人——视觉的寓言

　　力克先生的绘画艺术具有鲜明的古典气质，这在他以人物题材呈现方式上得到充分的体现。画者多年来一系列人物绘画作品中，一贯以柔和的色调和含蓄的笔触，将观者引入一个恬和宁静的界面。这与当下难以摆脱的繁复嘈杂呈现出大不相同的境界，显现出艺术家的人文素养。这种近似于修为的艺术表现方式可谓一种古典主义的现代言说。画家在人物绘画创作中的优雅女性、朴实男性通常目视画者的后方，或静雅沉思，或伫立凝望，显现了画家面对人物精神层面的内在思考；作品中人物形象通常处在平光之下，形成微妙的形态形体轮廓，在光影的微妙变幻中凝聚成一份安然。很显然，力克先生的作品体现出这个时代知识分子社会身份繁忙工作的反转。他将现代人置于平面化背景之前，表现出当代人对宁静的渴望。其间隐喻着一种“繁杂”和“清雅”的寓言。这种寓言意味着当代人在纷繁中，应该思考身在何处？

　　美不仅是视觉的，更应该是思想的。

　　好的艺术作品通常表现为视觉经验被简化和提炼成为某些永恒的形式。尽管力克先生在创作中也会面对模特，但他的绘画已然不是写生对象的再现，而是用模特去体现画家个体意识中关于美的配比和形式，作品魅力在于对这种姿态的提炼与捕捉。因此，稍纵即逝的美变成了凝练的绘画作品。在诸多艺术家纷纷放弃这些传统观念时，力克先生却捍卫了这种经典，这应该是一个艺术家可贵的气质。悉心品读他的作品，你会发现他的人物绘画中暗喻着人与现实的某种紧张关系，这种关系即人的精神与物质紧张关系的缩影。在现实的物质与精神之间，画家采取调和的态度，这种调和的瞬间弥合了现代社会的裂变。因此，力克先生更进一步地体味到视觉的寓言。

　　本雅明认为寓言是我们在这个时代所拥有的特权，它意味着在这个世界上把握自身的体验并将它成形，意味着把握真实图景，并持续不断地质疑和感受存在的意义，最终在一个虚构的结构里重建人的自我形象，恢复被隔绝的人与事物之间的联系。他的作品在寓言意义上呈现出时代与内在体验的非常态图像。更加注重个体经验以及陷于存在意识的困扰，使得作品带有鲜明的经验色彩，并且在逃避与面对的姿态中表达了一个社会人的责任。他把自己工作事务中的“繁忙”转化为画面的“纯净”，必然是一种有意味的表达。

　　当下，人们被各种各样的媒体信息所包围，大量的图像繁殖将人的独立视觉选择所淹没，人们很难在个体记忆中穿过图像碎片建立起完整的图景回忆。力克先生却能够带着记忆中的图景去捕捉时代赋予生命的片断，用仅仅属于他的观看表现形式，去面对现代生活的紊乱。在技术对自然的干扰下，人只有在“视觉形象”中才能找到真实所需，从而获得一种补偿性的自然，一种内省的人或自然的真实形象。

　　景——静远的诗意

　　宁静本身是道，是宇宙之本，中国优秀的艺术历来强调宁静的重要，传统绘画中的宁静表达是其主要面目。烟林寒树，雪夜归舟，深山萧寺成为先辈画家习见的题材，幽冷中透出一份安然与闲适。期间没有鼓荡和聒噪，更不存在人为的冲突。北宋画家王晋卿传世名作《渔村小雪图》，画山间晴雪之状，意境清幽静寂，渔村山体以薄雪轻施，寒林点缀于石间崖隙，江水与远山相应，一切都在清晖中浮动。

　　力克先生的视觉叙事弥漫着一种宁静幽寒的情节。他在静寂的思考中，传达出源于内心深处的某种渴望，在针对日常平淡的景象描述中，凸显出当代人面对都市化进程的深刻反思。这对于长期生活在城市的力克先生而言，自然有着至深的体验与切肤的感触。

　　画家风景绘画中反复出现的山石、大海、树木、路径、房舍以及空旷的原野，弥漫着一种散淡的宁静。他用近似于镜头调焦般的心情，不断调试他眼中的世界与心理的距离。那种平和天然的情境，并非现实意念性表达及平面化的结构意趣。温润的色彩、布局的稳定，形成了画家平淡沉静的绘画语言。这不仅构成了力克先生观看的的关键，更体现了画家追寻差异化表达的独立视觉语言。我看这些作品时，心里有种莫名的反应，因为看到了画家一种极端的坚持。

　　你所能够体会到的静寂背后，却传达出某种反向的文化态度。反向恰恰又是一种难得的生活之境且难有的一种处世哲学。

　　某种意义上来看，现在生活的“自然”已经为城市改造和建设所替代。“守望”决定了知识分子在城市生活中的思维方式，“出游”决定了知识分子同自然之境的精神关联。力克先生虽居有其室，但对于自身所处的城市生活，却缺乏真正意义上的归宿与家园意识。人们在城市中漂泊，沉湎于种种幻想或回忆，在幻想与回忆之中，他的自我意识得以成形，并且在画布上竭力表现内心理想的境象，业已成为画家存在的意义与绘画的理由，因为我们曾经在城市中丢失了应有的“诗意”。

　　乡野散发出的寂静与悠远传达出对未来的期许。风景中人物的不在场或有意识的缺席，再一次强调出空旷与寂静的意蕴，其中自然寄寓着往昔中国乡野的田园景象。这既是对工业化进程的反思，又是对精神家园的守望。当昔日画家描绘的游牧挽歌日渐成为遥远的回声；在信息技术及高科技带来无法回避的新时代来临之际，一种当代人的焦虑体验伴随着莫名的惆怅吞噬着人们的心灵。先生力克渴望表达的是人与自然的和谐，因为他更想留给人们的是文化遗存和精神记忆。他试图以真诚的观看与诗意表达唤醒人们内心深处对自然以及世间万物的敬畏。

　　力克先生的绘画更接近于内心的独白，他喜欢描绘人与自然的自然，而不是关注逼真的细节。他以独特的视角窥见了日常生活中被人们忽视的东西，并以个性化艺术语言穿越了绘画固有的边界，传达出让观者内心得以净化的声音。

　　他将自己视为一切潮流的旁观者，从而通过绘画完成了对精神维度的沉思性体验。

2018/4/14于杭州

On Dimensions of Immateriality in Visual Allegories

-Interpretation of Wang Li'ke Paintings

By Yang Dawei

　　Man -- Visual Allegory

　　The paintings of Mr. Wang Li'ke have distinctive classic features that are embedded in the way he presents the figure themes. In his figure paintings created over the years, there is a consistency in gentle tones and reserved stokes, making the audience immersed in a world of peacefulness and tranquility. It is a drastically different world from the chaotic real world we are in, revealing the humanistic qualities in the painter himself. This artistic expression approach of his, which is almost like a preserved personal quality, is his interpretation of the classics. The man and women he paints about often stare right into the back of the painter, in a posture of either contemplating or standing. It is indicative of the reflections the painter has on the immaterial dimension of the figures. In his works, the figures are often placed in a plain light which outlines the profiles of the figures in a subtle way, constituting the peacefulness in the subtle changes of light. It is apparent that his works represent an inversion of the busy life the artists are living these days. He places the modern men and women before a plain backdrop, and expresses the longing for tranquility of modern people. There is an allegory of "chaos" and "peacefulness" in there. And this allegory leads us to wonder where we are amongst the hustles of modern life.

　　Beauty is not just a visual sensation, it should also be on an immaterial aspect.

　　A good artistic work often is in a form that simplifies and purifies the visual experience into eternity. Though in some of his works, he sits face-to-face to the models. But his work is not restricted to representation of the subjects, but rather formation to match to the beauty within the individual consciousness. The charm of the work is in the refined posture he captures in the paintings. In this way the beauty that fades easily is turned into an everlasting piece of art. When so many of us are abandoning the traditional concepts of arts, Wang is a loyal defendant and always stays true to the classics. It is a precious quality in an artist. By observing his paintings, we see that his figure paintings reveal some tensions between man and the reality, which is a reflection of the tensed relationship between the man's spiritual world and the material reality. Between the material world and the immaterial world, the painter steps in for mediation. The mediation moment fixes the fractures in the modern society. In this way, Wang further materialize the visual allegories.

　　Walter Benjamin thinks that allegory is a privilege that our time is entitled to. It means seizing the individual experiences and materializing them, knowing the true pictures, and constantly questioning and feeling the meaning of existence. Finally, the self-image is reconstructed in a fictions structure where the connections between man and objects are restored. His works, in a sense of allegories, display the exceptional images of the time and inner experiences. It focuses on the individual experiences and perplex in the awareness of existence, infusing the works with a touch of empiricism as well as a sense of responsibility as part of the society against the posture of either escaping from or confronting against the reality. By transforming the "rush" in daily life to the "purity" in the paintings, he has a unique way of expression.

　　Nowadays, the daily life is flooded with all kinds of information, causing the individual visual options disabled by a great amount of images. People find it hard to construct complete image memories with the pieces of images from their own memories. But Wang has successfully captured the fragments of life with the help of images stored in memory, and uses his own way of seeing to deal with the modern hustles. Against the interference of technology, people can only see the truth in a "visual image", and obtain a compensatory nature, which is in fact the real images of introspective man or the nature.

　　View -- Poetic Tranquility

　　The essence in tranquility is Tao, the origin of the universe. The traditional Chinese arts value tranquility very much. In the traditional paintings, most of them reveal a realm of tranquility. The woods in winter mist, returning boats at a snowy night, a solitary temple in the deep mountains, all of them have the unique peacefulness and tranquility. There is no disturbing noises, or hustles, or any artificial conflicts. The legendary painting by Southern Song Dynasty Wang Jinqing Fishing Village in Snow is a great example. In this painting, the painter depicts the scene of mountains just after a snow, where everything in the fishing village is sitting in a tranquil realm decorated with a thin layer of snow. The woods growing in the cracks of the rocks, the river and distant mountains, are all about the tranquility.

　　Wang shares the preference of tranquility and coldness in his visual narrations. He thinks deeply, and conveys an inner desire from the bottom of the heart in the paintings. With simple depictions of the daily life, he injects the profound reflections on the modernized city life. For someone who has lived in the cities for most of his life, he has his own natural and instinct feelings.

　　He paints a lot about the mountains, rocks, sea, woods, path, house, and vast plains in the landscape works that reveal a sense of tranquility. Out of a mood that adjusts itself like a camera len, he adjusts the distance between his heart and the world. It is natural peacefulness, which is contradictory to the unrealistic idealized expressions or structured charms on a plain. A gentle tone of colors and steady layout construct a peaceful painting language of the painter. It is the key elements we should look out for while observing his works, which contributes to a unique visual language that differentiates him from others. When I see his works, I am touched deeply by perseverance of the painter.

　　When you have a sense of the tranquility, you see a reversed cultural standing of the painter. The reverse in itself is a rare philosophy in life.

　　In a sense, the "naturalness" in modern life is replaced by the constructions and restructuring in the cities. "Perseverance" decides the mindset of artists living in cities, and the "fleeing" to the nature connects them back with the world. Wang has a life in cities, but he is not bound with it and feels a lack of belongingness there. People in cities are wondering about while immersed in all sorts of illusions or memories. Out of these illusions and memories, a man forms his awareness, and tries to express his inner realm by painting. It is the meaning of being a painter for we have lost the "poetics" living in cities.

　　The wilderness, in its own tranquility and remoteness, reveals the hopes and expectations of the future. The landscape paintings of his seldom have presence of men by intention. It is again a reiteration on the tranquility and void, which tells the painter's contemplation on the industrialized world and hopes for a spiritual home. When the shepherd's songs are no longer echoing in the pastures, and the world is dominated by a fate of technologies, a man's soul is gradually taken up by anxieties and melancholy in modern life. Wang strives to express the harmony between man and nature because he wishes to leave behind cultural heritage and spiritual memories. He sees the world in a sincere way, and tries to awake the respect for natural and life in the men with a poetic way of expression.

　　Wang's paintings are like monologues. He paints about the natural way of coexistence between man and nature, rather than focusing too much on vividness. Out of his particular perspective, Wang reveals the things that we tend to oversee in daily life, expresses it in a personalized artist language that exceeds the limits of boundaries, and conveys a resonating sound that purifies the inner world of the audience.

　　He is a bystander of everything that may be seen as trendy. But in his own way, he fulfils a reflective experience on an immaterial dimension.

Hangzhou, April 14, 2018