徐 累

　　梅冰是我多年的朋友，画一手好油画，但有很长一段时间，我几乎忘了他的正业，因为我们在一起议得更多的不是艺术，而是玩古和收藏，我从他那里学到不少东西。玩古的底蕴本来就和艺术鉴赏有关，不过，并不是每个艺术创作者都具有旁通的素质，有些好古的同行貌似精鉴，搜罗来的东西却不忍卒看，疑其美感怎么就出了这样的事故，好像这是一种罪过似的。艺术家之于创作，和艺术家之于鉴赏，有时候并不完全是一回事，眼高可以提携手低，但眼低的一定不可能手高，这中间的差别，其实就是品位。品位说起来虚无缥缈，但它确实无声胜有声，一不小心就露出真容，想装也装不了。品位是一种全方位的识养，对艺术家来说，有点像鸡蛋里的那层膜，它内握有待创造的那部分，又同时紧依生活质地的外壳，这样不仅完整，而且还接近了完美。

　　并不是说梅冰已经到达了完整和完美的境界，但他由外及里，只是有待深入的事，我一点也不担心他能否达到这个核心，因为我相信他的品位能够助他乘风而上。身边有这样的朋友是令人暗喜的，很多年以来，社会大背景的变迁逐渐损毁了几代人的识养，眼光和品位的粗鄙好像变得习以为常了，如果美学也有道德的话，这就是沦丧。所以，像梅冰这样，在家居、文玩、花木、谈笑等方面仍然持有雅趣，仍然独具慧眼的人，实在是众里难寻。有些东西是天生造化，单靠孜孜以求的练习是难以得来的，我坚信品位就是如此。

　　当然也有天时地利。南京这个地方，颇具前朝遗韵，遍地咋日风流。梅冰从拜师学艺开始，就得到徐明华和苏天赐等大家的言传身教，大学毕业后入南京师范大学美术学院任教，这里的前身是徐悲鸿主持的中央大学艺术系，像吕斯百、秦宣夫、黄显之这样西学归来的一代宿将，在品位和技艺上给梅冰以耳濡目染的影响，我常常听到梅冰转述上一代人的雅闻逸事，神情中流露出的是向往。甚至他住的那个悠静的小院还曾经是陈鹤琴、高觉敷的旧宅，身处其中，顿有恍若隔世的感觉。还有比这个更幸运的吗?接如此地气，一些谦和内敛的品质就水到渠成地被滋养了出来。

　　就像通常我们所知道的那样，优雅对一个男人来讲意味着保守，艺术创作或多或少也会受到牵连。可是这又有什么关系呢?如今的画坛充满过多的野心，潮来潮涌，呼啸之声不绝于耳。但时风并不能规避一切，一些恪守旧训的画家把艺术视作修身养性的途径，将艺术与生活的日常体味联系在一起，也自有久违的风度。中国江南地区的油画受20世纪三四十年代的传统影响，对世界拈花微笑，崇尚美的纯粹，题材寻常不惊，风格散漫机敏，富有质地和趣味。洋装在身，却仍然是文人才情，延续这样的文脉，梅冰算是不离水土，同时也带有隔岸观花式的逍遥。他对艺术的理解是素面朝天的，在一片情急急心茫茫的景色中，这样的老派作风反倒让我添了些许尊敬。

　　面对古物美器相看不厌，这是梅冰生活中的神至所游，他花了不少精力搜罗研究，乐此不疲。我非常理解这样的痴迷，只是希望不要“玩物丧志”就好。当梅冰邀我观赏他近期新作的时候，我觉得这样的担心实在是多余。玩物与求道，殊途而同归，梅冰的作品就是很好的证明。他花了不少心思描绘古瓷、佛像、织绣、家具等等，既是物态，又如场景，真幻莫测，似是而非。将古物美器入画，过去倒是一种风气，宋明有不少画作，反映的就是文人雅士集古赏玩的场景，清宫更有炫耀式的图卷描绘乾隆鉴宝，人器并重，传世流芳。但是今天以油画反映类似的内容，倒是一件新鲜事。不过梅冰没有私愿添入自己的声息，绘画观念和技法表达也没有什么离奇之处，“此中有真意，欲辩已忘言”，我估猜他的想法其实很简单，古物美器是有灵魂的，从中能抽离出那么一点远古的气息，本身就已经是足以报答的事情了。如果能够格物致知，让自己另入佳境，那简直称得上功德圆满了。

　　这样的生活和艺术亦简亦真，我甚至觉得是一种奢侈。忽然记起好多年前一个深秋的晚上，梅冰约我去他的院子小坐，进门就看到他已经支好黄花梨的桌子，上面摆放蒸熟的大闸蟹，一束菊花插在影青梅瓶中。我们俩边吃边聊，不时看一眼电视里正在直播的西班牙斗牛。月光如水，桂香阵阵，我已是恍然惚然，不知今夕是何年，而梅冰呢，却是气定神闲，悠然自得，好像这只是他受生活再寻常不过的一次邀约而已，如同呼吸一样自然。

　　徐 累 中国艺术研究院研究员

　　Meibing's Bearing

　　by Xu Lei

　　Meibing, my friend for many years, is a master hand at oils, but for a very long time, I have all but passed by this profession of his. Those days when we hung around, we often found ourselves lost in talking more about antiques and their collecting than art itself whereby I harvested quite some gains from his connoisseurship. What lies behind an antiquary, however, is in itself closely linked to art, and yet not every artist is blessed with that analogical qualification. Some antiquarians appear to be connoisseurs, but what they have collected just offends the real discerning eye, leading one to wonder how such aesthetic accidents could have occurred so that even a sin could claim to have been committed to the Muses. To an artist creation and connoisseurship do not always mean exactly the same thing: A good eye can help upgrade a clumsy hand, but a mediocre one hardly stands a chance. What marks the gap is none other than taste. And taste is, as it were, something nebulous; it is reticent, but it really has a louder voice. No one can safely affect taste; one slight slip and you are caught and your true face exposed. As a comprehensive learning and insight, taste to an artist is similar to that membrane inside an egg; it envelopes that part pertaining to the creation of a new life while in the meantime holds tightly to the outer shell that is the sources of life, thus resulting in an organic whole and even leading to near perfection.

　　That is not to say, however, that Meibing has already attained that wholeness or perfection. But I doubt not a bit that with the help of that favoring hand of his taste and pushing further from the shell to the nucleus, the way Meibing has been rightly following, it's just going to be a matter of time before he will have penetrated to the core. What a pleasant thing to have such a friend in my constant company! The vicissitudes over the years have nibbled away the learning and cultivation of many generations. People have become rather indifferent to vulgarity and uncouthness. If aesthetics can claim an ethics of its own, I shall be justified to call it an ethical degeneration. As it is, such a refined man as Meibing who, in all this hustle and bustle, still adheres to his gentlemanly and polished taste and regards the world about him with his discerning eyes, be it in home-living, antiquarian, horticulture, dressing, or conversing and bantering, is truly a rare species. Something just comes to you if you happen to be born under a lucky star and strenuous efforts alone would hardly work as well. I firmly believe that taste is such a thing.

　　Of course favorable climatic and geographical conditions also play a role. Such a place as Nanjing was the eye witness of many of the by-gone dynasties and old-day charms and appeals can still be found here and there. Ever since his apprenticeship as a student of art, Meibing has been granted favors words and deeds by such masters as Xu Minghua and Su Tianci. Upon graduation Meibing became a teacher in the School of Fine Arts of Nanjing Normal University, the predecessor of the Department of Art of the Central University chaired by Xu Beihong where a generation of Western-trained veteran artists such as Lü Sibai, Qin Xuanfu, and Huang Xianzhi, to name only a few, exerted substantial influence on him both in taste and in techniques. I remember enjoying Meibing's relating those fascinating anecdotes of the veterans and his yearning and wistful look while he was reporting them. He is now even the lucky occupant of that serene, moderate yard which used to be the residence of Gao Juefu and Chen Heqin. Blessed with such an environ, one cannot help but feel like inhabiting a passed age and world all too different. Is there anything more fortunate that this? Such qualities as temperance, mellowness, and restraint are thus nurtured and developed as a natural result.

　　As is commonly understood, elegance to a man is the equivalent of conservatism, and artistic creation is more or less compromised by such a view. But what does this have to do with Meibing after all? The painting circle of today is bursting with ambitions; tides come and tides go, with howling and snarling unremittingly harassing our miserable ears. But fads and trends are incapable of engulfing all. Some painters still prefer to stick to the time-honored doctrines and regard art as an approach to self-cultivation

　　and character building. They incorporate art into their mundane living whereby they develop a charm and bearing long lost. Oil painters from China's southern Yangtse region have been under the influence of the tradition of the 1930s-40s. Not unlike a Taoist holding a flower with a knowing smile, these painters advocate and worship the purity of beauty. They take as their subject matter those ordinary and unimposing things; their style is of leisure and quick wit, rich in both texture and taste. They might be dressed in a Western suit, but by nature they still betray their talent and sentiment of a Chinese literatus. Following such a cultural genealogy, Meibing is earth-born and earth-bound and yet is always careful to retain a proper detachment as if he is watching flowers across a river. His understanding of art is unaffected and spontaneous. In this worldly scene of helter-skelter and blank-mindedness, such a quaint manner somehow moves me to take my hat off.

　　It has been Meibing's incurable addiction to make antiques and curios his company. He spends much time and energy collecting and studying them and can never get tired of the job. I understand all too well this rapture of his, only secretly hoping that "he will to make a dream come true is not sapped by riding a hobby for too long," as the saying goes. When his latest works were shown to me, however, I realized that my concern was in effect superfluous. Riding a hobby and seeking the Way are simply two different routes leading to the same destination, the truth of which is well attested to by Meibing's works. He uses much cerebration portraying ancient porcelain, Buddha, garden scenery, embroidery, furniture, and others, both in their physical state and their on-goingness, like real like illusion, and as different as chalk and cheese. It used to be a common practice to enter antiques and curios into paintings, proofs of which can be found in not a few examples from the Song and Ming dynasties. They represent those scenes where literati and men of taste are seen to be collecting or fondling their treasures. To top them all, there is the Qing court, which boasts of picturesque panoramas depicting Emperor Qianlong the connoisseur. Both the person and the wares are pampered in hopes of being perpetuated to posterity. But today it'll be a rare thing if someone is seen to try representing those similar subjects by means of oil painting. On the part of Meibing, however, he doesn't seem to be smuggling his private aspiration or his own voice into his pictures. Nor can I find anything terribly extraordinary, either in his ideas or in his techniques. "Therein lies the true meaning, but words escape me when I try to expound." I guess Meibing's idea is in effect pretty simple: Antiques and curios have a soul of their own; to be able to extract a mere pittance of that remote flavor is in itself a grand reward already. If one can go further to gain a knowledge of things whereby a true understanding is reached and an ideal realm attained, he can even have a claim to a round-off virtue.

　　A life and art as such are at once simple and unpretentious; I even consider them a luxury of a kind. It occurs to me just this very moment that one evening of a late autumn of many years ago, Meibing invited me to a chat in his small yard. On entering the gate, I saw that his rosewood table was already set upon which a plate of fat steamed crabs was laid and a bunch of chrysanthemums was protruding from a celadon porcelain vase with plum design. The two of us ate and chatted, and every once in a while cast a glance at a live Spanish bullfight being aired on television. The moonlight cascaded to the ground like water; the osmanthus sent forth ripples after ripples of fragrance. I found myself already drunk with ecstasy, not knowing which year could have had such a blissful evening. But look at Meibing! In calmness and composure, he was just enjoying his usual leisure and carefreedom, as if this feast to me was to him nothing more than a most ordinary invitation from and appointment with life, nothing special and as natural as breathing.

　　Translated by Yang Haocheng