Chinese Calligraphy and Painting (I)中國書法與中國畫(上)

文／雷蒙·道森 譯／彭發(fā)勝

By Raymond Dawson

Chinese arts which were slowest to find appreciation and recognition in the West were painting and calligraphy. Although some Chinese paintings found their way to Europe as early as the seventeenth century, it was not until much later that serious attempts were made to understand the unfamiliar aesthetic which underlay them. In fluences were also slow to penetrate in the opposite direction. Jesuit painters at the Chinese court at first aroused intense interest, but their ultimate effect on Chinese artists was very slight. They were regarded as artisans, rather than painters, for they lacked the brush technique which was the hallmark of the true artist. Conversely Ricci, the founder of the Jesuit mission, and many later Western writers condemned Chinese painting for its apparent lack of perspective.Although the beauty of Chinese jade and porcelain has immediate appeal and even the ancient bronzes with their outlandish decoration make a dramatic impact on the European imagination,in order to appreciate Chinese painting(and more especially calligraphy) it is necessary to understand the intellectual world in which its underlying aesthetic developed. The predominant genre of painting is landscape, and to come to terms with Chinese landscape painting it is necessary to have a lively awareness of the Chinese attitude to nature,the origins of which lay deep in ancient Chinese thought. It is also necessary to be acutely conscious of the profound implications of the close relationship between painting and calligraphy, which is rooted in the fact that for both arts the same brush is used. For the calligrapher the pictographic nature of the characters he writes is never entirely forgotten, so they are felt to be beautifully condensed symbols of something far more complicated, essentially a kind of shorthand which gives intense aesthetic satisfaction. The same skills which the calligrapher develops to bring out the beauties of the Chinese script are transferred to the craft of setting down on paper or silk the shorthand versions of nature which is what Chinese landscape painting consists of. Painting is, in a sense, a kind of calligraphy.

[2] The development of calligraphy as a fine art was a long process culminating in the Han Dynasty. It derived naturally from the practical need to compose the disparate elements out of which characters were formed into orderly symbols which could fit together neatly into a series and follow each other on the page with an appearance of symmetry and uniformity. Each character in itself presented a problem of composition before it could become an aesthetically satisfying element in an aesthetically satisfying whole. But the relationship between characters on the page was equally important, and the only effective solution was that, no matter how simple or complicated they were, they should all occupy imaginary squares of the same size. The transition from the untidy and disorderly oracle bone inscriptions to the orderly scripts of the Han period, the immediate precursors of the modern script, is a masterly achievement.

[3] The earliest writings which used the language of art criticism and contained aesthetic theories were concerned with calligraphy. This was natural since it was not only a most demanding art,but also one which every literate person necessarily practised. Admiration of fine calligraphy has continued into the present, and it has been a common practice to decorate the home with scrolls bearing moral maxims in fine handwriting. The beauty of the script can be seen very clearly when one compares a passage written with the brush with the printed version of the same characters.The latter possesses a dull and pedestrian symmetry and immobility, but the brush-written characters have an appealing asymmetry; and the individual strokes, skilfully yet spontaneously executed, broadening or narrowing,getting heavier or lighter on the page,give an air of vigour and mobility to the writing. The printed characters are like figures in a Victorian photograph, standing stiffly to attention; but the brushwritten ones dance down the pages with the grace and vitality of the ballet. The beautiful shapes of Chinese calligraphy were in fact compared with natural beauties, and every stroke was thought to be inspired by a natural object and to have the energy of a living thing. Consequently Chinese calligraphers sought inspiration by watching natural phenomena. The most famous of all, Wang Hsi-chih, was fond of watching geese because the graceful and easy movement of their necks reminded him of wielding the brush, and the monk Huaisu was said to have appreciated the in finite variety possible in the cursive style of calligraphy known as grass-script by observing summer clouds wafted by the wind.

[4] Since the Han Dynasty calligraphy has also been thought to reveal the nature of the writer. For example, according to Chiang Yee, the calligraphy of the emperor Hui-tsung of the Sung Dynasty, a famous painter and patron of artists, shows him to have been a wellbuilt, handsome figure. The sample illustrated shows the beauty and vigour of the strokes, and reveals how a sense of movement is given to characters by making horizontal strokes tilt slightly,by making the brushline thicken or grow thin, by running informally from one stroke to the next, in a display of virtuosity which no simple alphabetic language can ever match, and which makes Egyptian hieroglyphs look static and graceless by comparison. ■

在中國各類藝術中，繪畫和書法在西方獲得欣賞和承認的過程最為漫長。雖然有些中國畫早在17世紀就已經流入歐洲，但是西方人真正試圖理解畫面背后陌生的審美觀卻要晚得多。反過來說，西方美學對中國的影響也很緩慢。在中國宮廷奉職的耶穌會畫家們起初確實引發(fā)了中國人濃厚的興趣，但是他們對中國藝術家的影響最終卻微乎其微。他們被看作畫匠，而非畫家，因為他們沒有筆墨技法，而這才是畫家的真本領。反過來說，耶穌會傳教團的創(chuàng)始人利瑪竇和許多后來的西方作者也批評中國畫明顯不合透視原理。雖然中國的玉器和瓷器之美具有立竿見影的吸引力，乃至古代青銅器的怪異紋飾也會對歐洲人的想象產生巨大的影響，但是如果要欣賞中國畫（特別是中國書法），就必須要懂得中國審美藝術賴以發(fā)展的思想世界。中國畫以山水畫為主，要理解山水畫，就必須將中國人的自然觀融會于心，而中國人的自然觀深植于古代中國思想。此外還必須清晰領會繪畫與書法之間密切關系所具有的深刻內涵。其原因在于兩種藝術所用的工具同樣都是毛筆。書法家運筆時，從不忘記他所寫的字具有象形性。所以，這些字看起來像是結構復雜、造型優(yōu)美的符號，基本可算一種給人以強烈審美滿足感的速寫。而中國的山水畫，正是把書法家精心發(fā)展、用以表現漢字之美的各種技巧，移用在紙上或絹上，化為自然景觀的速寫版?？梢哉f，中國畫就是中國書法的一個種類。

[2]書法作為一門藝術，經過長期發(fā)展，至漢代達到鼎盛。出于實用的需要，漢字師法自然，創(chuàng)造出一些基本筆畫，由此組成一個個漢字。它們是有章可循的符號，可以在紙面上前后連接為整齊的行列，看起來統(tǒng)一勻稱。每個漢字都要處理字形結構的問題，解決了這個問題，才能在賞心悅目的整體作品中成為一個賞心悅目的單位。不過字與字在紙面上的相互關系同樣重要，唯一有效的解決方法是，不論字形簡單或復雜，一律占有想象中同樣大小的方塊。漢字從雜亂無章的甲骨文演化成整齊規(guī)則的漢隸——現代漢字的先驅——真是一個卓越的成就。

[3]中國歷史上最早涉及藝術批評和美學理論的論述是關于書法的。這很自然，因為書法這門藝術不但要求很高，而且也是每個讀書人必須練習的。書法欣賞的風氣至今不衰，中國人喜歡把道德格言以雋秀的文字寫在條幅上，張掛于家中。同一段文字如分別用毛筆書寫和正體字印刷，漢字之美會顯而易見。印刷字勻稱整齊，但顯得沉悶呆板，缺乏動感。毛筆字雖不勻稱，但是耐看，一筆一畫以嫻熟的技巧一揮而就，或開闊或聚合，或凝重或纖巧，氣韻和靈動充沛其間。印刷字好比維多利亞時代照片中的人物，僵直端正地站立著；毛筆字則好比芭蕾舞演員，在紙面上作生動優(yōu)雅的舞蹈。中國書法之美堪比自然物態(tài)之美。漢字每一筆畫的產生據說都源自自然物的啟發(fā)，蘊藏著生命的活力。因此，中國書法家常常通過現察自然現象以獲得靈感。最著名的首推王羲之，他愛觀鵝，因為鵝頸優(yōu)雅自如的屈伸啟發(fā)他如何運筆。而以狂草著稱的懷素和尚，據說通過觀察夏日浮云隨風飄散，悟出草書變化無窮的道理。

[4]漢代以來，人們認為書法作品亦能夠揭示書法家的秉性。例如，蔣彝認為，宋徽宗作為著名畫家和藝術贊助人，從他的書法可以看出他長相英俊，體格勻稱。附圖顯示出書法筆畫的優(yōu)美和氣韻，有的橫劃略微傾斜，有的筆畫粗細變化，有的突破正體前后勾連，無一不體現一種動感。這種絕藝是任何簡單的拼音文字都望塵莫及的，相比之下，古埃及的象形文字則顯得呆板生硬。 □