李节平这一批以“乡野考察”为题的新作，我首先是在画册资料上看到的。虽然只是印刷图版，一种从内里迸发的魅力却已紧紧攫住人心。

　　这是一种暌违已久的力量。

　　源于生活，发乎内腑，达于真挚。艺术的力量确乎来自真情实感。在这批沉甸甸的作品背后，是李节平所下四五年之久的功夫。其行踪遍及岭南广东的广袤乡野，攀山涉水，入寨进户，与村民打成一片。他走访了40多个乡镇、200余个村庄，行程超2万公里，由此所得数万张图片和数不清的速写、速记之类素材。也因此，这些作品的题材面很宽。由粤东北的土坯屋、南海湾的老渔村、珠三角的旧碉楼到岭南山乡水村的种种耕耘、劳作场景，尤其是众多人物的鲜活纪实形象，丰富得让人应接不暇。

　　按照李节平的方案，这样繁复众多的内容已被厘为“粤农百态”“二十四节气”“路过的风景”“岭南丰歌”“釆风随记”等几大板块，脉络大致是清晰的。应当说，这样的分类说不上很严谨。但它们至为直观地表明了李节平尽力以“不同语言方式来丰满”各个专题，这里留下了他“多视野、多角度”的思考探索脚印。

　　查看一下他这么些年栉风沐雨的轨迹图，多落在省际边缘线区域。套用常见的话语，或多属“老、少、边、穷”之类的不发达地区。一般而言，不靠都市，未及开发，经济迟滞，民众的生活方式也远较城市落后。而若从另一角度看，这样的地域则是天高地旷，山花野草，有旧居古村也见民风淳朴。这些，恰是当今都市人最为渴望的原生态人文景观，是可望而不可即的精神归属。

　　这五六十年来，写生、考察、“深入生活”是与画家紧密相连的几个词语。1954年张仃、李可染、罗铭的写生改变了中国画的路向，傅抱石率江苏画家行走两万三千里写生，还有黄胄长年的西北风情写生等，都是20世纪中国艺术史上的大事件。好些年了，艺术家下乡写生，画风光，画民俗，画乡村生活，这常见的做法已催生出不少好作品。诚然，人们也曾得见两个极端：“****”中的****被弄成了“红光亮”和“高大全”。近二三十年，又有画家把乡村百姓渲染为愚钝麻木、痴呆丑陋等形象。

　　那么，在21世纪的新语境中，当下的艺术家应如何考察乡野，该怎样深入生活呢？李节平有着自己独到的观察。他认为，艺术绝不可欠缺真实基础和诚实心态。而且，“这种态度既不是****成立之初老一辈艺术家以自身经历所创作的乡土气息浓郁的作品，也不是20世纪60年代‘****’期间的歌颂，亦不是改革开放后对农民以及外来务工人员的同情或淡漠，抑或是简单的叙事性风光与民俗再现”。

　　显然，李节平是一个有思想的油画家。他清晰地意识到，所谓现实主义，所谓乡土，若不能关注当下农民生存与发展的深层问题，创作很可能流于表面猎奇的平庸。因为“画农民，其实是在画我们自己”。没有思想，创作将无所适从。他说：“我以为，在感知的基础上，思想的火花应该先于探索，先于构思，艺术家的精神和人文思想决定着艺术家作品的基本面貌”。

　　他笔下的乡土，从人物到场景，由叙事而特写，自风俗至故事。作品中有繁忙的劳作，有疲惫和艰涩，也有丰收的欢乐，当代真实的田园诗是糅合了山歌、民谣，以及劳动号子的。他的作品大都采用一种平视而非仰视或俯视的眼光，以平常心，以真诚的态度去接近凡人小事，去感知乡下人的内心。他不夸大、不拔高。不是存心寻找现实的阴暗面，夸大那些确实存在的狭隘、破旧之类。也没有刻意为平凡的人事虚饰，为他们增添一圈让人生疑的光环。李节平作品着意突出的是平实、淳厚、质朴、勤劳、坚忍等，这是与土地连在一起的特质，其间蕴含的人文情操和现实关怀精神才是核心。

　　这是李节平与人不同的最大区别。切入生活，贴近人心，带有泥土气息的喜怒哀乐，他希冀进入当代农民的精神世界，触碰到这个时代的变化脉搏与社会的行进脚步。这种纪录片式的真实，成为李节平这批作品最可贵的特色。

　　让人意外的是，这些作品竟涉及多品种造型门类。除了他驾轻就熟的油画，还频繁采用了水墨、白描、版刻、雕塑、壁画、综合材料、实物装置等艺术创作方式。在李节平看来，运用多种创作手法，有助于展开自己的构思与创作。而我则猜想，面对着生鲜、灵动的真实生活情景，他一定是感到这些油画之外的手段更为便捷、更得心应手。当然，前提是他先前已然娴熟掌握了这种种武艺，以至他认为比自己的老本行油画更见效。这样的底气，自是得益于他以往的从军履历。在那样特殊的氛围中，他说自己几乎涉足全部美术品类，甚至在影视、话剧行当也颇有经验。极为难得的是，李节平的白描少见，但确实见真功夫。他的水墨人物肖像画得精致且很具语言个性，即便放到水墨人物的单项赛事中也会拿到好名次。

　　李节平的主角色毕竟在油画。油画是大画种，按照靳尚谊先生的说法，当今油画的受欢迎程度已超过其他画种。而中国油画如何走，是当代美术家回避不了的话题。前几年在北京，我曾参与组织一个与当年浙江美术学院“罗训班”油画有关的研讨活动。1960年至1962年，文化部根据中罗文化协定委托浙江美术学院开办罗马尼亚油画训练班（简称“罗训班”），聘请布加勒斯特美术学院埃乌金·博巴教授及夫人哈其乌博巴·吉娜老师主持教学。这是当时被视为与中央美术学院马克西莫夫油画训练班并列的大事。博巴的“罗训班”强调结构和表现，以另一流派的艺术理念对中国油画做了补充。我在主持研讨会时，特别引用了博巴第一次与学员见面时说的话——“我来到中国，不想把欧洲的油画传统机械地搬到这里来，我认为一个中国油画家不应盲目地学习和纯粹地模仿欧洲的油画，而应该在学习中注意中国的特点，创造出中国的油画。”“我提醒大家在学习中注意两个方面：艺术思想要尽力符合时代潮流的观点，艺术形式上要建立民族的风格。”

　　博巴这一段话至今没有过时。李节平的艺术理念和这些年的潜心探求，与此不谋而合。中国油画、中国的现实和自己的文化诉求，永远是别人无从代言的。

　　平实、可信，具有人文情怀的艺术作品才会具有真正的生命力。李节平掘出了一口乡土的深井。在当今画坛，尤其广东画坛，有李节平这样堪当重任的画家和这样坚执的努力，让人感到欣慰，更让人看到艺术发展和推进的希望。

2018年9月6日写于广州

梁江

广州美术学院中国近现代美术研究所所长

中国美术家协会理论委员会副主任

中国美术馆原副馆长

中国艺术研究院美术研究所所长

Li Jieping: Back to Ordinary Rural World

　　I first noticed the new works Rural Investigation by Li Jieping from a catalog. Though being demonstrated in the flat paper, a strong fascination just erupted from the paintings and caught my heart.

　　This is a long-lost power.

　　Inspired by daily life, Li Jieping has expressed his true emotions and feelings in his works. Over the past five years, his footsteps covered the vast land in "Guangdong Peasants", which was a great help for his meaningful works. During the more-than-20 thousand-kilometer trip, he visited more than 200 villages and 40 towns. He had enjoyable times with country folks, and collected numerous pictures as well as completed the sketches and drawings in large quantity. The wide-ranged subjects of his works include mud huts in north-eastern Guangdong Province, fishing villages with long history in southern coast of Guangdong Province, the old Diaolou in Pearl River Delta and beautiful villages surrounded by mountains and rivers in which you can appreciate the busy farm works and numerous vivid figures.

　　The topics of Li Jieping's works consisted of Daily Life of Peasants in "Guangdong Peasants", "The Twenty-four Solar Terms", "Scenery along the Trip", "Pleasant Harvest", "A Glimpse into the Trip". The topic classification was not logically rigorous, but LiJieping enriched each topic with multiple expressive forms, where he demonstrated different vision, perspectives and thoughts.

　　Reviewing his traveling, we can find that he mostly explored the border areas among provinces, which are usually the under-developed areas in China. Those places, where people's living standard is relatively low, are far away from wealthy cities. However, the vast and picturesque areas cultivate people with simple and honest quality. The unexploited environment is a spiritual pursuit for people living in cities, which is hard for them to experience.

　　Over the past 60 years, the ways of drawing from nature and going deep into life have been closely related to painters, and the experience of some art masters in sketching and drawing from nature has also become a memorabilia in the history of Chinese art. In 1954, the works from nature by Zhang Ding, Li Keran and Luo Ming paved a new path for traditional Chinese painting. Besides, Fu Baoshi, together with painters from Jiangsu Province, stepped on a long journey for painting all the way. Moreover, Huang Zhou spent years in north-western China and finished plentiful works about the local customs and scenery. For many years, artists have presented us numerous fine works on landscapes, local customs, and village's life by experiencing the original rural life. However, there were also two derailing styles on painting. The first was that during the Cultural Revolution, the workers, peasants and soldiers were heroized and defied. The second was that over the past thirty years, people living in poverty have been labeled as dumb, ugly and unmoral figures by some painters.

　　Facing new environment in the 21st century, what should artists do to have the rural investigation and to experience life in rural areas? Li Jieping has presented us a unique way of observation. He believed that personal experience and sincerity are inseparable from art. Just like he said: "we should not create art like the older generation of artists at the beginning of the founding of the People's Repulic of China who created the rustic works with their own experiences, or the artists during the Cultural Revolution who in 1960s over praised the peasants, or the artists after China's reform and opening up who showed either sympathy or apathy to farmers and peasant-workers, or simply narrated the scenery and folk custom."

　　Obviously, Li Jieping is a painter with thoughts. He clearly understands that the so-called realistic rural life described in paintings today fails to tap into the survival and development challenges for farmers, thus leading to soulless work. Like he writes: "when we paint peasants, we are actually painting ourselves",  and he believes that without the soul, art will be nothing. "When sensing the world, the sparks of artist's inspiration should precede their conception because their perception in art and humanity determines the basic features of the artist's work", he said.

　　His paintings depict figures, customs and scenery in a narrative, close-up and realistic way, which have rendered the busy farm work, the tough life and the agreeable harvest like a melodious ballad. He looked at himself, country folks and every trivial matter as equals with sincerity in his paintings. He never exaggerates the dark side or decay in humanity, nor creates a rosy picture of normal people's life deliberately. Instead, his works feature simplicity, diligence and stamina, which are also the characteristics of farmland, with humanity and the spirit of concerning about others as the cores.

　　Such features distinguished Li Jieping from other painters. He has experienced the rural life with heart and perceived the happiness and sadness of farmers upon the fragrant farmland. He aims to fully understand the spiritual world of farmers and catch the progressive steps of the changing times and society. The documentary-like style is the most valuable feature of Li Jipeing's works.

　　Surprisingly more, his works actually involve a variety of media. He is skillful in using ink and wash painting, the traditional line drawing, printmaking, sculpture, rural painting, multi-media and installation. From his view, creating art in various ways and media can nourish his conception and creation. But I think that the rural world with plentiful beautiful scenery indeed requires such a diverse way to be expressed. Since Li Jieping is proficient in all the skills above, he is able to depict the colorful world in a more vivid way. Besides, it was the military experience made him acquired proficiency in almost all art categories, even in film art and drama. He hardly practices traditional line drawing but we can see his superb skills from this project. Moreover, his ink and wash portrait is unique and delicate, which is also among the top class.

　　Li Jieping specialized in oil paintings. Oil painting is an important genre, as Jin Shangyi said that it remains as the most popular one in art. Therefore, how to develop oil painting is a must-answer problem for contemporary artists. I used to participate in and organize an oil-painting seminar hosted by China Academy of Art a few years ago in Beijing. The seminar was about Romanian Oil Painting Training Course which was held in the period from 1960 to 1962 by the Zhejiang Academy of Art (now known as China Academy of Art), entrusted by the Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China. Professor Eugen Boba and his wife Haqi Uboba from Gina Bucharest National University of Arts were employed to teach the course. This project was as significant as Makchmobk. M Oil Painting Course by the China Academy of Fine Arts at that time. Boba's course has strengthened the importance of structure and expression, being a complement to China's conception on oil painting. When I hosted the seminar, I quoted in particular what Boba said when he first met Chinese students, "I did not copy everything from traditional European oil painting into Chinese oil painting. I believe that Chinese painters should not blindly follow or simply imitate the European style. Instead, they should focus on Chinese characteristics and produce Chinese oil paintings. Besides, they need to fix on two rules: the first is to pursue the art corresponding with the trend of times; the other is to build up national dignity and characteristic in art creation."

　　Boba's words remain insightful today, which were also Li Jieping's pursuit on art philosophy over the years. Chinese oil paintings, Chinese stories and Chinese cultural pursuits have their  irreplaceable roles.

　　Art works featuring simplicity, sincerity and humanity can survive the time. Li Jieping is such a persistent and hardworking artist who taps into ordinary rural areas. In today's art community, especially in Guangdong Province, we are relieved to have Li Jieping as he brings us the hope of artistic development and advancement.

6th September , 2018 in Guangzhou

Liang Jiang

President of Research Institute of Modern Chinese Art of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Deputy director of Conception Committee of China Artists Association

Former vice directorof The National Art Museum of China

Former president of Art Research Institute of China National Academy of Arts