時(shí)空的切片

不過，真正促使他選擇地圖和標(biāo)本作為表現(xiàn)對象的原因，或許還在于他的性格。這位畫家在現(xiàn)實(shí)中給予人的印象總是那么沉默、膽怯、軟弱，顯示了自身與人群之間的隔閡。而他在運(yùn)動和變化之中的事物面前顯得如此敏感和不適，以致他的一位朋友形容說：“對他來說，一只隔著網(wǎng)子飛過來的乒乓球就等于一枚導(dǎo)彈?！?不止于此，整個(gè)現(xiàn)實(shí)生活的世界對他來說，就像一張形態(tài)和意義處于不斷地?fù)u晃與顫抖之中的大網(wǎng)，令人目眩神迷。而類似于“國家機(jī)器”和“政治現(xiàn)實(shí)”這樣的東西，喚起的是一種本能的畏懼和逃避，甚至它們僅僅作為談資里出現(xiàn)的字眼，在聚會時(shí)被席間的某人提及時(shí)，也會令他覺得坐立不安。

從另一個(gè)角度看，他的那些題材還具有卡爾•波普爾（Karl R Popper）所言的“第三世界”感，也就是說它們帶有一種客觀知識性。他的地圖來源于各種書刊，而他的標(biāo)本來源于自然歷史博物館，并且，在這兩個(gè)題材的過渡期間，他還根據(jù)一些科普雜志和醫(yī)療畫冊創(chuàng)作過一些小畫。盡管“假山石”這樣的題材不可能被歸入到知識領(lǐng)域中，然而，正如他自己在談及這一題材所說到的，它“是介于具象和抽象之間的形象，畫山石是肆意的，可以按照內(nèi)心的感覺自由行走，在任何地方多一點(diǎn)或者少一點(diǎn)，只憑內(nèi)心需要，而不被形所限制。山石的形態(tài)有點(diǎn)像心靈的地圖，布滿奇怪的洞穴……”這段話本身道出了他的視覺定向與情趣所在。從中不難看出，他所迷戀的東西并非活生生的人物與事件，并非這個(gè)充滿動態(tài)的、瞬息萬變的現(xiàn)實(shí)世界，而是類似于科學(xué)提示給我們的“一幅試探性的宇宙圖景”。正是從這種“非繪畫性”的抽象圖景出發(fā)，他進(jìn)而展開自己的想象，將自己的冥想一筆一筆地灌注到它們之中，將自我投影到它們之上。

Ⅱ

他施加于事物之上的這層投影并非飄忽的幻象、甜蜜的夢境，恰恰相反，是事物的外貌。這聽起來有些荒謬，但是，我們可以用標(biāo)本制作的過程來做一個(gè)比方，制作者往往在禽鳥的骨架和皮毛之間填充某些材料，以便重現(xiàn)和凸顯其在空間中的立體形象，我們也不妨將羅荃木視為這樣一個(gè)制作者，繪畫即以一種個(gè)人語言進(jìn)行填充的過程，由此對象重獲一個(gè)獨(dú)立的美感形象。羅荃木尤其關(guān)注對象的肌理表現(xiàn)，對于他來說，這種肌理正是在畫面上重建起來的一種真實(shí)性，它如同現(xiàn)實(shí)之中的事物那樣伸手可觸，然而，卻是處于兩維平面之上的一種存在。

從骨架到外貌，路程并不迢遠(yuǎn)，甚至只是一步之遙——在這樣的起點(diǎn)與終點(diǎn)之間，就是他以繪畫進(jìn)行的全部旅行。我們可以體驗(yàn)到他繪畫的那種強(qiáng)烈的自我限定，一種自足的、內(nèi)在循環(huán)的特性，這就像一座水泵抽空了現(xiàn)實(shí)的水源，而將自身想象力的水流緩慢地灌注到繪畫空間之中。這個(gè)空間如同心靈本身，混合著知識與趣味，抽象與感性。

日本作家永井荷風(fēng)在《地圖》一文里，曾經(jīng)比較過古時(shí)的江戶地圖與現(xiàn)今的東京地圖，他以為，東京地圖雖然精密正確，“但看了地圖，毫不引起何等興味，也不能想象出風(fēng)景之如何。……但使閱者覺得煩雜而已。試看那不正確的江戶繪圖，像上野那樣開櫻花的地方，自在地描上一朵櫻花，像柳原那樣有柳樹的地方，添上一團(tuán)柳絮，不但此也，又如從飛鳥山可以遠(yuǎn)望日光筑波渚山，便在云的那邊描畫出來，臨機(jī)應(yīng)變，并用全然相反的制圖的方式態(tài)度，使閱者興味津津……東京地圖如幾何學(xué)，江戶地圖乃似花樣也?！苯栌眠@位日本作家的譬喻來形容，羅荃木的地圖恰好是一種幾何學(xué)與花樣的結(jié)合。對他來說，“幾何學(xué)”意味著世界的原型，而“花樣”意味著個(gè)人的情感和幻想——這兩種地圖的交合與混融形成了一種真正的“心靈的地圖”。

他對地圖的繪制總是沿其抽象的經(jīng)緯和脈絡(luò)，注入幻想的風(fēng)景，局部地還原了大地的具像感。那種肌理仿佛是我們航空時(shí)俯瞰到的大地之貌，盡管顯示在一定的距離之外，但無疑比地圖本身“肉感”了很多，就時(shí)間感而言，它好像大地從冬日荒涼枯干的環(huán)境里開始了復(fù)蘇，其中并存著枯寂與生機(jī)的雙重特征。

在標(biāo)本的繪制中，這種抽象與具像、生與死、虛與實(shí)之間的錯(cuò)幻同樣得以被表現(xiàn)。一只老虎仿佛正從一根垂懸的枯枝上邁步而下，一只躺臥在臺子上的豹子在昂首諦聽，仿佛有同伴或獵物正從不遠(yuǎn)處向它發(fā)出了召喚，還有那些毛色鮮艷的禽鳥，似乎徘徊在枝頭或假山石邊，它們的尖喙、羽翼和尾巴往往以充滿動感的弧形彎翹在空中。我們可以看到，盡管標(biāo)本陳列館的空間本身顯得陰郁、空虛，但是，他有意識地在將可能的生趣灌注到標(biāo)本的形象之中，削弱著標(biāo)本本身的僵硬、無生氣以及人造的感覺，好像要以繪畫的力量將被施以了死之催眠術(shù)的它們解救出來。

他坦承，對于他的繪畫來說，有一個(gè)人是無法回避的，那就是山本博司。雖然在接觸到這位日本藝術(shù)家之前，羅荃木就已經(jīng)開始了對于標(biāo)本的描繪，但是，山本博司無疑向他呈現(xiàn)了一種自覺而完整的藝術(shù)面貌，由此帶來了意識的震顫。山本博司的兩個(gè)系列作品——“模擬野生動物展覽”，以及相對晚近的“蠟像”，都可以說是對靜態(tài)的物象所進(jìn)行的凝視與沉思，這些物象就時(shí)間感而言，屬于或遠(yuǎn)或近的記憶。山本博司以攝影的方式呈示了它們宛在的真實(shí)，更是在這種真實(shí)的樣子背后，揭露出由時(shí)間的距離感所帶來的深不可測的虛幻意味——山本博司發(fā)明過一個(gè)詞語“時(shí)間的暴露”來作為自己全部作品的特色（見《沒有信仰的藝術(shù)》）。

標(biāo)本所吸引羅荃木的，亦在于它們在時(shí)空里的不確定性，“它們本身的自相矛盾，讓人懷疑又著迷：表面上栩栩如生，實(shí)際已經(jīng)被凝固了；呈現(xiàn)的景觀活靈活現(xiàn)，卻帶著濃烈的福爾馬林的味道?！碑?dāng)我們?yōu)槟切﹦游锏男燮婊蚱G麗而沉醉的時(shí)候，內(nèi)心也會蕩漾起一種悲傷而空茫的感覺，因?yàn)?，我們已然知曉這些形象徒有外貌，而不復(fù)生命的活力；畫面中的那些擱架、臺子、標(biāo)簽以及柵欄，正可以說是一種冷酷的提示與旁證。

羅荃木確實(shí)在他的繪畫中緊緊攫住了對象本身所包含的錯(cuò)幻與悖謬，他所創(chuàng)設(shè)的繪畫空間，既非現(xiàn)實(shí)的自然世界，也非現(xiàn)實(shí)的標(biāo)本世界，而是設(shè)法混淆了、重疊了這兩種現(xiàn)實(shí)或者說兩座空間世界，在此我們對于時(shí)空的感受變得凝滯，而那些孤立在灰暗背景里的對象如同“時(shí)空的切片”，向我們展示著、述說著永恒與短暫、心靈與現(xiàn)實(shí)之間的某種真相。

Ⅲ

他的繪畫在現(xiàn)代藝術(shù)之中存在著一條可以尋找的線索，譬如，在莫蘭迪那里，世界是以孤立的片段感來顯示的，在巴爾蒂斯那里，人物仿佛都是游離、靜止在現(xiàn)實(shí)時(shí)空之中，而這種語言還可以追溯到尼德蘭繪畫以及凡•代克那樣的古典繪畫大師那里。我們在這樣的圖象面前，會產(chǎn)生一種奇特的感覺：好像有什么東西被撤除了，四周變得空蕩，毫無修飾和遮擋可言。我們在此一眼望穿，以致又有所失落?！巴该鳌?，我們正可以從這個(gè)詞的原義出發(fā)，而非從唯美或理想化的立場上，去解釋這些圖象所具的那種品質(zhì)。如果我理解得沒錯(cuò)的話，這種透明反倒是對于世界的厚度、亦即對于表象的不可捉摸性的一種回應(yīng)。

也許事情正如讓•斯塔羅賓斯基所說的，“人們撞在事物上，深入不進(jìn)去。人們碰它，觸它，掂量它；然而它始終是致密的，其內(nèi)部是頑固不化的漆黑一團(tuán)?！被蛘?，“言語，手勢，面部表情，舉止，這一切形成了一系列幕布，仿佛一道由曖昧的液體形成的障礙物，對象依仗它實(shí)現(xiàn)后退，遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)地逃離精神。凝視，并非占有。這是在柵欄前止步，在其表面滑過?！绷_荃木的繪畫正是想努力穿越表象的幕布與柵欄，瞄視那種赤裸的、祛除了任何裝飾的真實(shí)，由此獲得一幅關(guān)于世界的內(nèi)在圖像。

這種透明本身有著一份陰郁和虛無感，繪畫空間有可能會因?yàn)樽晕曳忾]而變得像一個(gè)洞穴，顯得冷寂、枯干，甚至?xí)氐椎鼗瑝嫷娇斩粗?。顯然，這并非羅荃木所要抵達(dá)之處，為此他設(shè)法以自己的方式返回到事物的外部存在。他注意到，“在標(biāo)本館里，最兇猛的動物仍然是你最害怕的。雖然在標(biāo)本與標(biāo)本之間沒有溫順和兇殘的分別，這些特征只是你的常識、或者記憶，但站在這類標(biāo)本面前，你依然會覺得害怕。這種恐懼包含了記憶和常識，卻還有別的東西?！边@個(gè)所謂別的東西，正是生命的激情本身，它像一只黑暗洞穴中的手電筒或者夜空里的探照燈一樣，驅(qū)使著人不由自主地回到外部世界，回到存在之中，在那里一切重新變得混沌起來，不透明代替了透明，自我重新開始了迷失，然而，當(dāng)你真正置身于存在之場中的時(shí)候，你會發(fā)現(xiàn)，有關(guān)世界的各種認(rèn)知與結(jié)論顯得冷漠與絕對，太過空泛和先驗(yàn)?！罢嬲某橄髴?yīng)該不抽象?！彼赃@句話道出了自己的焦慮和探求。

假山石系列可以視為一種切入現(xiàn)實(shí)的欲望所導(dǎo)致的一場朝向歷史的迂回。這個(gè)物象無疑包含了我們的集體記憶，在它的抽象感之中更具有親切感和人性意味，而它有別于標(biāo)本的特點(diǎn)，還在于它的外置，盡管假山石總是被安放在古老的園林和庭院之中，與真正的外部現(xiàn)實(shí)仍然保持著一墻之隔，但是，它已然脫離了標(biāo)本陳列式的密室氛圍，在歲月和自然的侵蝕與作用之下，自身不斷地產(chǎn)生出微妙的變化。羅荃木以一種“枯筆皴擦”的筆法對其進(jìn)行了描繪，展示出一種幽玄、枯寂之美，而畫面上時(shí)而會出現(xiàn)的、仿佛始終在淌滴的漬痕，不僅僅是在導(dǎo)致“枯中帶潤”的語言效果，更于古意之中增添了一種微妙的悸動感，從而傳達(dá)出一種更為神經(jīng)質(zhì)的現(xiàn)代感性，假山石這種“山水的標(biāo)本”因而如同他筆下的動物標(biāo)本一樣，隱然帶有了“生意”。

與此同時(shí)，他也不停地嘗試對于真正的生命姿態(tài)進(jìn)行捕捉，《海豚》即是他在這方面的一次出色的表達(dá)，在這幅畫中，他描繪了兩只海豚從水面上躍起的瞬間，它們的體態(tài)與波動的水面、激起的水花相互映襯，顯得優(yōu)美而輕靈。然而，這種效果并非畫面意蘊(yùn)的全部，我們從海豚那里所體驗(yàn)到的，另有一種時(shí)空的凝滯感，好比電影慢鏡頭的呈現(xiàn)，可以說，這同樣也是在連續(xù)性的時(shí)空中獲得的一種切片。這幅畫似乎是從一個(gè)相反的方向證實(shí)了——揭示事物本身所蘊(yùn)涵的那種抽象與具像、生與死、虛與實(shí)之間的錯(cuò)幻感，無疑就是他內(nèi)在氣質(zhì)的一部分，并且，已經(jīng)構(gòu)成了他最為獨(dú)特的語言魅力。

2007年4月

Fragments of time space
Zhu Zhu

I

Every artist is in search of a space for self-expression. For Luo Quanmu, the extraordinary slowness and caution involved in opening up this space, the long period during which he immersed himself in the drafting of maps, identifying the object within the specimen kingdom most in accord with his own temperament, and starting the scholar’s rock series – all these seem to represent a self-delineated territory.

Are there similar qualities that unite these? The answer is yes. The objects that pertain to his concerns and interests are all related to the skeletal framework. To a certain degree, maps represent a geographic skeleton, specimens preserve the skeleton of birds, and ever since ancient times, scholar’s rocks have been regarded as skeletal miniatures of nature.

A skeleton is an easily recognizable form. Yet, it possesses an undeniable sense of abstractness. It expresses the basic form and spatial structure of an object. Its gap-filled appearance implies the absence of life. Any one part of a skeleton proclaims an already occurred death. It embodies all kinds of vivid, endlessly changing expressions and attitudes, as well as the musty air of gloom and the original form. Coincidentally, it is the thing we most refuse to confront; like the lance and spear that does not corrode easily, it exceeds life in length and highlights the contrast between life and death. It is that cruel and loathed reality that causes the educated person to shun direct confrontation. 

Throughout art history, skeletons have served as tools for understanding. In Europe during the Middle Ages, da Vinci visited mortuaries in the hopes of gaining knowledge about the structure of the human body through anatomical investigations. For more recent art students of academic settings, such a human skeleton is always present, among the plaster statues and well-polished apples. However, classical artists’ short venture into the human form’s interior was to return once more to the human form’s exterior, from that point onwards rendering more accurate and subtle depictions of human facial features and expressions; it is the body’s exterior that moves people, that entertains, and is the ultimate goal and objective. The most typical examples are da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” and “Lady with the Ermine”.  It seems as if the skeleton is the one thing Luo Quanmu demands of the world. He has returned the world to its original state, solidifying it into a structure with a static framework. 

To him, lively facial expressions and posture, rich and subtle expressions, or varied styles and features that appear naturally in different regions and seasons all reveal the variety of excessive change. Transience is difficult to grasp and discuss. Moreover, deep down, he remains suspicious and unbelieving of their authenticity. It seems as if his mind only has capacity for those basic, isolated things, and this is sufficient. Like a bird in search of a cage, he derives a sense of security and stability from a space that has only few possibilities.

This idiosyncrasy might have something to do with his childhood. The first object he drew from nature was a conch given to him by his father, an amateur artist. The bone structure and veins of the conch left a deep impression on him. On the other hand, his mother worked in waste product collection. One can only imagine a little boy finding amusement in the heaps of used items. He was enveloped in a dim, quiet, poison air filled atmosphere. The wreckage of the outside world piled up quietly, revealing within his curious gaze that despite their different uses, material, and form, and even given their lack of dynamism and liveliness, they awaited makeovers and imagination. It is as if these experiences manifested themselves in Luo Quanmu’s later works. To him, painting represents a “free and uncharted space”. 

However, the true reason that has impelled him to select maps and specimens as subjects have to do perhaps with his personality. Luo Quanmu is an artist who gives off the impression reticence, timidity, feebleness, and general social detachment. His sensitivity and ill disposition towards moving and changing objects has caused one friend to say: “To Luo Quanmu, a ping pong ball bouncing back and forth equals a guided missile”. Furthermore, for the artist, the real world is like a giant net that rocks and sways due to its endless changes in form and significance, inciting people’s infatuation. Like the “national machine” and “political reality”, what is aroused is an innate fear and escapism. Like the person whose name is mentioned over dinner, even if only as a passing topic of conversation, he sits ill at ease.
 
From another perspective, his subjects invoke Karl R. Popper’s World Three. This is to say that he has some objective knowledge. His maps come from various books and periodicals and his specimens come from museums of natural history. Moreover, in the transitional period of these two subject matters, he also made some sketches based on science magazines and medical catalogs. Even though “scholar’s rocks” can’t be classified as intellectual, it is as he mentioned in conversation: “it is a form that is situated between concrete and abstract. Drawing these rocks is wanton; it can go along freely with intuition, becoming more or less in any one place, depending solely on the needs of the inner heart, and unlimited by form. The form of scholar’s rocks resembles the map of the soul, suffused with strange cavernous holes…” This quote itself reveals the artist’s visual orientation and temperament. It is not difficult to see that he is enamored not with lively people and events, nor a world full of dynamic and fast changing realities, but rather something like the “exploratory universal prospect” provided by science. It is precisely from the abstract prospects of this “non-painting” that he proceeds to reveal his own imagination, pouring his deep thoughts brushstroke by brushstroke into them, and projecting individualism onto them.

II

The projection he places onto objects lacks the illusion of drifting from place to place or the sweetness of a fantasy, and is instead the opposite – it is the objects’ exterior. This sounds absurd, but we can use the process of making specimens as an analogy. The maker constantly adds materials onto a bird’s skeleton and feathery exterior, filling in the gaps so that the three dimensionality of the form fleshes out and becomes evident. We can also understand Luo Quanmu as such a maker: painting is a process of filling in the gaps using a personal language that informs a unique aesthetic form. Luo Quanmu pays special attention to the skin texture of objects. For him, the skin represents an authenticity that is rebuilt on the canvas, something so real you could almost touch it with your hand. Even so, it is nevertheless an existence beyond the two surfaces.

The distance from the skeleton to the exterior is not great; perhaps it is only one big leap from the start point to the end point that composes the entire journey in painting. We can relate to the intense self-restriction Luo Quanmu imposes on his painting, a kind of self-satisfied, inherent trait. It is like a pum, which having sucked a spring dry, moves on to the waters of its own imagination, pouring these atop the canvas. This space is like the soul itself, blending knowledge and taste, abstractness and perception.

In Map, Japanese writer Nagai Kafu compares an ancient river home map with a map of modern day Tokyo, saying that while the latter is more detailed and accurate, it does not incite pleasure or imagination about the landscape. Instead, it only vexes viewers with its complexity. Look at the inaccurate drawing of the river home rendering, and it is like going where cherry blossoms bloom and freely sketching a blossom or a willow orchard full of willow trees and sketching a cluster of willow catkin. From a high mountain, you can spy the landscape from a distance. Sketching from besides the clouds, taking into account constant changes, and applying a completely different attitude than map drawing that gives the viewers a pleasurable experience. The Tokyo map is like geometry, while the river home map perhaps resembles a pattern. Borrowing Nagai Kafu’s metaphor, Luo Quanmu ‘s maps are also a combination of geometry and pattern. To the artist, “geometry” implies the world’s original form, and “pattern” implies individual perception and illusion. The intermixing and fusing of these two kinds of maps form a kind of true “map of the soul”.

Luo Quanmu’s map renderings have always been in the vein of the abstract, towards the landscape of the illusory, taking parts of the earth’s surface and restoring it, bit by bit, to the concreteness of the earth. That kind of surface texture seems to be the picture of the earth we have held since the age of aviation. Even if it maintains a certain distance, it is undoubtedly more “voluptuous” than a map. Speaking in temporal terms, it is as if the earth is resuscitating from a bleak winter, harboring the twin elements of the mundane and vital.

In the drawing of specimens, illusions abstract and concrete, alive and dead, falsehood and truth, are expressed equally. A tiger walks along the hanging branch of a withering tree; a leopard lays down on a platform and cocks its head to listen, as if a companion or prey has summoned him from nearby; birds with vibrantly colored feathers pace back and forth on the tip of a branch or besides a scholar’s rock, their pointy beaks, wings, and tails curve and contort in lively midair displays. It is evident that despite the gloomy and hollow representations of specimens when displayed in museums, Luo Quanmu intends to invigorate the same specimens with life and vitality. He weakens the specimen’s originally rigid, lifeless, and man-made feel, as if to rescue them from the hypnotic grip of death through the strength of painting.

He admits frankly that in respect to his paintings, one person cannot be avoided, and that is Hiroshi Sugimoto. Although Luo Quanmu began sketching specimens prior to being exposed to Japanese artists, Hiroshi Sugimoto undoubtedly represented a conscious and complete portrait of an artist to him, in particular, possessing the tremor of consciousness. Hiroshi Sugimoto’s series “Imitation of Wild Animals Exhibition” and the more recent “Wax Figure” can both be described as a meditative gaze on the static image. The temporal terms of these images pertain to memories neither far nor near. Hiroshi Sugimoto uses photography to express their authenticity, and it is this backdrop of authenticity that exposes the incomprehensible illusions brought about by the distance of time. Hiroshi Sugimoto coined the term “the exposure of time” to describe the unique feature in all of his work. (See Art Without Belief.)

The thing that attracts Luo Quanmu to specimens is their indeterminant element of time space: “their inherent mutual contradiction arouses both suspicion and fascination; the surface is lifelike, but in reality, it is already solidified. Vivid in sight, it gives off the stench of formalin.” As we are intoxicated by the magnificent strangeness and beauty of the objects, our inner hearts quiver with a sentiment of sorrow and emptiness, for we already know that these things will never again come back to life. It is as if the frames, platforms, labels, and railings all serve as callous hints and circumstantial evidence to this.

Luo Quanmu truly grasps the illusion and absurdity found within the subjects of his paintings. The painting space he has created is an unreal natural world, it is also an unrealistic world of specimens, and it attempts to confuse and overlap two kinds of reality, or perhaps two spatial worlds. Here, time space becomes sluggish, and the isolated objects in the dim backdrop are similar to “fragments of time space”, exhibiting to us, narrating a kind of truth between the eternal and brief, the soulful and real.

III

His paintings possess a traceable thread within modern art. For instance, Morandi’s world is expressed through isolated fragments. In Balthus’ world, humans seem to drift, frozen in modern time space, and this kind of language can be traced back to Dutch paintings and great masters like van Dyck. This art backdrop produces a unique feeling: it is as if something has been removed, and everywhere it is deserted; there is a complete lack of decoration and shelter. Again we look penetratingly, so that again there is loss. Rather than taking a position of aesthetics or idealism, we can use the definition of “transparency” as a starting point to understand the character of these paintings. If I understand correctly, this transparency actually represents a thickness about the world, that is, a kind of response to the unascertainable nature of expression.

Perhaps the situation is as Jean Starobinski said: “Humans constantly remain unable to penetrate objects. Humans bump into it, touch it, ponder it. In the end, it remains enclosed and obstinately opaque. “Or, “l(fā)anguage, gestures, facial expressions, mannerisms” – these all form a series of curtains, like an ambiguous liquid that forms an obstacle into which the target can retreat, forever evading the spiritual. To gaze is not necessarily to own. This is to stop before the railings, to slip past it”. Luo Quanmu’s paintings cut across the curtains and railings of expression, aim at that naked, sparse reality and in particular, gain an inherent image of the world.

This kind of transparency inherently possesses a sense of gloom and vapidity. The space of painting might become like a cave due to self-seclusion, seemingly quiet and lonely, withered, even thoroughly slip and fall into a space scape. Evidently, this is not the destination Luo Quanmu wishes to reach. For this reason, he attempts to use his own method to restore the exterior existence of the object. He notices “in specimens, the most ferocious animal is always the one you most fear”. Although among specimens there are no distinctions between meek and cruel, these characteristics are common knowledge or memory. Yet, standing before such specimens, you will still be frightened. This kind of fear involves memory and common knowledge, as well as other elements. “The so-called other elements is the fervor of life itself; like a flashlight in a dark cave or a search light in the dead of night, it prompts humans to return, unwittingly, to the outer world, to existence, where everything is fused together once again. Non-transparent substitutes for transparent, individualism begins to fade, and just as you truly place yourself within existence, you will discover that all sorts of knowledge and conclusions regarding the world seem cold, absolute, and overly vague. “True abstractness should not be abstract”. This saying betrays the artists’ anxiety and search.

The scholar’s rock series can be regarded as a kind of outlier oriented towards history that cuts through reality and is driven by desires. This image undoubtedly includes our collective memory. In his sense of abstractness, there is a stronger flavor of intimacy and humanity, and the unique trait about the specimens has to do with their outer placement. Scholar’s rocks are always placed in ancient gardens and courtyards, maintaining a perpetual separation from reality. Yet, it separates itself from the stuffy atmosphere of the exhibition space, the corrosion from natural forces of time and nature consistently producing subtle changes. Luo Quanmu uses a kind of “withered brush, chapped stroke” paint style to exhibit a darkly secluded, beautiful loneliness. His brush drips, creating stains that not only bring about the effects of “the moist within the parched” but also an increased sense of delicate tension within the ancient style. The “mountain and river specimens” of scholar’s rocks consequently resemble the animal specimens under his brush, possessing a faint sense of life.

At the same time, he consistently attempts to grasp the attitude and posture of real life. “Dolphin” is a primary example of this. In this painting, he depicts the brief moment during which two dolphins leap above water. Their forms, the fluctuating water surface, and the water sprays all provide contrast to the scene of graceful agility. Even so, this kind of effect is not all that the painting implies. We can experience from the dolphins another kind of sluggish time space. Like a scene set on slow motion, this creates a fragment in the continuation of time space. This painting is confirmed from the opposite end – announcing the abstractness and concreteness of objects, the illusory sense of life and death, falsehood and truth. It is undoubtedly a part of its inherent temperament. As such, it has already formed the most unique charm of Luo Quanmu’s style.

April 2007