美，在今天的生活中扮演着什么角色？2007年1月，华盛顿邮报的专栏作家金•魏嘉顿（Gene Weingarten）做了一个实验来测定人们在日常生活中对美的开放程度。 他安排了一位闻名世界的小提琴家约书亚•贝尔（Joshua Bell）化装成一个街头艺人，并在上班的高峰时刻在华盛顿特区的一个地铁车站演奏古典乐曲。用于演奏的小提琴是一把非常精致的产于十八世纪的乐器（而且其价值不下百万美元），但是只有很少的行人停下他们赶去上班的匆忙脚步来聆听这位小提琴家炉火纯青的演奏。贝尔觉得非常惊讶，人们愿意掏出上百美元来买他的已经售罄的演奏会的门票，但他们居然没时间停下来欣赏他的免费表演。
这个实验引向一个很有可能的结论，因为快节奏的都市生活所带来的压力，人们对于不期而遇的美已经失去了感觉。那么，人们只有在期待看到美的东西的时候才能全身心投入地去欣赏它吗？是否只有当人们付了钱或者在特定的场合例如音乐厅或者博物馆的时候他们才能更好地欣赏美的事物呢？这个实验引出的另一个问题是，一件精妙的艺术品，例如贝尔用来演奏的小提琴，是不是只能被那些高级的、有教养的并且理解那种艺术形式的观众所接受呢？有趣的是在那些驻足聆听的人当中有一个竟是小孩子；而其他的孩子们，虽然在走过贝尔身边的时候都很注意他的表演，他们身边的成人总是催促他们快点离开。我们生来就能感觉到美，然而是否随着我们年龄增长、为生活所困，或是因为我们的文化体制坚信教育是理解精英文化的必要条件，我们感受美的本能就被压制了呢？
当我们考虑到国画这种只有少数人能真正理解的复杂而精巧的艺术形式时，这些问题也同样适用。对于微妙的水墨画的欣赏可以恰如其分地被拿来和小提琴演奏作比较：尽管水墨画的题材大多近似，正如乐谱也都类似，个人风格和手法上的细微区别却给艺术鉴赏留出空间，并由此让人体会到发自内心深处的喜悦之情。新题材时不时地会被加入画中，诸如飞机、工厂、登陆月球、外国名胜、战争难民、革命英雄和当代的都市生活，随之而来的还有新的手法，但是少有例外地，笔墨的基本功仍旧是评判一个画家和其作品的准绳。以刘庆和和李津的绘画为例，画中的人物清新而有魅力，但仍需画家的功力使其画撼人。同样，技艺之纯熟加上独创的思维，让书法家王冬龄和画家郑重宾做出引人注目的抽象范畴内的改革，王冬龄的作品产生于他对书法线条的深刻理解，而郑重宾的灵感则来自于他对人物画中的三维形体的领悟。
或许只有纯真的人，就像儿童，能一下就感受到一件伟大的艺术品的优美。然而，对大多数的我们来说，必要的教育或某种指导对提高人们获得令人满意的欣赏能力是十分有帮助的。此次展览中有很大一部分受益于但不受限于国画传统的作品，包括影像、装置艺术、行为艺术、照片以及用油彩和丙稀颜料所作的画。这些作品和传统的国画定义格格不入，但是它们反思、启发并且扩展了国画传统。有些是通过抛弃长久以来为国画所用的基本材料，如墨、彩、笔、纸和绢，来达到以上目标。如果那种想避开刻苦训练来浅尝国画传统的念头是不足取的，那么把这个传统的组成部分一点点剖析开来的做法则提供了一个切入主题的窗口或起点。比起那些专注于表面的革新而忽视探索这种经久不衰的绘画方式的深层涵义的国画家来，参展的艺术家们可能曾更多地在发掘国画的意义上下过工夫。墨汁已成为一些艺术家迷恋的东西，吴少英的关于流动的墨汁的录像突显了这种材料的基本特性。周铁海和张宏图都在非传统的介质上再现了国画历史上的经典杰作（他们分别使用了丙稀和油彩颜料）；他们的作品督促观者在惊讶中重新思想隐藏在原作中的传统，以及这些传统的文化意义。邱世华选择用布面油画来描绘自己原创的山水构图：以绘画材料来判断，它们显然不再是国画了，但是从哲学层面上来说它们比绝大多数的当代水墨都更能体现出文人画的精神。
正如前文所说的，笔、墨始终是决定一幅国画的质量和感染力的两大要素，而其它要素起决定性作用的情况着实罕见，但是随着观念艺术在中国越来越受到重视，在观赏一件纸本或绢本的水墨作品时，支撑作品的观念可能就成为首要的考虑因素。徐冰的《写生》，这幅始于观念的绘画，就是最好的例证。然而在这个系列的创作过程中，在观念趋于成熟的同时，艺术家也在不断改善技法从而使笔墨达到和谐。历史上，国画的概念和技法总是一前一后地相互促进和发展。
无论我们以何种方式来欣赏国画——或许我们是被绘画的题材所吸引，或许是个别的笔法之美，或许我们联想到了用不同材料所作的相关作品，更或许是为一件将章法和概念两者珠联璧合的作品所倾倒——这些都无关重点。但最后，只要我们能学会花时间去欣赏国画里面无穷无尽的细微的变幻，毫无疑问, 我们也能培养出其它微妙的感情。回到这次展览的主题—— “重启”国画，当下我们需要重新调整我们的时间表，优先为欣赏美和精妙的国画腾出时间，但这和另外一种需求是并行的，那就是避免简单教条的答案，重新审视国画的根基以寻求国画之深义。
Do We Have Time for the Subtleties of Guohua?1
Britta Erickson
What is the role of beauty in contemporary life? In January 2007 Gene Weingarten, a writer for the Washington Post, conducted an experiment to determine how open people are in their everyday lives to beauty. 2 He arranged for Joshua Bell, one of the most famous violinists in the world, to pose as a street musician and play classical music in a Washington, D.C. Metro station during the rush hour. Only a few people even so much as paused in their hurry to get to work, to listen to the virtuoso playing on his eighteenth century violin, one of the most exquisite instruments ever made (and valued at several million dollars). Bell was astonished to realize that while people were willing to pay a hundred dollars to attend one of his sold-out concerts, they did not have the time to stop for a free performance.
This experiment leads to the likely conclusion that the stressful pace of urban living numbs people to unexpected encounters with beauty. Must people be expecting beauty to fully appreciate it? Will they appreciate it more if they have paid for the experience or if it takes place in a sanctioned location such as a concert hall or a museum? A second question raised by the experiment is, are sophisticated works of art, such as the violin pieces played by Bell, accessible only to an elite audience whose members have cultivated an understanding of that art form? Interestingly, one of the few people who wished to stop and listen to Bell was a child; indeed, children passing by Bell generally took notice of the performance, but were hastened past by their adult companions. Are we born with an innate feeling for beauty that is overpowered by the demands of daily life as we age, or by a cultural apparatus that insists education is a prerequisite for appreciation of elitist cultural forms?
These questions are highly relevant when we consider guohua (Chinese painting or, literally, national painting), at its best a highly sophisticated art form whose masterpieces are fully understood by few. The appreciation of nuanced ink painting can justly be compared with violin playing: while the subjects portrayed in ink painting are often familiar, as a musical composition may be familiar, it is the subtleties of style and execution that provide the fodder for connoisseurship and act as the source for a deep level of enjoyment. While over time new subject matter—such as airplanes, factories, the moon landing, foreign beauty spots, wartime refugees, revolutionary martyrs, or contemporary urban life—is regularly introduced, and new approaches may appear, it is with rare exceptions the fundamental mastery of the medium that serves as indicator of the artist’s abilities and ultimately determines the quality of the work of art. The figures inhabiting Liu Qinghe’s and Li Jin’s paintings, for example, are fresh and enormously appealing, but it is the artists’ skill that renders the paintings compelling works of art. And it is technical accomplishment combined with original thinking that has led calligrapher Wang Dongling and painter Zheng Chongbin to develop striking innovations in the field of abstraction based, respectively, on a profound understanding of the line founded in calligraphy, and on an understanding of three-dimensional form based in figure painting.
Perhaps an ingénue, such as a child, may appreciate the gestalt of a great work of art. Otherwise, education or some kind of push in the right direction will contribute much to a satisfactory level of appreciation. A significant portion of the current exhibition is devoted to works of art that spin off from the grand tradition of guohua, including videos, installations, performances, photography, and paintings rendered in oils or acrylics. While such works do not fit within the boundaries of a conventional definition of guohua, they reflect, illuminate, and expand outwards from there. Some do this by isolating the long-established basic materials employed in guohua: ink, color, brush, paper or silk. If it is a daunting proposition to fathom the depths of a great painting tradition without extensive training, then to break it down into its component parts may provide a kind of window or opening into the subject. Some artists working thus may be more deeply engaged with the meaning of guohua than guohua artists who focus on superficial innovations in lieu of exploring the profound implications of this enduring mode of painting. Ink has become an object of fascination for artists like Wu Shaoying, who has created compellingly beautiful videos of flowing ink, highlighting the essential qualities of that material. Both Zhou Tiehai and Zhang Hongtu copy historical masterworks of guohua in non-traditional media (airbrushed acrylic and oil, respectively); their works jolt the viewer into a reconsideration of the conventions underlying the originals, and the cultural implications of those conventions. Also working in oil on canvas, Qiu Shihua renders original landscape compositions: considered in terms of medium, they clearly are not guohua, and yet their philosophical underpinnings bring them closer in spirit to literati painting than the vast majority of contemporary ink painting.
As mentioned above, it is rare for any aspect of a guohua painting to trump mastery of brush and ink in ultimately determining the quality and impact of a work in this mode, but with the rising importance of conceptual art in China, the idea underlying the work can be a primary consideration in viewing a work rendered in ink on paper or silk. This was originally the case with Xu Bing’s “Landscript” paintings, which began with an emphasis on the concept. The artist is, however, gradually refining his technique, bringing mastery of ink and brush into harmony with the conceptual sophistication of the series. Historically, concept and technique have often developed in tandem in the field of guohua.
However we may find our way to an appreciation of guohua—whether we initially are lured in by a painting’s subject, or by the beauty of a single brushstroke, whether we find a side door through related works in other media, or are seduced instantly by a work’s masterfully symbiotic execution and concept—does not really matter. In the end, if we can learn to take the time to appreciate the endless subtle variants at play within guohua, we can no doubt also find time to cultivate other nuanced experiences. Referring back to the title of the exhibition, “Reboot,” the present need to reset priorities to make time for beauty and nuance parallels a need for a rethinking of the fundamentals of guohua, to eschew the easy or dogmatic answers in favor of a search for deeper meaning.