Chinese Calligraphy and Painting (II)

文／雷蒙·道森 譯／彭發勝

Chinese Calligraphy and Painting (II)

文／雷蒙·道森 譯／彭發勝

A lthough an aesthetic of calligraphy developed early in China, there are few references to painting in the ancient literature. The brush had already been used in neolithic1neolithic新石器時代的。times for painted decoration on pottery, but the ancient literary sources of the Chou period still treat painting as a craft rather than an art. The six arts of antiquity2antiquity古；古老。were ritual, music, archery3archery射箭。 4 charioteer駕雙輪馬車的人。, charioteering4, calligraphy, and numbers, and so did not include painting, although later writers emphasized the close relationship between calligraphy and painting and their common divine5divine神的；神圣的。origin. Although painting had a somewhat lowly status, a craft which employed the same tool as the scholars used was bound ultimately to6be bound to注定。rise in general esteem. It was inkbrush painting which became the predominant7predominant主要的。form of painting in China,and everyone who became an ink-brush painter had fi rst been a calligrapher, so ink-brush painting was automatically a craft of the educated elite.

[2]The influence of calligraphy on this art may be seen in several ways.Firstly, the brushline was considered all-important, and what critics looked for in paintings more than anything else was that vigour of brushstroke which was the consequence of the artist’s calligraphic training. Another highly prized aspect of skill with the brush was the method of rendering8render表現；描繪。third dimension by varying thickness in the brush-stroke. This technique was already in use as early as the second century AD, and it was to become one of the important devices for indicating depth, another being variation in the ink tone, so that paler, more watery ink was used to render hazier9hazy朦朧的。, more distant objects. Rapidity, indeed spontaneity10spontaneity自發性；自然。,in the brush-stroke was another ideal which sprang from11spring from起源于，發源于。painting’s close kinship with calligraphy, for just as we write automatically, without thinking of the strokes as we form them, so it was thought that ideally one should be able to paint spontaneously. This rapidity and spontaneity of execution could make the appreciation of Chinese painting a ‘quasi-kinesthetic12quasi準的；類似的。kinesthetic動覺的；肌肉運動知覺的。experience’,as Cahill calls it when describing the paintingTwo Minds in Harmony, in which the vigorous movements of the painter are clearly re fl ected in his work,with black blobs13blob（黏稠的） 一團；（顏色的）一小片。where his brush has rested, and trailing14trailing被拖動的；蔓延的。streaks from the separate hairs of the brush as it moves swiftly across the paper. Because the brush-stroke was considered of primary importance, painting in colours came to be regarded as inferior.

[3]Secondly, the very satisfying sense of composition which is characteristic of much Chinese painting may also spring from the painter’s initial training in disposing elements in space in the writing of characters and in placing them in relationship to each other.

[4]Thirdly, certain subjects and motifs obviously lend themselves more readily to calligraphic treatment than others. As the eleventh-century art historian Kuo Jo-hsu wrote in hisExperiences in Painting, ‘in depicting drapery15drapery垂褶；布料。folds and trees one’s use of the brush will be of exactly the same sort as in calligraphy’. Later, especially in the Yuan Dynasty, bamboo painting became a major genre, in which the resemblance16resemblance相似之處。to calligraphy is most clearly marked. Eventually there were traditional brush-stroke conventions,categorized in calligraphic terms, which became standard elements of the reper-toire17repertoire（某人的）全部才能。of Ming painters and were listed and illustrated in painting manuals in the seventeenth century, the most famous of which was called thePainting Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden.The publication of such manuals inevitably gave the false impression that Chinese painting is a matter of assembling stereotyped18stereotyped老一套的。formulae19formulae程式；定則。.

[5]Fourthly, there is in Chinese painting a strong tendency to abstraction20abstraction抽象概念。conditioned21condition決定；以……為條件。by the abstract nature of the calligraphy which is so closely related to the painter’s art. This seems to be in con fl ict with the powerful basic motivation of depicting nature realistically,to make it seem as if one were actually there, which many painters and critics expressed; but this realistic purpose itself naturally developed into a desire to go beyond producing a likeness of one particular mountain and capture on paper the essence of mountainness.The important Ch’ing Dynasty painter and art historian Tung Ch’i-ch’ang did much both in his writings and in his art to turn painting into an abstract medium like calligraphy. His attitude is summed up in the maxim: ‘If one considers the uniqueness of scenery, then a painting is not the equal of real landscape. But if one considers the wonderful excellence of brush and ink, then real landscape can never equal painting.’ But at the same time this abstraction was not felt to be a move away from realism. Rather the painter achieved a greater sense of realism because in the very act of painting he felt the physical energy of the things he was painting; and instead of merely seeing and describing trees and rocks, he acts out their characteristics as he works. Chinese painting never totally abandoned reality for abstraction.Just as the written character, in however bizarre22bizarre奇異的（指態度、容貌、款式等）。a hand, must bear some resemblance to the standard script, so the painting would have appeared totally meaningless if it had been completely divorced from reality.

[6]Once paintings had become as strongly calligraphic as they were in the Yuan period, it was a natural development that real calligraphy should play a fully integrated23integrated各部分密切協調的；完整統一的。part in the picture. Calligraphy appears on the earliest extant Chinese paintings to describe what is being illustrated but it was only gradually that the subtle technique of making it an integral24integral不可或缺的。part of the composition was developed. The cultured25cultured有修養的；文雅的。amateurs who dominated the painting tradition in late imperial times were poets as well as painters, so it was natural that they should reinforce the sentiment26sentiment情緒；情操。of the painting with an appropriate poem written in beautiful handwriting which fi tted in well with the composition as a whole.The empty space in the composition ceases to be sky or rock, but is an area which can be filled by a poem just as legitimately27legitimately合理地；正當地。as by any other creation of the calligraphic brush which the Chinese painter wields28wield揮，操，使用（武器、工具等）。.

[7]So the history of painting in China is not so much a matter of the exploration of the physical world as the development of a brush repertoire for exploring that world. The brush-stroke is the central theme in Chinese painting,and one theoretical treatise29treatise論文；專著。opened by saying that the single brush-stroke was‘the origin of all existence and the root of the myriad30myriad無數的；種種的。phenomena’. Just as it was believed that the hexagrams31hexagram六角形；卦。in theBook of Changes, which were widely used for purposes of divination32divination占卜。, were abstractions of natural phenomena, so it was felt that brush-strokes were not merely a depiction of an object’s external appearance, but were an abstraction of its essential vitality. Brush-strokes seemed to stand for the inner structure of rocks as well as to imitate their outward appearance. ■

書法藝術美學在中國發展得很早，而在中國古代文獻中提到繪畫的卻很少。在新石器時代，毛筆已經用來繪制陶器圖案，但在周代典籍中，繪畫仍被當作一門技藝，而非藝術。雖然后來的作者強調書法與繪畫之間的密切關系以及兩者共同的神性起源，但是古代的禮、樂、射、御、書、數六藝并不包括繪畫。盡管繪畫的地位稍低，但由于這門技藝的工具就是文人們寫字用的毛筆，光憑這一點，最終必將提高人們對繪畫的尊重。中國畫以水墨畫為主，每一位水墨畫家首先必須是書法家，所以水墨畫自然成為文化精英的技藝。

[2]書法對繪畫的影響見諸于幾個方面。首先，毛筆畫的線條被認為至關重要。鑒賞家在畫作中首先看重的是毛筆筆畫的氣勢，而這一點則來自畫家的書法訓練。另一種運筆技巧也十分為人所看重，即通過筆畫的粗細變化而產生立體感。這種技法早在公元2世紀就得到運用，后來成為表現景深的重要手段之一。另一種手段是墨色的濃淡變化，用稀釋的淡墨表現朦朧的遠景。運筆迅捷，不假思索，這是書畫之間密切關系帶來的另一種藝術趣味。就好比我們寫字時并不想到筆畫，但筆下的文字自然成形。因此，理想情況下，畫家在作畫時應該做到不假思索，恣肆灑脫。這種恣肆灑脫、運筆迅捷的藝術手法，讓中國畫的欣賞成為一種“準動態的體驗”。這是高居翰在描述石恪《二祖調心圖》時提出的。畫家運筆時那種靈動飛揚的氣勢在畫作中清晰可見：畫筆停歇之處墨跡泛泛，而畫筆在紙面一揮而過時，散開的毛毫曳出縷縷細線。正因為筆法至關重要，色彩畫也就被認為低于水墨畫。

[3]其次，構圖優美是大多中國畫的特點，這也許得益于畫家在學畫前的書法訓練。寫字時不但講究每個字的間架結構，而且字與字之間也要求布局得宜。

郭若虛作品

[4]第三，某些景物和主題顯然更適于以書法手段來處理。11世紀的藝術史家郭若虛在他所著的《圖畫見聞志》中寫道：“畫衣紋林木，用筆全類于書。”后來，特別在元代，竹畫成為中國畫的主要題材。書畫之間的相似性在竹畫中表現得最清楚不過。最終便形成了傳統的筆墨規矩，這些規矩拫據筆法的不同分門別類，成為明代畫家全部技法的準繩。在17世紀，這些筆墨規矩在繪畫指南中通過圖譜逐類得以闡明，其中最著名的就是《芥子園畫傳》。但這一類繪畫指南的刊印不可避免地給人一種錯誤的印象，即中國畫只是一些刻板程式的拼湊而已。

[5]第四，中國畫具有強烈的抽象化傾向，而這又取決于和繪畫藝術密切相關的書法的抽象性。抽象似乎與如實摹寫自然的根本動機相矛盾。許多畫家和鑒賞家都主張寫實，以使觀者有身臨其境之感；但是，寫實的主張自然發展為對象外之旨的渴望，畫家不只是為了表現一座山的外觀，而是要把他所領悟的山性真髓反映在畫紙上。明代重要畫家、藝術史家董其昌通過他的繪畫和文章，力促繪畫成為書法那樣的抽象藝術。他認為：“以境之奇怪論，則畫不如山水；以筆墨之精妙論，則山水絕不如畫。”然而，這種抽象性卻并沒有脫離寫實風格。恰恰相反，畫家借此獲得了更強的真實感，因為在他運筆作畫之際，體會到所畫對象的自然能量。畫家并非單純地觀看并摹寫樹木和巖石，而是運筆皴染之間傳達景物的神髓。中國畫從來不曾為了抽象而全然拋棄真實，正像書法家的字不管如何龍飛鳳舞，同正楷總有幾分相似。因此，一幅畫如果完全背離真實，就顯得毫無意義。

[6]當繪畫變得十分書法化時，比如在元代，真正的書法自然就融入畫面，成為繪畫不可或缺的部分。中國畫上的書法題字，現存最早者描述的是畫面的內容。然而，將書法融入繪畫的精妙技巧卻經歷了長期發展才得以完善。在帝制后期，文人雅士統治著畫壇，他們既是畫家，又是詩人，自然喜歡題詩以添畫趣。題畫詩書寫優美，與畫面整體構圖相得益彰。畫面的空白處用來題詩，而不再以天空或者山巖來填補，其合理性等同于中國畫家筆下的任何其他創作。

[7]由此可見，中國畫史的實質，與其說是對外部世界的探索，不如說是為了探索外部世界而發展出的諸多筆墨技巧。筆法是中國畫的核心內容。石濤《畫語錄》開篇寫道：“一畫者，眾有之本，萬象之根。”《易經》的卦象曾廣泛用于占卜，據認為是自然現象的抽象表達。同樣，筆法不僅可以摹寫景物的外觀，還可以抽象傳達其內在氣韻。除了摹仿山巖的外形，筆法似乎還體現了巖石的內在結構。 □

中國書法與中國畫(下)

ByRaymond Dawson