張志成的近期作品主要包括人像和夢境兩大主題。盡管從事繪畫創(chuàng)作的人很多都是以此為題材，但張志成的創(chuàng)作卻令人觀看后難以忘懷和縈繞不散，究其原因在于他獨(dú)特的油畫語言表現(xiàn)力和對藝術(shù)之于現(xiàn)實(shí)關(guān)系的洞察力。作為一個(gè)從事藝術(shù)創(chuàng)作長達(dá)近三十年的藝術(shù)家，張志成具有極為深厚的油畫技巧功底，早年深受塞尚繪畫思想的影響。塞尚的繪畫思想中最為核心的名言是“大自然的形狀總是呈現(xiàn)為球體、圓錐體和圓柱體的效果”。由于這后來成了以畢加索、布拉克為代表的立體派的理論信條，所以理解這句話，對于理解塞尚的創(chuàng)作就顯得格外重要。在我的理解中，塞尚并不是要把繪畫理解為對物質(zhì)世界的再現(xiàn)，不是像貢布里希所言要通過一個(gè)復(fù)雜得多的修正過程將原初簡化了的圖式逐步豐富，直到達(dá)到與現(xiàn)實(shí)物質(zhì)世界的匹配。對于塞尚而言，他是要在對物質(zhì)形象進(jìn)行簡化、提煉和刪撥大要的基礎(chǔ)上，致力于通過持續(xù)變化和不斷調(diào)整的肌理來表達(dá)它們。持續(xù)變化和不斷調(diào)整的肌理代替了通過形體結(jié)構(gòu)和光影效果對現(xiàn)實(shí)物象的匹配，表達(dá)代替了再現(xiàn)，這才是塞尚繪畫的重要元素。他的繪畫不是對自然的單純模仿，而是對其進(jìn)行調(diào)整。不過，這種調(diào)整又有別于全然不顧現(xiàn)實(shí)物象的抽象構(gòu)成或抽象表現(xiàn)，當(dāng)然也有別于古典繪畫的具像表現(xiàn)。張志成的早先繪畫多是靜物、花卉和人體，這些雖然都是現(xiàn)實(shí)世界的物理實(shí)存，但是張志成卻不僅是要用自己頭腦中的固定圖式來整理現(xiàn)實(shí)中的對象，讓其就范，而且是遵從于這些對象，接受這些對象變化的種種暗示，讓自己自由地感受并且表達(dá)出物象存在的凝重的質(zhì)感和量感。他畫中的事物，雖然依稀存留了現(xiàn)實(shí)物象的線索，其實(shí)已跳脫了模仿與記錄的性格，也排除了一般性的聯(lián)想意義。
繪畫語言表現(xiàn)力對于張志成而言，不僅體現(xiàn)在他對現(xiàn)實(shí)物象的簡化、提煉和刪撥大要，而且還體現(xiàn)于他對畫面色彩大膽、主觀但又完美的使用和表現(xiàn)，而這在我看來，也同樣受到塞尚的很大影響和啟發(fā)。對塞尚來說，繪畫是一樁通過色彩來呈現(xiàn)或者說實(shí)現(xiàn)現(xiàn)實(shí)對象的事情，實(shí)際上，他對物象的理解和表現(xiàn)，恰恰是在其創(chuàng)造性的對色彩系統(tǒng)的使用方法下實(shí)現(xiàn)的。從早期對光影效果的濃厚興趣，試圖通過陰影的漸變和肌理質(zhì)感效果來勾畫出三度空間中的體積感與實(shí)質(zhì)感，到1990年代以后色彩上單一化趨向的出現(xiàn)，張志成逐漸地走向純粹色彩的抒情表現(xiàn)。線條的使用和光影效果的營造，所要達(dá)到的三度空間的幻覺，被大面積的帶有持續(xù)變化和調(diào)整的單色調(diào)肌理所取代，而色彩的純化往往產(chǎn)生出色彩取代光成為造型手段的奇異效果。
近年來張志成以人像和夢境為主從事創(chuàng)作，前者口、鼻、眼、耳等五官特征按照傳統(tǒng)油畫的原則，需要調(diào)和許多種色彩來表現(xiàn)；后者非真實(shí)的人與物、物與物甚至人與人的空間關(guān)系，也依賴多種表現(xiàn)手段的齊頭并進(jìn)。然而令人詫異的是，張志成竟然能以三兩種有時(shí)甚至是一種色調(diào)來表達(dá)畫面形象并且格外精彩。他的畫最初給觀看者的印象是鮮麗響亮的色彩調(diào)子，明度和純度都很高，彷佛張志成是一個(gè)性格奔放和外向樂觀的藝術(shù)家。其實(shí)，在這種鮮亮的色彩被反復(fù)覆蓋和持續(xù)附著的背后，你總是能感受到這些人物孤獨(dú)落寞的情緒。在這里，色彩不僅擔(dān)當(dāng)起了造型的職能，而且還起到反襯畫面主題情緒的作用。也就是說，盡管單色調(diào)是他繪畫創(chuàng)作的主軸，盡管色彩的明度和彩度都非常耀眼，但它們并不輕佻和浮夸。因?yàn)閱紊珘K狀作為積體，因?yàn)橥簧A塊狀積體的交迭和不斷調(diào)整、涂抹的層層肌理，物象被覆蓋了，觀看者通往現(xiàn)實(shí)實(shí)存的路徑被堵塞了，可同時(shí)物象卻又被抽離出我們以為它原本應(yīng)該存在的那個(gè)現(xiàn)實(shí)背景，被懸浮于畫面的某個(gè)位置。這個(gè)位置既是張志成所要尋找的，也是我們觀看者所要尋找的，它就在畫面里，它在期待著我們的發(fā)現(xiàn)，就像這些窺視著我們的人像一樣，它也窺視著我們。
因此，張志成對色彩單色化的選擇和處理，絕非僅僅是對某些色彩的偏愛，應(yīng)該把他在色彩上多年努力和精湛的表現(xiàn)，理解為他要賦予色彩以獨(dú)立的物質(zhì)化地呈現(xiàn)現(xiàn)實(shí)世界的能力。因此，在他的畫中，色彩是一種物質(zhì)，是一種媒介，它的反復(fù)堆棧和鋪陳所造成的突現(xiàn)與退隱的視覺效果，是為了取代光影而記錄下時(shí)間中物象的變化——對于人物是生命浮沉，對于景物是生長盛衰。
考察張志成的繪畫歷程，常常會有這樣的困惑：盡管他的創(chuàng)作是來自對真實(shí)視覺感受的詮釋，特別是他近來的人物形象繪畫，都是取材于現(xiàn)實(shí)生活里到處充斥的印刷品圖像或者身邊的朋友影像，他就應(yīng)該算是一個(gè)現(xiàn)實(shí)主義者嗎？與此相反的問題是，他的夢境題材的創(chuàng)作因?yàn)閬碜苑乾F(xiàn)實(shí)的自然世界，那么，他是否還有理想主義的傾向？我以為，張志成絕不是一個(gè)模仿自然或者還原自然的現(xiàn)實(shí)主義者，但是，他也絕不是回避現(xiàn)實(shí)的理想主義者。在北京這個(gè)超大型的城市里，在物與物的關(guān)系極大地遮蔽了人與人的關(guān)系的這個(gè)社會現(xiàn)實(shí)里，無視現(xiàn)實(shí)顯然是難以做到也沒有理由做到的。問題在于，在北京生活的這幾年，在張志成的繪畫里的確出現(xiàn)了大量的人物形象，雖然這些形象絕非這些年風(fēng)靡的帶有特定社會特征的形象，但是，它們依然反映了藝術(shù)家本人對中國大陸時(shí)下的社會現(xiàn)象的注意，只不過藝術(shù)家本人多年來的藝術(shù)觀念使他能夠從容做到基于現(xiàn)實(shí)而不受限于現(xiàn)實(shí)。從張志成的新近畫作看，現(xiàn)實(shí)生活本身的感受，促使他用自己日臻嫻熟的色彩肌理構(gòu)成的造型語言來開拓新的題材，讓色彩的表現(xiàn)力面對新的挑戰(zhàn)，創(chuàng)造新的可能。張志成的新近創(chuàng)作，一如他以往的實(shí)踐那樣，與現(xiàn)實(shí)世界是不可彼此還原和隸屬的。繪畫，對于張志成來說，屬于一個(gè)精神的世界，與現(xiàn)實(shí)世界是平行的。而張志成的繪畫對于我們觀看者來說，則讓我們相信繪畫今天仍然具有難以言表的可能性和魅力。
高嶺
2009-10-8
Paintings as Independent Objects
——Chang Chih-Cheng’s Recent Works
Gao Ling
2009-10-8
Chang Chih-Cheng’s recent works are of two major themes—portraits and dreams. What makes Chang’s works unforgettable and lingering among the myriad of other artists’ works of the same subjects is his unique expressiveness in oil painting and a keen insight into the relationship between art and reality. As an artist whose career has spanned over 30 years, Chang has built a solid foundation in oil painting techniques, and was greatly influenced by Paul Cezanne in early years. “To treat the nature by the cylinder, the sphere, the cone” lies at the core of Cezanne’s art, and later became the theoretic principle of Picasso and Braques’ Cubism, making it essential to understand the famous dictum in the appreciation of Cezanne’s works.
In my understanding, Cezanne did not perceive the painting as a re-creation of the visible world, as Gombrich’s observation that it is a gradual enrichment of a simplified pictorial object through a much more complex correctional process until it matches the object in the real, material world. Cezanne aimed to portray objects with continuously changing and modifying textures, through the process of simplification, refining and extracting the essence. The continuously changing and modifying textures replace trying to depict objects using structural composition and light and shadow effects, and impression replaces reproduction. That is the central element in Cezanne’s art. His paintings are not simply imitations of nature, but modifications of it. However, this modification differs from abstract expressionism, which disregards entirely the appearance of the real object, and clearly differs from the realistic quality of classicism. Chang Chih-Cheng’s earlier paintings consisted of mainly stills, flowers and nudes. Although these are all real physical objects, Chang not only organized them according to designated symbols in his mind, but also obeyed and accepted the changing qualities in these objects, allowing himself to freely sense and convey the quality and substantiality of these objects. The objects in his paintings, although seemingly containing traces of reality, have in fact transcended the purpose of imitation and archiving, and eliminated commonly associated meaning of these objects.
To Chang Chih-Cheng, his artistry does not only manifest in the simplification, refining and extraction of essence of real life objects, but also in the bold, subjective and yet perfect application of colors. To me, that is also an influence by Cezanne, to whom painting is an act of presenting or realizing real objects through colors. Coincidentally, Cezanne’s understanding and expression of objects came as a result of his creative application of the color system. From Chang’s attempts to create a 3-dimentional sense of volume and substance that stemmed from a profound interest in light and shadows in his early years, to a preference for monochromatic expression after the 1990’s, Chang has gradually progressed towards a sentimental expression of purely colors. The use of lines and shadowing effect to achieve the illusion of three dimension is replaced by large areas of continuously changing monochromatic texture, a method that usually manages to create surprising effects.
In recent years Chang has focused mainly on portraits and dreams for his work. In the former, facial features are depicted with a mixture of many colors, according to traditions in oil painting. In the latter, the subject matter is based on the various combinations of relationships between unreal people and objects, and relies on a mix of techniques to convey the story. But what is really surprising is Chang’s ability to convey the image with only two to three hues, sometimes even one, and to fantastic effects. At first his paintings give the viewer the impression of a vibrant and lively color palette that is high in brightness and purity, portraying Chang as an artist of an extroverted and optimistic disposition. In fact, delving deeper behind the repeated and overlapping application of these bright hues, one can always sense loneliness in these characters. Here color not only assumes the role of the stylist, but also produces the effect of setting off by contrast the emotions conveyed by the image. In other words, in spite of a monochromatic theme and the high level of brightness and purity of the colors used, they do not come off as frivolous and flamboyant. Objects are covered by overlapping monochromatic color blocks and constantly changing textures, and thus viewer’s path to realism is block, but at the same time objects are extracted from the presumed reality, and are suspended in place in the image. This place, sought by Chang and by us as viewers, exists in the image and waits to be discovered. Like the people who are spying on us, it is spying on us as well.
Therefore, Chang’s selection and treatment of a monochromatic treatment is definitely not a sign of preference for certain colors. Instead, we should interpret his longtime efforts and excellent work of color as attempts to give colors the ability to exist independently as objects in the portrayal of the real world. Therefore in his works, color is a substance and a medium. The suddenly appearing and disappearing visual effect achieved by the overlapping and narration of colors is meant to replace lighting and shadows and to document the changes in objects over time—in humans the ebb and flow of life, in things the rise and fall.
Looking at Chang Chih-Cheng’s painting career, one often questions whether he should be classified as a realist simply because his creations come from his interpretation of real visual sensations, especially his recent portraits which are based on printed pictorials or photographs of his friends. The opposing question is whether he is an idealist because his works on dreams are based on a non-real world? I believe that Chang is not a realist who imitates or restores nature, nor a reality-escaping idealist. In a metropolis like Beijing, a social realism where things and objects greatly overpower human relationships, it is obviously impossible and senseless to disregard reality. The issue is that the number of portraits has significantly increased in Chang’s works during his years in Beijing. These character images are definitely not like those carrying specific social symbols, which have become popular in art in recent years, but they still reflect the artist’s observations of the social phenomena in China today. The artist has effortlessly stayed true to reality but is not limited by it, due to his own artistic philosophy built over the years. Judging from his recent works, his experience of reality has prompted him to explore new subject matters with his maturing color usage, and allowed him new challenges and possibilities with his colors. Like he has always done, his works are not interchangeable with the real world, nor do they belong to the real world. Painting to Chang Chih-Cheng is a spiritual world, parallel to the real one. And to us, it allows us to believe that paintings still possess possibilities and charms indescribable in words.
【編輯：霍春?！?/span>
