West Lake, Hangzhou

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