水墨涅槃

        Water Ink Nirvana

                   —晁海水墨经典80幅解读

                   —A Reading into 80 classic water ink paintings by Chao Hai

                耿翔 （著）

                Written in Chinese by Geng Xiang

                欧阳昱 （译）

                Translated into English by Ouyang Yu

封面文字：

Cover Blurb：

诺贝尔物理学奖得主  杨振宁：

Chen-Ning Franklin Yang, Winner of Nobel Prize in Physics

他的水墨艺术是深层的文化和真正的创造

His water ink art is culture at a deeper level, a real creation

香港中文大学原校长  金耀基：

Ambrose King Yeo-Chi, Former Vice-Chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong

晁海是中国水墨画的一座奇峰

Chao Hai is a magnificent peak in Chinese water ink painting

中国美术家协会主席  范迪安：

Fan Di'an, Chairman of China Artists Association

用力作书写了中国画当代学术水平的高度

Chao Hai has reached a high level of contemporary scholarship in Chinese painting

德国文化学者  马克•西蒙:

    Mark Siemons, a German cultural scholar, on Chao Hai

他的作品是现代艺术是世界艺术

His work is modern art, a world art

封面画：

Cover Painting

《2002系列之四》（140页）

No. 4 in the 2002 Series (p. 140)

序：致晁海

没有泥土的长安，离你很远。而没有浮色的水

墨，落在关中的哪一个方位，都是一纸悲怆，都像

在平原上，生出万千气象的汉冢。

一个人的身子，退出别人的宫殿，一个人的感

觉，进入母语的深处，而一个人的声音，撞击在一

头牛，或一群女麦客的镰刀上，会让我们突然把心，

收缩得很痛。长安无序的风里，一片水墨，吹开大

地的枯涩，却把烧出秘瓷的泥土，吹向天空。

关中平原上，你神秘的墨团落下来，就是洗涤

灵魂的凄风苦雨。而一个人的身子，和一群人的身

子， 都在纸一样的泥土上面滚动。沿着大地或水墨

的皱褶，那些挣扎得身影模糊的人，在平原和我的

视野里，永远是一座丰碑。

没有泥土的长安，其实离我也很远。只要熟读

过你的水墨，梦回故里，就有一片温暖的泥土陪着。

Preface: To Chao Hai

A Chang'an without soil is very far from you, and water ink without the floating colours is papery sorrow wherever it falls in Guanzhong as it looks like a majestic and grand tomb of the Han dynasty on the plain.

       One man's body has backed out of someone else's palace as one man's feeling enters into the depths of the mother tongue while one man's voice collides with a cow or the sickles of a group of women wheat harvesters, causing our hearts to shrink in pain. In the wind of orderless Chang'an, a spread of water ink has blown open the dry earth while taking the mud, from which secret porcelain is created through burning, to the sky.

       Over the Guanzhong plain, your mysterious blobs of ink drop as they turn into bitter rain that washes the souls, and one person's body, along with a group of people's bodies, are rolling in the mud like paper. Along the creases of the land or water ink, the people, who struggle so much that their figures become blurry, remain a monument in the vision of the plain and my own.

       Chang'an, mudless, is also far away from me. But as long as one has a thorough reading of your water and ink and goes home in one's dream, one will have a piece of warm soil for company.

晁海说的话

我土生土长在西部长安，灿烂的文化和脚下的

沟壑如同中华五千年的历史那样沉重，当你听到挣

破头悲壮苍凉的秦腔吼声和光棍汉们撕心裂肺地唱

酸曲，看到贫困山区孩子们渴望读书时的情景，看

到父老乡亲们穷苦艰涩如同高原沟壑般的脸，看到

夏收赶场割麦时过度劳累而昏倒在地里的女麦客，

还有对着乡亲老农遗体画像时看到的如生铁一样的

脸，你的神经、你手中的笔能不颤栗吗？中国有着

伟大的山脉、河流、黄土高原，有着勤劳、善良、

艰辛，世世代代像黄牛一般宽厚忍耐的劳动者，他

们是上苍恩典给我们的巨大的文化资源，孕育、滋

养、催化悲壮艺术的诞生。

Chao Hai's Remark:

I grew up in Chang'an, a native in it. Its brilliant culture and the gullies under my feet are as heavy as the history of 5000 years in China. When you hear the sad head-splitting roaringsin a Qinqiang opera andthe heart-rending sour melodies sung by the bare-stick bachelors, when you see the kids reading in the impoverished mountain regions, when you see your fellow countrymen with their faces resembling the gullies on the plateau, and as poor as harsh, when you see the women wheat-harvesters faint to the ground from fatigue when they try to cut the wheat in a hurry, and when you watch the face like iron,doing the portrait of a dead peasant, can your nerves stop shivering? Can the brush held in your hand stop shivering? There are great mountains, rivers and the yellow-earth plateau in China, and there are industrious, kind and hardworking labourers who, generous and tolerant, have worked like cattle generation after generation as well. They are a hugecultural resource, giving birth, breeding and catalysing the birth of a tragically moving art.

目 录

序：致晁海

晁海说的话

卷一：牛

读《牛系列之一》（1988年）

读《牛系列之二》（1989年）

读《牛系列之三》（1990年）

读《牛系列之三》（1999年）

读《牛系列之五》（2000年）

读《牛系列之六》（2000年）

读《牛系列之八》（2000年）

读《牛系列之十》（1992年）

卷二：麦客

读《女麦客之一》（1995年）

读《女麦客之二》（1995年）

读《女麦客之三》（1995年）

读《女麦客之五》（1996年）

读《麦客》（2004年）

卷三：梦回故里

读《梦回故里之一》（1998年）

读《梦回故里之二》（1988年）

读《梦回故里之三》（1989年）

读《梦回故里之四》（1989年）

读《梦回故里之五》（1990年）

读《梦回故里之六》（1997年）

读《梦回故里之七》（1991年）

读《梦回故里之八》（1992年）

读《梦回故里之九》（1995年）

卷四：水墨

读《水墨作品之一》（1989年）

读《水墨作品之二》（1994年）

读《水墨作品之三》（1989年）

读《水墨作品之四》（1990年）

读《水墨作品》（1990年）

读《水墨作品》（1997年）

读《水墨作品》（1991年）

读《水墨作品》（1993年）

读《水墨人物》（1992年）

卷五：年代

读《1990系列之一》

读《1991系列之一》

读《1991系列之二》

读《1992系列之一》

读《1992系列之二》

读《1992系列之三》

读《1992系列之四》

读《1992系列之五》

读《1993系列之一》

读《1993系列之二》

读《1993系列之三》

读《1994系列之一》

读《1994系列之二》

读《1994系列之三》

读《1995系列之一》

读《1995系列之二》

读《1996系列之一》

读《1996系列之二》

读《1996系列之三》

读《1996系列之四》

读《1996系列之五》

读《1996系列之六》

读《1996系列之七》

读《1997系列之一》

读《1997系列之二》

读《1997系列之三》

读《1997系列之四》

读《1998系列之一》

读《1998系列之二》

读《1998系列之三》

读《1998系列之十》

读《1999系列之二》

读《1999系列之三》

读《1999系列之四》

读《2000系列之一》

读《2002系列之二》

读《2002系列之四》

读《2002系列之五》

读《2002系列之六》

读《2002系列之八》

读《2004系列之一》

读《2004系列之二》

读《2004系列之三》

读《2004系列之四》

卷六：涅槃

读《涅槃》（1996年）

读《轮回》（1996年）

读《岁月悠悠》（1992年）

读《瞬息》（1994年）

读《天地之间》（1992年）

Table of Contents

Preface: To Chao Hai

Chao Hai's Remark:

Volume I：Cows

Reading The Cows Series (No. 1) (1988)

Reading The Cows Series (No. 2) (1989)

Reading The Cow Series (No. 3) (1990)

Reading The Cow Series (No. 3) (1999)

Reading The Cow Series (No. 5) (2000)

Reading The Cow Series (No. 6) (2000)

Reading The Cow Series (No. 8) (2000)

Reading The Cow Series (No. 10) (1992)

Volume II：The Wheat Harvesters

ReadingThe Female Wheat Harvesters (No. 1) (1995)

Reading The Female Wheat Harvesters (No. 2) (1995)

ReadingThe Female Wheat Harvesters (No. 3) (1995)

Reading The Female Wheat Harvesters (No. 5) (1996)

Reading The Wheat Harvesters (2004)

Volume 3:Returning Home in a Dream

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 1) (1998)

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 2) (1988)

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 3) (1989)

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 4) (1989)

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 5) (1990)

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 6) (1997)

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 7) (1991)

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 8) (1992)

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 9) (1995)

Volume IV: Water and Ink

Reading Water and Ink Work (No. 1) (1989)

Reading Water and Ink Work (No. 2) (1994)

Reading Water and Ink Work (No. 3) (1989)

ReadingWater and Ink Work (No. 4) (1990)

Reading Water and Ink Work (1990)

Reading Water and Ink Work (1997)

Reading Water and Ink Work (1991)

Reading Water and Ink Work (1993)

Reading Water and Ink Figures (1992)

Volume V:The Age

Reading The 1990 Series (No. 1)

Reading The 1991 Series (No. 1)

Reading The 1991 Series (No. 2)

Reading The 1992 Series (No. 1)

Reading The 1992 Series (No. 2)

Reading The 1992 Series (No. 3)

Reading The 1992 Series (No. 4)

Reading The 1992 Series (No. 5)

Reading The 1993 Series (No. 1)

Reading The 1993 Series (No. 2)

Reading The 1993 Series (No. 3)

Reading The 1994 Series (No. 1)

Reading The 1994 Series (No. 2)

Reading The 1994 Series (No. 3)

Reading The 1995 Series (No. 1)

Reading The 1995 Series (No. 2)

Reading The 1996 Series (No. 1)

Reading The 1996 Series (No. 2）

Reading The 1996 Series (No. 3)

Reading The 1996 Series (No. 4)

Reading The 1996 Series (No. 5)

Reading The 1996 Series (No. 6)

Reading The 1996 Series (No. 7)

Reading The 1997 Series (No. 1)

Reading The 1997 Series (No. 2)

Reading The 1997 Series (No. 3)

Reading The 1997 Series (No. 4)

Reading The 1998 Series (No. 1)

Reading The 1998 Series (No. 2)

Reading The 1998 Series (No. 3)

Reading The 1998 Series (No. 10)

Reading The 1999 Series (No. 2)

Reading The 1999 Series (No. 3)

Reading The 1999 Series (No. 4)

Reading The 2000 Series (No. 1)

Reading The 2002 Series (No. 2)

Reading The 2002 Series (No. 4)

Reading The 2002 Series (No. 5)

Reading The 2002 Series (No. 6)

Reading The 2002 Series (No. 8)

Reading The 2004 Series (No. 1)

Reading The 2004 Series (No. 2)

Reading The 2004 Series (No. 3)

Reading The 2004 Series (No. 4)

Volume VI: Nirvana

Reading Nirvana (1996)

ReadingReincarnation (1996)

ReadingThe Years Flow(1992)

Reading The Instant (1994)

Reading Between Heaven and the Earth (1992)

卷一：牛

牛的眼睛里，能够

装进去的事物，都在汹涌的

泪水里面，浸泡出我们身上的伤痛

不是当时，多年以后

这些被你留住了，原形的牛

它们隆起，大地的肩胛

被缰绳磨碎，也被

死神带走

Volume I：Cows

In the eyes of the cows, what

can be contained is all in the surging

tears, with our pain soaked in them

it's not then but many years after

these are retained by you, but the cows in their original shapes

they heave, their earth-shoulders

are worn down by the rein and taken

away by Death

读《牛系列之一》（1988年）

洇在水墨里，一群没有

套上木犁之前的牛犊，不知服役

在人间，有多么苦

一群在场院里，围绕人

有些闲散的牛犊，咀嚼着胃里的干草

正把带进来的，阳光的热量

反刍在身体的，每个部位

土地需要，牛能长出

一副巨大的骨架，能套上

原始的木犁，拉动

身边的山河

身上的毛色，像披着

太阳织给人间的，一块金毡

一头牛犊的背上，会落下很多的手印

看见的人，没有不伸出

粗糙的十指，用乡村神秘的

手势，在这些牲口的

身上，像心疼地

抚摸自己

在成群的，还没有受过

苦役的牛犊面前，我像一眼认出

童年的我们

大家说晁海：

他的水墨艺术是深层的文化和真正的创造，且富有民族本体性。

                                ——诺贝尔物理学奖得主  杨振宁

Reading The Cows Series(No. 1) (1988)

Spread and sunk in the water ink, a herd of calves

not yet burdened with wooden ploughs, has no idea

how hard it is to serve the humans

a herd of calves, relaxed, on the threshing ground

surrounding the people, is chewing the hay from their stomachs

ruminating the heat of the sun brought in

onto every part of the body

if the earth requires, the cow can grow

a huge bone frame, bearing

the primitive wooden plough and pulling

the mountain and the river by its side

the colour of its hair looks like a golden carpet

that the sun has woven for the world

many a fingerprint may fall on the back of a calf

no one sees it without holding out his

rough fingers, in the mysterious gesture

of the village, to touch these

animals the way they touch themselves

inheartful pain

amidst herds of calves that have not

suffered hard labour, I feel as if I had, in one glance

recognised ourselves in childhood

Chen-Ning Franklin Yang, Winner of Nobel Prize in Physics, on Chao Hai:

His water ink art is culture at a deeper level, a real creation.

读《牛系列之二》（1989年）

牛的脊梁，很像隆起的山

天空里的云朵，也被抬高

这些牛，也把自己

抬高到大地，人烟稀少的地方

然后回头，像在十分警觉的张望中

拒绝身后，那些柔弱

水草的诱惑，以及用一头

死牛的皮，搓成的鞭子

生硬的抽打

牛的眼睛里，能够

装进去的事物，都在汹涌的

泪水里面，浸泡出我们身上的伤痛

不是当时，多年以后

这些被你留住了，原形的牛

它们隆起，大地的肩胛

被缰绳磨碎，也被

死神带走

牛的脊梁，像挺在身边的山

牛的声音，被泥土埋得很深

大家说晁海：

晁海的艺术创作成果，开启了中国水墨画的一条新途径。这是一条新途径、一种新方法，但不是唯一的。中国水墨画有广阔的道路可以走，每个人都可以寻找新的道路、新的方法。晁海寻找到的方法、走出来的一条路，给我们很多启发。由于有晁海的水墨画，让大家对中国水墨画的概念又多了一点新认识：水墨画还可以这样画？艺术创造有一点贡献就很了不起。把他的艺术创作放在中国画的领域中看，我们感觉到有了一个晁海，中国画的形式语言更丰富了。

                                         ——美术理论家  邵大箴

Reading The Cows Series(No. 2) (1989)

The backbone of a cow resembles a ridged mountain

where even the cloud in the sky is also raised

these cows have also raised themselves

above the landwhere the population is sparse

before they turn their heads back, looking as if they were vigilant, watching

refusing the temptation of the soft and weak water grass

behind them, and the harsh lashes

with the whip

made of a dead cow's hide

what can be contained

in a cow's eyes is all in the surging

tears that soak out our physical pain

it's not then but many years after

when these are retained by you and the cows, in their original form

hunch, their land-like shoulders

shredded by the rein and also taken away

by Death

the backbones of the cows are like the mountains that thrust up by their side

and their voices, deeply buried in the mud

Shao Dazhen, an art critic, on Chao Hai:

Chao Hai's artistic creationshave opened up a new approach to water ink paintings in China, a new approach, a new method, although not the only one.In Chinese water ink paintings, there are vast roads to travel on where each and everyone can find their own new ways and new methods. The methods Chao Hai has found and the road he has taken are an enlightenment to us. Because of his water ink paintings, we gain a new insight into the concepts of Chinese water ink paintings that they can be done like that. In artistic creation, even a little contribution would be great.We feel that, with Chao Hai, the formal language of Chinese paintings has become even richer, when we place his artistic creation in the realm of Chinese paintings.

读《牛系列之三》（1990年）

天地之大，被一头牛

用陨石样的体格占满

在陨石神秘的，闪光里

寻找只属于牛的皮毛上，能浮得起的

一种色彩。人类很深的夜里

谁为一头牛，缝制着

一件耕耘大地的蓑衣？即使陨石

碎成颜色的粉沫，也有硬度

磨响牛的骨头

土地看见，牛拉着木犁喘息

庄稼看见，牛在咀嚼干黄的谷草

神也看见，牛把坡地踩平

牛的眼睛，看见

太多的人世沧桑，便不再转动

挤干最后一滴泪水，把它原样归还给

一块化石。面对你用陨石

凿成的牛，我从那只深邃的

眼睛里，像看见宇宙的黑洞

装满牛，看见的人类

我要掠过，一头牛驮在身上的

大部分山河，只对视它的眼睛

大家说晁海：

中国画坛出现了一个令人瞩目的“晁海现象”。我可以说，讲当代中国画，特别是中国水墨画，晁海绝对是一位独树一帜的第一等画家，他为中国画，特别是中国水墨画创出了一个新的面目、新的精神。更恰当地说，他创造了中国的新绘画语言。艺术史学者莫家良教授认为晁海的作品“能够将中国水墨画变得感人”，是“感人的艺术”。艺术感人是一个极高的境界，百千年来中国水墨画达此境界者，不过数人而已。

                                  ——香港中文大学原校长  金耀基

Reading The Cow Series (No. 3) (1990)

The size of the sky and the earth is taken up

by the physique of a cow, like that of a meteor

in the mysterious shine of the meteor

one looks for the colour that could float, belonging alone

to the hide of a cow. In the deep night of mankind

who is sewing the grass garment, meant for farming the land

for a cow? Even when the meteor

is ground into coloured bits and pieces, they remain hard

and can grind the cow's bones into noise

The land can see the cow pulling the wooden plough, panting

the crop can see the cow chewing the dry yellow grain grass

the deity can also see the cow treading the slope till it is flat

and the cow's eyes can see

too many vicissitudes of the world to turn around

when it squeezes its last tear it returns it as it is to

the meteor. In the face of your cow

sculptured out of a meteor, I seem to see

from the profound eyes, the black hole of the universe

filled with cows, the mankind they see

I'd like to fly across the majority of the mountains and rivers

carried by a cow on its back, seeing eye to eye with it

Ambrose King Yeo-Chi, Former Vice-Chancellor of the ChineseUniversity of Hong Kong, on Chao Hai:

Chao Hai is a phenomenon that has attracted much attention in the world of Chinese paintings. I can say this that Chao Hai is a first-rate artist, absolutely unique, when it comes to contemporary Chinese paintings, particularly Chinese water ink paintings.His is a new face, a new spirt, in Chinese water ink paintings. Or, to put it more appropriately, he has created a new painting language in China. According to Professor Mo Jialiang, an art historian, work by Chao Hai 'can turn Chinese water ink paintings into something moving' as it is a 'moving art'. To be artistically moving is to reach a high status, one only reached by a few over the centuries and millenniain Chinese water ink paintings.

读《牛系列之三》（1999年）

巨大的身体，站立在

自己犁过的土地上，像一座纪念

所有牛的石碑

牛的身上，有一些

压住哀乐的声音，裹着尘土

滚过黑白里的山河，想在人类的浮躁里

植入超越，苦难的沉默

而我看见，那些带着粗糙的棱角

从牛的肩胛，一路掉下的

巨石，沉重如山

我能感觉出，这头

沉默如铁的牛，已经放下充斥在身上的

一种神力。它只会从内心隐忍

压在头顶，发亮的天空

要它静止在，透彻万物的墨色里

让吹拂大地的风，念出

背在身上的碑文

穿过时间的，隧道

我只能在一头牛，站得庄严的身上

摩挲大地

大家说晁海

“大农民”是晁海绘画的基本母体。他的画尺幅较大，画中有时只有一个人、一排人、一头牛、一截树，甚至并排几张重复一个人、一个头，形象顶天立地、撑满左右，甚至冲出画框，人物粗壮、结实、高大。他笔下的农民、牛马、树木，都像大山一样巍峨、雄浑，让人看到了人类最美好的自强奋斗的精神。他的艺术虽然筑基于农村生活的直接经验，但意不在经验本身，而在借经验寄托超经验的宏大精神。

                                          ——美术理论家  刘骁纯

Reading The Cow Series (No. 3) (1999)

A huge body, standing

on its own ploughed land, like a monument in memory

of all the cows

on its body, there is music

that covers the dirge, carrying the dust

to roll across the mountain-river in black and white, intending to plant

transcendence for the impetuous humans

while I can see the huge rocks

with the rough edges that come falling off the cow's shoulders

all the way, are as heavy as the mountains

and I can feel that this cow

as silent as iron, has put down a god's power

that filled its body. It can only bear, from its heart of hearts

the shining sky pressing upon its head

that asks it to stay still in the saturating colours of the ink

so that the all-sweeping wind can read aloud

the inscriptions on its back

through the tunnel of time

I can only stroke the earthgently while standing on the solemn body

of a cow

Liu Xiaochun, an art critic, on Chao Hai:

The 'Great Peasant' is the basic prototype for Chao Hai's paintings, the size of which is quite large. Often, there is only one person, one row of people, one cow, one section of a tree, or a number of paintings in parallel, with a repeated person or head, their images filling the canvas, even breaking out of the frame.The figures are sturdy, solid and tall. Under his painting brushes, peasants, cows and horses, and treesare as magnificent and majestic as the big mountains, enabling one to see the beautiful human spirit of self-strengthening and struggling. Although his art is based on direct experience in rural living, it is not about the experience itself but about the great spirit that transcends the experience.

读《牛系列之五》（2000年）

面对你，我只能后退

只能放下，以前吆喝过你的

架势，仰视你

你一身的蛮力

风卷残云，像从很深的

河谷的底部，用四只碾压大地的铁蹄

一路踩踏上来。站在山顶上

云朵和风，落在山腰

落在你穿裂，岩石的蹄窝里

一丛牛蒡草，正在

中药里煎熬

站在山顶上，你的喘息

让旋转而上的飞鸟，突然把翅膀摊在

静止的天空，不敢随意飞翔

你的样子，不为风动

也不为一次失群的，孤独低头

就这样站着，让浑身

凸起的肌腱，凝固成

一座陨石之山

面对你，我只能后退

因为大地，正在你的身躯上

展示它的原貌

大家说晁海：

晁海的绘画艺术以其独到而深刻的艺术风格和感人的题材，迅速为国内外学者、艺术家以及人民大众所认同和推崇。他是我几十年中最钦佩的一位可称得上“人民的艺术家”的人。做官的，如果能被人称为人民的儿子人民的公仆，那是最高的荣誉；从事艺术的人，如果能被人称为人民的艺术家，那也是最高的荣誉。世界本来是人民的，只有为人民的人才是最崇高的人。中国古代，人也以“为公”为荣，且以“为公”为最高目标。

——美术理论家  陈传席

Reading The Cow Series (No. 5) (2000)

Facing you, I can only retreat

and I can only put down the airs in which I yelled

at you, instead looking up towards you

you, with all your savage strength

sweep the residual clouds like a wind, coming as if from the deep

bottom of the river, treading upwards all the way, with your iron hooves

that overwhelm the earth. When you stand on top of the mountain

clouds and the wind fall on the waist of the mountain

falling inside your hooves that have broken the rocks apart

while a cluster of burdock is brewing

in the traditional Chinese herbal medicine

Standing on top of the mountain, you are breathing

in such a manner that the upward-swivelling bird, on a sudden, rests its wings

spread out in the still sky, not daring to fly at random

the way you look refuses to be moved by the wind

nor do you lower your head in the face of solitude when you lose your way

you stand like that, letting all your bulging muscles solidify

into a mountain of meteors

Facing you, I can only retreat

because the earth is revealing its pristine features

on you

Chen Chuanxi, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Chao Hai's art of painting has rapidly gained recognition and admiration amongst scholars, artists and people in and outside China, with his unique and profound style and moving subject matter.To me, he is the most admirable person over the last few decades, one who could claim the title of the 'People's Artist'. When you are an official and are called the Son of People or the People's Servant, that is the highest honour. And when you are an artist and are called the People's Artist, that is also the highest honour.The world is formed of people and only when one who serves the people can he be called the most sublime person. In ancient China, people took pride in working for the public, and treated that as their highest aim.

读《牛系列之六》（2000年）

世界在手里，隐去万物

只剩下这头，古老的牛

要看清，它表情的人

必须冷下心，沿着它多年以来

被套在木头和生铁，打造的一张犁上

耕种过的土地，这样回到

一头牛的过去，也回到一些

人的中间，就知道

每一寸山河里，踩满了

牛的蹄印

那些活在山野，带我们

来到世上的人，会在祭祀牲口的时候

押上自己的命相，以为嘱咐过

头戴铁环，铜铃的牛

神鬼不再靠近。直到看清

这头像从岩石里，挣脱出来的牛

水墨，正在它的身上

无声地奔流

伤感的手，会把一头牛

心中的悲愤，降至冰点

大家说晁海：

石鲁的华山，可以说是前无古人，他笔下的华山是处理得非常之“巧”的。而晁海恰好缺少这种“巧”，这既是短处也是长处，因为他的“倔”“楞”“厚”，也是别人所“缺少”的。20世纪60年代的“长安画派”，没有从这个角度表现长安，既是历史条件的限制，也是他们学养、气质的自然发挥。赵望云、石鲁以及方济众都是如此，他们与晁海的出身、学养、心性，相去甚远。晁海没有刻意追随这几位前辈，显然是明智的选择。

                                           ——美术理论家  水天中

Reading The Cow Series (No. 6) (2000)

The world in hand, with all the things removed

is left with this ancient cow only

He who clearly sees its facial features

must let his heart cool, returning to

a cow's past, and, by so doing, returning

to the humans, along the land

it has farmed over the years

with the plough, made of wood and iron, and he'll know

that each inch of the mountain and the river has been trodden

with the cow's hooves

those alive in the wild mountains who have

brought us to the world will put their fate in it when they

sacrifice the animals, assuming that no devils will get near

because they have exhorted the cows wearing

iron-rings and bronze-bells on their heads until they clearly see

this cow who seems to have broken out of the rock

while the water ink is rushing

across its back, in silence

a saddened hand will reduce the fury

inside the heart of a cow to freezing point

Shui Zhongtian, an art theorist on Chao Hai:

Mount Hua, as painted by Shi Lu, is unparalleled because it is very cleverly treated. But that cleverness is exactly what is found missing in Chao Hai whose stubbornness, rashness and thickness are also features that the others lack.The 1960s Chang'an School of Artists has never represented Chang'an from this angle as a result of historical limitations and of their own learning and disposition. Zhao Wangyun, Shi Lu and Fang Jizhong are all like that as they are far from Chao Hai in terms of upbringing, learning and temperament.When Chao Hai did not deliberately follow these masters, it was obviously a wise choice.

读《牛系列之八》（2000年）

生命的诞生，多在

黑暗之中，这些最接近人的

牲口，也一样

一样带着，黑暗

反射出的，那些不多

却可以清冷地照见，自己轮廓的光

从一头牛的身体里，分裂出

另一个自己，谁能说出

中间的阵痛？借着神

送来的圣光，我看见一场

清洁的洗礼

这是一场，被黑暗围猎得

只剩下寂静的诞生，舔着浓淡干湿

有如夜色的胎液，牛的嘴唇上

也有生命，听得懂的

一些口唤。那头披着一层黑暗

最先让土地，身子一动的牛

用力站起来的，样子

湿润着天空

赶在夜色，退去之前

身后的坡地，一定会生长出

干净的青草

大家说晁海：

晁海在创造上紧紧抓住土地与家园这个主题，他对土地特别是对西北地区黄河流域的中华大地有着深厚和真挚的情感，这种情感上的支持对他的创造可以说是一如既往的。他描绘这块土地上的生命，无论是人、动物或者其他景物，他都把这些存在的事物当作一个个有机的生命体来进行刻画，他的作品超越了传统的和现代以来的中国画样式和风格，而真正在博大的气象、雄浑的气势上作笔墨文章。

             ——中国美术馆馆长、中国美术家协会主席  范迪安

Reading The Cow Series (No. 8) (2000)

Life is born, most of the time

in the dark, and the cattle, closest

to the humans, are the same

as they, likewise, carry the light

not strong, but that, reflected in the dark

can clearly reveal

its own outlines

when another selfcomes out

of the split up of another cow, who can speak

of the pain in it? I have seen

a clean baptism

this is a birth, hunted by the darkness

till only stillness is left, and the cow's lips

are also alive as they lick the liquid of the fetus

that tastes like the colours of the night, understandable

callings. The way the cow, covered

with a layerof darkness, the first

to cause the earth to move, forcibly stands up

moistens the skies

before the colours of the night retreat

the slope behind it may surely grow

the clean green grass

Fan Di'an,Director of National Art Museum of China and Chairman of China Artists Association, on Chao Hai:

In his creation, Chao Hai clings to the theme of land and home as he is deeply and truly attached to the land, particularly the land of the Yellow River Basin in Northwestern China. Such an emotional succourhas been consistent for him in his creation.Whatever he describes on this land, be they human beings, animals or other pieces of scenery, he treats them as organic lives, his work thus going beyond the traditional and modern patterns and styles in Chinese paintings, achieving atmospheric greatnessand magnificent momentum.

读《牛系列之十》（1992年）

这一刻的世界，应该静止不动

这一刻的大地，应该回到初始

一对相濡，以沫的母子

正从世界和大地，不安的身边走过

它们看见，或听见的事物

都不及吃在，嘴里的

一把干草真实。背着土地的

颜色，拂过光滑的皮毛

风有风的，干爽

就是不安，像山的

影子，从清浅的草地上

浓重地碾压过来，该驻足或回头的

都不放过。这些喂养着牛

也折磨着，牛的地方

一切与土地，和土地上的人

有关的往事，都成烟云

这一刻的牛，看不到世界安静

这一刻的牛，回不到大地初始

大家说晁海：

可以预见，晁海的作品是能够经得起时间考验的。在主题上，晁海以其具有强烈的地域性的题材，表现出形象背后的一种普世精神，为中国水墨的内涵扩大了空间。在笔墨上，发挥了中国宣纸和水墨的特性，强化了水墨丰富的力感和表现性，摆脱了传统文人笔墨的成规。在风格上，以凝练朴实的艺术原则，创造出气势逼人，具有极大震撼力的个人画风。除此之外，晁海作品的最可贵之处，是能够将中国水墨画变得感人。

                                                                ——美术理论家  莫家良

Reading The Cow Series (No. 10) (1992)

The world at this moment ought to stay still

The land at this moment ought to return to the beginning

The mother and her son, in mutual help

are walking past the world and the restless body of the land

what they see or hear

is not as real as the handful of hay

they eat in their mouths. Carrying the colours of the earth

on its back and sweeping across the smooth fur

the wind has the wind's dryness

except that restlessness, like the shadow

of a mountain, comes heavily grinding over

the shallowgrassland, not giving a miss

to those who should stop in their tracks or turn their heads. In places where

cows are fed and tormented

everything associated with the earth and people on the earth

with things of the past have gone up in cloud and smoke

cows of this moment do not see the quietness of the world

cows of this moment cannot return to the beginnings of the earth

Mo Jialiang, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

One can predict that Chao Hai's work will stand the test of time.In terms of theme, with his strongly regional subject matter, Chao Hai expresses a universal spirit behind the image, expanding the space for the contents of Chinese water and ink.In terms of brush and ink, he strengthens the rich force and expressiveness of water and ink, ridding himself of the set rules of the traditional men of letters with brush and ink. And, in terms of style, he creates a personal painting style that is shockingly powerfulby applying the principle of conciseness and simplicity. In addition, Chao Hai's work is most valuable in that it makes the Chinese water and ink paintings something moving.

卷二：麦客

渭河边上，这些

苦焦的女人，追着麦子

成熟的声音，会把自己渴死在路上

像失去性别的，夸父

我看见，她们蛮荒的身形

移动在，风神吹来的麦浪里

就是一座，被镰刀

凿空的山

Volume II：The Wheat Harvesters

By the side of the Wei River, these

bitter women, chasing after the mature sound

of the wheat, may die of thirst on the road

like a genderless Kua Fu

I can see their feral figures

moving in the waves of wheat, brought over by the deity of wind

a mountain, hollowed

by the sickles

读《女麦客之一》（1995年）

麦子黄成了，一条

大河的颜色，沿着将要泛滥的河水

流过来的方向，一群手提

镰刀的女麦客，也上路了

渭河边上，这些

苦焦的女人，追着麦子

成熟的声音，会把自己渴死在路上

像失去性别的，夸父

我看见，她们蛮荒的身形

移动在，风神吹来的麦浪里

就是一座，被镰刀

凿空的山

我也看见，她们

回眸的那一刻，带着麦子

成熟的脸色，以及手里

刃口青白的镰刀，割得苍茫的脸色

头顶的草帽，遮挡住

盘古的太阳，挣扎在麦芒里

目光空洞，已把自己

遗落在他乡

背对苍天，女麦客

手提镰刀，一路向大地深处隐去

转身看见，割过麦子的山河

像自己，又瘦了一层

大家说晁海：

他笔下全是陕西黄土地上朴实憨厚的老农民，饱经沧桑的劳动妇女，这是养育他，也是养育我们的劳动人民。在晁海传神笔下皆栩栩如生。我看到这些纯朴而又劳苦的形象，苦乞的眼神，干裂的嘴唇，因劳累过度而变得十分粗大的骨节，感动得几乎落下泪水。晁海给我讲述他笔下女麦客怀着孕，有的刚生过孩子，没多休息，赶着去割麦子，这里麦子割完，又赶到另一地为人割麦子，每天腰酸腿疼，有的就累得晕倒在麦场上。

——美术理论家  陈传席

ReadingThe Female Wheat Harvesters (No. 1) (1995)

The wheat is yellowing into the colours

of a big river, and, in the direction in which

the waters of a river, about to flood, are running, a group of wheat harvesters

sickles in hand, have stepped on the road

By the side of the Wei River, these

bitter women, chasing after the mature sound

of the wheat, may die of thirst on the road

like a genderless Kua Fu

I can see their feral figures

moving in the waves of wheat, brought over by the deity of wind

a mountain, hollowed

by the sickles

I can also see that in the instant in which

theylook back, the features of their faces, mature

carry the colour of the wheat, and the features of their faces, vast

that have been cut by the hand-held sickles, with white blades

the straw hats on their headsare sheltering

against the sun since Pangu, and, struggling in the awns of the wheat

and with hollow looks, they have lost themselves

in a him country

The female wheat harvesters, their backs towards the sky

and their hands holding the sickles, are disappearing all the way into the depths of the

                                                                                                                              earth

when they turn around they see that the wheat-cut mountain and river

are thinning, by one more layer, like themselves

Chen Chuanxi, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

All his depictions are of the old peasants, simple and good-natured, and well-weathered labouring women, from the yellow earth in Shanxi, people who have brought him and us up, vividly rendered by Chao Hai's brush full of life. I was almost moved to tears when I saw the simple toiling figures, with their begging eyes, cracked lips and over-large condyles as a result of overwork. Chao Hai told me how one female wheat harvester he drew was pregnant andhow another one had just given birth to a child before she hurried, without much rest, to go and harvest the wheat, finishing one place before going to another one, on a daily basis, until they got painful backs and weary legs. On occasions, some would even faint from fatigue on the threshing ground.

读《女麦客之二》（1995年）

大地的怀抱里，一直散发着

来自你们身上的，遍地麦香

睡吧，睡在自己

身体的暗香里，此刻

你们不需要遮挡什么。也不需要飞鸟

扑灭麦梢上的火焰，藏在你们

心里的翅膀，不会打开

接天的麦地里，天下的黄金

被你们拼命，夺在

女人的怀里

你们怀抱，神也念想的粮食

你们睡在，神也歇息的地上

你们说着，神也会说的梦话

这个时候，你们也像

一群滚动在天边的羊群，为了麦神的

生死之约，把女人的日子

牺牲在男人，也会喊累的麦地里

你们倒下，疼痛的身子

贴着大地，还能泛起一丝

湿润的土壤，像在自己

身上，听见水声

被麦香包围着，依偎在同伴的

怀抱里，像依偎着连天的麦浪

大家说晁海：

晁海的水墨画明确地告诉我们，传统的艺术不能也用不着保存在酱缸里。传统会发出庞大的活力，但是前提是现代人勇敢地探索，通过自己的努力启发这种活力，让它作为当代世界艺术宝库的组成部分。这种成功的探索是晁海在艺术精神上给大家的重要的鼓励。晁海把中国的传统丰富、发展、推进，又为中国的水墨画继续创新发展与世界各地的艺术共同走向未来做了客观真实的贡献。

                     ——德国驻华大使馆文化参赞  凯瑟.沃夫刚

Reading The Female Wheat Harvesters(No. 2) (1995)

In the arms of the earth, there has always been

the smell of the wheat, all over the place, from your very bodies

Sleep, in the hidden fragrances

of your own bodies as, right at this moment

there's no need for concealment, no need for the flying birds

to extinguishthe flames on the wheat sprouts and the wings

hidden in your hearts won't open, either

in the wheatfield connected to the sky, all the gold under heaven

is desperately snatched by you

into the arms of women

You hug the food even gods think about

you sleep on the land where gods also have rest

and you talk in your dreams the way gods do, too

By now, like a herd of sheep

rolling towards the edge of the sky, you

for a life-death appointment with the God of Wheat

sacrifice the women's days in a wheat field where even men will cry tired

you fall, your painful bodies

stuck to the earth, that can still ripple with

moistened soil, almost as if you could hear

the sound of water from your bodies

surrounded by the scent of wheat, and snuggling in

the arms of your companions, like waves of wheat that join the skies

Keith Wolfgang, Councillor of Culture, German Embassy in China, on Chao Hai：

Chao Hai's water and ink paintings clearly tell us that even traditional art need not and cannot be kept in a soy paste vat as tradition can generate huge vitality on the premise that the modern peoplecan bravely explore and reignite this vitality through their efforts so that it can become part of the world's treasury of art. Such a successful exploration is an important encouragement to us all from Chao Hai in the spirit of art spirit as he has enriched, developed and advanced Chinese tradition, making a physical and authentic contribution to the continued creation of water and ink paintings in China and the common movement towards the future of arts from all over the world.

读《女麦客之三》（1995年）

这是我熟悉的，麦镰

也是我身上，那些旧年的伤口

更熟悉的麦镰

很像转场的，牛羊

这块麦子的草地，被你们手中的麦镰

一个上午吃光了。生硬的太阳

象神的脸色，端挂在头顶

脚下的道路，一定比

麦垄遥远，追赶在风的身边

你们铁打的，表情里面

风只剩下，哭泣

抱在怀中的，麦镰

看见你们，浮满虚土的脸色

越来越僵硬，也让刃口的那一道青光

暂时暗淡下来。穿过

太多的村庄，你们的脚步

一刻也停不下来，每个女人身上

有过短暂的，美丽

也在此刻毁灭

此刻，我只能祈祷麦镰

在下一块麦田里，不要碰伤

你们的肌肤

大家说晁海：

他的艺术可以用“笔痕墨迹”来概括。实际上他的作品留给我们的主要印象就是笔与墨的痕迹。从语言的角度看其笔墨的基本特征就是“痕迹”，既不是笔的轻重急缓，也不是墨的干湿浓淡。所谓“痕迹”，就是它既非传统意义上的用笔，也非传统意义上的用墨，他把传统意义上的线全部放弃掉了，对他来说，不啻是一场语言的彻底的变革，在笔墨的视觉样式上还是很少有过的。

                                                                       ——美术理论家  贾方舟

ReadingThe Female Wheat Harvesters (No. 3) (1995)

This is familiar to me and the wheat sickle

is also the more familiar one

to the wounds of old years on my body

Very much like the cows and sheep that move from site to site

the wheat sickles in your hands have eaten up

all the grass on this wheat field. The raw sun

has facial features of a deity, hanging right overhead

and the road underfoot must be more

distant than the wheat ridges, chasing alongside the wind

in your iron-clad expressions

the wind is left with only weeping

When the wheat sickles, held in the arms

saw you, their faces, covered with flimsy earth

harden, making the blue light on the blade

grow dim, for the moment. Your footsteps

through so many villages, never stop

for a single moment, and, on every woman

there is brief beauty

that is destroyed, at his very moment

Now, all I can do is pray that the wheat sickles

don't hurt your skin

in the next wheat field

Jiang Fangzhou, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

His art can be summarised as 'traces of brush and ink'.In actual fact, the main impression his work has left us is the traces of brush and ink. From a linguistic perspective, the basic features of his brush and ink are traces, not the heaviness of the brushstrokes nor the dryness of the ink, traces because they are neitherthe brushstrokes nor the ink in the traditional sense as he has completely given up on the lines in the traditional sense. For him, it is no less than a thorough transformation in language, something rarely seen in the visual patterns of brush and ink.

读《女麦客之五》（1996年）

只有女麦客，才会有的

打盹方式，被神心细地发现了

定格在大地上

大片的麦田，对于女人

也是禁地，不能像五大三粗的男人

倒在哪里，都是一种天性

浑身再累，只要处于太阳底下

就只能坐下，打盹

头再沉重，只有用自己的

膝盖，垫上胳膊

支撑起来

日晒雨淋，裹在

身上的衣服，被风撕扯成

一堆棉絮，加重你点化在水墨里的

那些悲怆。她的身上

已没有可以，站起来的力气

粗大的手，也被下垂的重力

拉得变形，整个人

像被镰刀握住

女麦客，在太阳底下

打盹的女麦客，从头上悬挂下来

那根辫子，像黑色的麦浪

大家说晁海：

他的人物画创作虽然离开了主流创作，甚至疏离了国家意识形态，但却深深地扎根于西北大地的土壤之中，扎根于底层的乡民百姓之中，扎根于历史与现实的时空交迭、更替之中，且能紧紧地抓住人物的正直、善良、坚韧不拔的性格和悲剧性的不懈抗争的命运主题，进行深入地开掘、伸发。在造型上突破了工笔抑或写意、写实抑或表现的思路，将多种因素融为一炉，达到了大象无形、浑然一体的凝重和深刻。

——文化学者  陈孝信

Reading The Female Wheat Harvesters (No. 5) (1996)

The only way a female wheat harvester

takes a nap is framed on the land by the deity when he

discovers it

For a woman, large expansesof the wheat field

are also forbidden as they can't fall anywhere

like their rough male counterparts, part of their nature

however tired they are, they can only sit

in the sun, taking a nap

their heavy heads able to rest

only on their own knees, supported

on their arms

Sun-bathed and rain-drenched, the clothes

on her have been torn into

a heap of rags, adding to the sorrow

you have melted in the water and ink. She has no

strength left that can help her stand up

her large hands pulled out of shape

by the falling gravity, her whole person

held by the sickle, it seems

The female wheat harvester, the napping female

wheat harvester under the sun, her pigtail

hanging from her head resembling the black wheat wave

Chen Xiaoxin, a cultural scholar, on Chao Hai:

Although his figurative paintings have taken a departure from mainstream creation, even from the state ideology, they are deeply rooted in the soil of the Northwest, among the ordinary rural people at the bottom of the social ladder and in the overlapped changing time and space in terms of history and reality. They engage in deep excavation and expansion by grabbing hold of the characters' personalities that is upright, kind and tenacious and of the theme of their indefatigable albeit tragic fight against their fate.In modelling, he breaks out of the meticulous gongbi style or freehand xieyi style, as well as of the realistic xieshi style or expressive style, by blending a variety of elements into a great form of shapelessness, unified in dignity and profundity.

读《麦客》（2004年）

身后是你，割得空旷的山河

身前是你，割不下去的麦地

都在拖延，一年只有

一次的交锋。神也想从最后的麦地里

取走你身上，堆积得太多的

镰刀的伤痕，以此

抑制土地，患上种子的忧郁

跟着麦子赶场，再熟悉的

村庄，你看不见

这个时候，天下就在

一把镰刀之上，就在一片黄成纯金

一样的麦子之上

而你粗大的，身骨

也有可能，倒在一大片

热昏了的麦子，从天空带来的冰雹里

死在麦地连天的路上，麦客

没有家，也没有坟墓

僵硬的脸上，你的表情

像写给自己的，一封遗书

身后是麦地，只是很少有麦客

身前是麦地，只是看不见麦客

大家说晁海：

达摩十年面壁，石壁上凹进去一个深幽的抹不掉的佛陀身影。晁海十年面山，山石上凸起来许多郁结的化不开的民族精魂。看晁海的画，使我想起唐代司空图《二十四诗品》里的一段话：大用外腓，真体内充，返虚入浑，积健为雄。这句话的意思是：大用之文伸张于外，源于自然真气鼓荡于内；艺术家若能返回浑然的至道，就能积累健壮而无比雄强。晁海的画，正以他富于个性的独特创造，谱写出这简练的十六字诀的当代文本。

——美术理论家  翟墨

Reading The Wheat Harvesters (2004)

Behind you are the mountains and rivers, hollow after the cutting

and before you are the wheat fields you can't continue cutting

All are delaying the annual

assault. The deity would also like to take

so much woundby the sickle

that's been piling up, from you in order to

contain the land as you, inflicted with the sorrow of the seeds

and moving from site to site, you fail to see

villages too familiar to you

by then, the under-heaven comes

over a sickle, over the wheat

that has turned into pure gold

and your large bone structure

may fall into the hail, brought from out of the sky

by a large spread of wheat fainting in the heat

dead on the road with the wheat field connected to the sky. The wheat harvesters

have no home and no graves

on your stiff faces, your expressions

are like the dying words you've written to your self

The wheat field behind you except there are few wheat harvesters

and the wheat field before you except that there are no wheat harvesters seen

Zhai Mo, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Bodhidharma sat facing the wall till Buddha's figure, deep and inerasable, sank into the wall. When Chao Hai sat facing the mountains for ten years, mountain stones bulged with many a national spirit that refused to melt. When I looked at his paintings, I was reminded of a remark in Twenty-four Styles of Poetry by Sikong Tu in the Tang dynasty that goes in ancient Chinese: 大用外腓，真体内充，返虚入浑，积健为雄, which means, in contemporary Chinese, that an article of great importance extends itself outward, taking its source of authentic natural airs from the inside, and when an artist can return to the perfect way of completeness he is unmatchedly powerful in his accumulated robustness. It is with his individualistic and unique creation that Chao Hai has composed such contemporary texts based on the brevity of the 16-character formula.

卷三：梦回故里

梦回故里，你看见

大地投下，千年的身形

还在一堆黄土，抹不开的色泽里

世世代代，雕塑陨石一样的

面孔。沟谷里

没有一丝，能滋润天空的

水声，神灵走远的路上

苍茫的人，转过身来

Volume 3:Returning Home in a Dream

Returning home in a dream, you see

the earth cast a figure of thousand years

that remains in the unspreadable colours of a heap of yellow earth

for generation after generation, sculpting the faces

like meteors. In the valleys

there was not a single sound of water

that can moisten the sky and on a road where gods have travelled far

the boundless man is turning around

读《梦回故里之一》（1998年）

不是你的，笔墨干枯

也不是那一年，你在神游之中

一手推远，身后的秦岭

穿过的，渭河干枯

梦回故里，你看见

大地投下，千年的身形

还在一堆黄土，抹不开的色泽里

世世代代，雕塑陨石一样的

面孔。沟谷里

没有一丝，能滋润天空的

水声，神灵走远的路上

苍茫的人，转过身来

丧乱的风，刮过

土塬的上空，可以吹绿

坡地里的麦苗，也可以吹活

窑背上的枯木。而被刀斧凿过的

人的脸面，不是风

能随意修改。重过金属的

大地上，你用洗练的

水墨，提炼阳光

带着灵与肉，我在你

泼洒给故里，高贵的墨色里

读到的声音，像从黄土

地心，击打而出

大家说晁海：

晁海令人迷惑也令人感兴趣的是，他决不在中国传统艺术和西方现代艺术之间寻找联系。他的作品不是形式语言的抽象合成，也拒绝使用中国传统或西方现代的任何符号。中国艺术家从西方同行中学到的对于新形式的追逐，晁海实在不能苟同。他作品的精神和所用材料完全来源于中国传统艺术，但是他的创作又和僵化的水墨画惯例有明确的决裂。晁海作品中的主观经验和实验性让西方人可以毫不迟疑地说，他的作品是现代艺术，是世界艺术。

                                     ——德国文化学者  马克.西蒙

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 1) (1998)

It's not your ink running dry

nor that year, as you were roaming in your imagination

you pushed afar the drying Wei River

that was running through the Qinling Mountain behind you

Returning home in a dream, you see

the earth cast a figure of a thousand years

that remains in the unspreadable colours of a heap of yellow earth

for generation after generation, sculpting the faces

like meteors. In the valleys

there was not a single sound of water

that can moisten the sky and on a road where gods have travelled far

the boundless man is turning around

The wind, distraught,when it blew across

over the loess plateau, could green

the young wheat and set alive

the dead wood over the backs of the cavesbut the human faces

carved by the knives and axes were not something

that could be revised at random.On the earth

heavy-metalled, you purified the sunshine

with the refined water and ink

With soul and flesh, I, in your

ennobled ink colours, splashed to the native home

read the sound that is like something

struck out of the heart of the yellow earth

Fotos Mark Siemons, a German cultural scholar, on Chao Hai:

What is attractive and interesting about Chao Hai is that he never seeksconnections between traditional Chinese art and modern Western art as his work is not an abstract composition of formal language and he refuses to use any traditional or modern Western signs, actually disagreeing with the pursuit by the Chinese artistsof new forms they have learnt from their Western counterparts.The spirit of his work and his material entirely comes from traditional Chinese art. But his creation is a definite break with the rigid conventions of water and ink paintings.The subjective experience and experimentation in Chao Hai's work have moved the Westerners to say, without any hesitation, that his work is modern art, world art.

读《梦回故里之二》（1988年）

谁能从旧有的，大地上

赶走你笔下，那位顶天立地的人

谁的身边，就只剩下失去

水墨的空谷

天地暗下去，头顶的

云朵亮了，你又从故乡

取走一座千年大山，风雨吹过

一张宣纸的时候，你让一位牵牛人

站在这里，有了横空

出世的感觉

你挥笔，把山的筋骨给他

你泼墨，把山的血肉给他

天空亮了，他站着

双腿像水墨，打造出来的两根铁钉

抓紧大地的肌肤，让死去的人

仰躺在地下，也能听见

那些山水，埋藏下

万物的声音

关中塬上，那些埋着

帝王的山，被你搬在大过田野的

宣纸上，用水墨雕塑一群人

或依偎，他们的牛

大家说晁海：

中国农民背起了全部中国历史的苦难，农民最苦，故农民是佛。有哪个画家像晁海这样浓墨展现农民的佛性？这是理解晁海作品的关键。晁海的作品有一种大悲悯的情怀，大苦难的意象，还有一种我们在中国世俗画家那里很少感到，却可以从唐代以前尤其是北朝佛教雕刻和壁画上感觉到，也可以从西方有宗教精神的画作中感受到的大感激的心情。大苦难、大悲悯、大感激，晁海的画让我们洞见劳苦者的佛性，心灵得到净化。

                                            ——文化学者  王鲁湘

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 2) (1988)

He who can chase that man, standing tall under your brush

between heaven and earth, off the face of the earth that existed of old

will be left with only a hollow valley

depleted of the water and ink

Heaven and earth are darkening, with the clouds brightening up

overhead, when you take again a thousand-year-old mountain

from your native home where when the wind and rain blow across

a piece of rice paper you let a man leading a cow

stand here, giving a sense of being

born

When you swish your brush, you give him the bones of a mountain

and when you pour the ink you give him the flesh and blood of a mountain

With the skies brightening up, he is standing

his legs two iron nails, forged out of water and ink

grabbing hold of the skin of the earth, letting the dead

lie face up underground and hear

the sound of things buried underneath

those mountains and waters

On the Guanzhong Loess Plateau, the mountains

with burials of emperors are brought by you over a piece of rice paper

vaster than a field where you sculpt a group of people with water and ink

or snuggle against their cows

Wang Luxiang, a cultural scholar, on Chao Hai:

The Chinese peasants put all the misery of Chinese history on their shoulders and, for that reason, they are the bitterest. Hence the peasants as Buddhas. Has any artist portrayed the Buddhist nature of the peasants as Chao Hai has done with such thick ink? Now, that is the key to his work, which has the feelings of great sorrow and great suffering.There is also a feeling of great gratitude that one can gain from the Buddhist sculptures and mural paintings before the Tang dynasty, particularly in the Northern dynasty, and from the paintings with religious spirit in the West. Of great suffering, great sorrow and great gratitude, Chao Hai's paintings allow us to gain an insight into the Buddhist nature of the labourers to such a degree that one's heart is purified.

读《梦回故里之三》（1989年）

黄土在塬上，带着

稀疏的草木，从一面陡坡上

漫漶下来

被压迫在，大风

吹过的坡下，一片村庄

深陷在黄土里，也像带着古老的

风水，一路漫漶下来

柴门土窑里，有人间的寂静

也有烟火上升

落尽枯叶，树木

抬高着村庄，也让深陷在

黄土里的人家，露出干净的面目

而每个，可以放下

身体的夜晚，是活着的人

向泥土的，一次退缩

这样的村庄，多数

已经消失了，那些在原地

活得长久的，轮廓更加硬朗

大家说晁海：

与很多操持水墨的所谓当代名家相比，他的思虑和抱负都更为深远、孤峭，他的命题是“怎样将北方那种厚重、汉唐那种博大气势、庄禅那种玄冥、石雕那种岁月的磨砺，大地、山河、峡谷、高原，这些心象，通过水墨岁积月累在生宣上，使其具有强烈视角触摸感。”他确认自己所要追求的个人语言的那种陌生感，是建立在精神内涵和创造完善的积墨和废除原中国画形式中重要的线等为基础上的。这样的自我期待可谓惊人。

——文化学者  朱朱

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 3) (1989)

The loess of the plateau is blurring down

a steep slope, carrying sparse grass

with it

Oppressed under the slope, swept by

a big wind, a spread of villages

has sunken deeply in the loess, blurring down all the way

like the ancient wind and water

in the earthen caves with wooden gates, there is human quietness

and there is also a rising smoke

When the dead leaves are all shed, the trees

are raising the villages while revealing the clean facial features

of the families, deeply sunken in the loess

and each night that can put down its body

is a retreat towards the soil by the living

Most of such villages

have disappeared while those that stay where they are

and live longer have tougher outlines

Zhu Zhu, a cultural scholar, on Chao Hai:

Compared with many so-called contemporary heavies who work with water and ink, he has thoughts and ambitions that are more far-reaching and solitary. His proposition is 'to accumulate via water and ink the heart phenomena on the raw rice paper, the wearings and tearings by time, the land, the mountains and rivers, the valleys and the plateau, as abstract and stone-carved as Zen Buddhism, as vast and momentous as the Han and Tang dynasties, and as heavy and thick as the North, so that they acquire a strong sense of visual tactility.'The sense of strangeness that he is sure that he is in pursuit of in his personal language is based on the creation of spiritual contents and perfectly accumulated ink by doing away with the important lines in the forms of Chinese paintings. Such expectations are amazing.

读《梦回故里之四》（1989年）

没有背景，也没有

人和工具以外的，那些多余

又夺目的渲染

要干净地，还原

生活之中，每天上演的场景

这个时候，男人的肩膀都是铁打的

女人也一样，只要出嫁给

土塬上的村子，挑水

仅次于生育

挑水的人，起得比候鸟早

挑水的人，惊醒左邻右舍

只是这样的，场景

早已谢幕。那位腰身粗壮的男人

他脊背上的辫子，透露出

这一身的力气，来自

一个旧时代。离开人间

他去了哪里

挑水的女人，最多

挽上袖口，而挑水男人的衣裳

早被汗水脱去

大家说晁海：

晁海赋予他笔下的人物以山的意象，这山是永恒的；晁海眼中的人物像碑石一样，这碑石稳稳地伫立于神秘宽厚的大地上。在晁海的作品前，有关“传统”“民族”“精神”的议论都显得空泛。我们确确实实感受到，晁海用他那支心手相应的画笔，探触到我们祖先的血脉，我们民族的灵魂。这是艺术家苦苦追求了二十多年的“顿悟”。二十多年来，他像一个农民一样，在西部的土地上默默劳作，神与心会，心与气合，“目不见素娟，手不知笔墨，磊磊落落”。

——美术理论家  殷双喜

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 4) (1989)

No background norextra eye-catching

dramatization beyond the humans

and their tools

Performances, daily staged in life

must be cleanly restaged

when men's shoulders are iron-clad

and women's are the same as long as they are married out to

the villages on the loess plateau, shoulder-poling the water

second only to giving birth

Watercarriers rise earlier than birds of passage

and watercarrierswake up their neighbours

except that such scenes

have long become a curtain call. The man with a thick back

has a pigtail that reveals

a body fful of strength and he comes

from the olden days. When he left the world

where did he go?

Most of the watercarriers are women

their sleeves rolled up whereas the male carriers

have long shed their sweaty clothes

Yin Shuangxi, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Chao Hai endows his figures with the image of a mountain that is eternal. In his eyes, the figures are like gravestones that are steadily standing on the mysterious and broad earth. Before Chao Hai's work, all the talk about tradition, nation and spirit sounds empty for we can actually feel that the painting brush in his hand that goes along with his heart has touched the veins of our ancestors, the soul of our nation, which is the sensibilities he has been pursuing over the last twenty-odd years. In those twenty-odd years, he, like a peasant, has been labouring in the Western part of the land where his soul meets his heart and his heart meets with air in a way that much resembles the description of a status in which 'the eye does not see the undyed silk and the hand does not know the brush or ink, both in an open and upright manner.'

读《梦回故里之五》（1990年）

大地在身后，带着天空

开始不顾一切地，塌陷

这是大地，突然看见

这些人之后，一次以毁灭自己

为代价的感动。而他们

带着粗大的身骨，也带着

惊恐的表情，向着

天空张望

天空有神的声音

天空有村上，所有死去的人

天空有天空里的，粮食

站在大地的，边沿

铁打的他们，像一座

移动的山峰。牵上一起耕种的牛

挎上简单的行李，听着神

在更远处的，召唤

他们上路

或许，这是一次劳动后

带着神意，他们咏而归

大家说晁海：

晁海的水墨画从现实主义向形式主义的裂变在本质上并非追求纯形式的创造，而是寻求与发现自我，最后实现对自我的重塑。晁海没有从乡土现实主义走向风情，而是从中挖掘了原始主义的内涵，他深深地为题材所感动。他看到的不仅是一种原始的美，而且还顿悟到了精神的力量，并从这种精神中看到与自我的同一性。如果这种精神得以升华的话，那便是自我意识的高扬，是人格意志的真正觉醒。

——美术理论家  易英

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 5) (1990)

The land, behind, with the sky

begins to recklessly collapse

a movement at the price of itself

when suddenly

seeing these people while they

with their rough bones and also

their astonished expressions look

towards the sky

where there is the sound of the deity

and there are all the dead people from the village

with all the food of the sky

Standing on the edge of the land

they, the ironclad, are like a

moving mountain.Leading the cattle farming the land together with them

carrying their simple luggage and listening to the deity

calling them to hit the road

from further away

or perhaps this is their return chanting

with a feeling of godliness after labour

Yi Ying, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

By nature, the shift of Chao Hai's water and ink paintings from realism to formalism is not a pursuit of creation in pure forms but a seeking out and discovery of self, realizing a final reshaping of self. Chao Hai does not walk towards sentimentalism from soil realism; instead, he excavates the contents of primitivism from it as he is deeply moved by the subject matter. He has not only seen a primitive beauty but he has also had an epiphany of the spiritual power and has seen the spiritual sameness with the self. If such a spirit is sublimated, the self-consciousness will soar, achieving a real awakening of the personal will.

读《梦回故里之六》（1997年）

被天上的，流云

翻身看见了，这里的女人

比流云还美

不是黄土沉闷，也不是

屹立在你面前的，山水陈旧

那双看穿世事的目光，在没有触碰

女人寂静的，身世时

力透纸背，在你随时使出

蛮荒之力的手上，很多事物

显示出的，气象

都很狂野

一旦收住，狂野

成性的水墨，拂去扑面而来的虚土

我看见的女人，面目姣好

脸上也透出了，古瓷的清亮

点染她的，头饰

你从颜色的，牢笼里

终于放出，一抹淡淡的

赭石之色

这里的女人，知道

向西有一条，拉长历史的

马嵬坡

大家说晁海：

今天更多人去关注社会，关注事件，关注一些即时性的、与时代连接非常紧密的情绪与问题。而晁海却显得更从容，因为他的创作围绕着他的美学理想，这种属于文化深层的特质，就像把苍山还给大地，是再自然不过却又恒久坚固的内涵。所以在他作品干湿浓淡间，透出的是文化内敛的凝聚力和凝重力。这种含蓄而厚重的感染力是美学概念的体现，也是美学价值的体现。

——美术理论家  张子康

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 6) (1997)

See by the drifting clouds in the sky

when they turn over, women here

are more beautiful than the drifting clouds

it's not that the loess is dull or that

the mountains and waters in front of you are old

the eye that penetrates the worldly affairs, before it touches

the quiet lives of the women

has the power of going through the paper and, with your hands

that can generate a savage force at random, the atmosphere

many things reveal

are feral

once held up, the water and ink

of a feral nature can wipe off the surface dust rushing in the face

the woman I see has a beautiful face

as clearly bright as the ancient porcelain

with headgear that adds colour to her

when you are released

from the prison of colours, you finally release a faint trace

of ocker

for all the women here know

that there is a slope to the West that is lengthening the history, called

Maweipo

Zhang Zikang, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Today, more attention is given to society, to events, to emotions and issues that are immediate and closely related to the times but Chao Hai seems to take a more leisurely attitude because his creation centres around his aesthetic ideal. This quality that belongs to the deep level of culturecontains things that are most natural but that are also eternal and solid, almost as if he was returning the mountains to the land, which is why his work, between dry and wet, and between thick and thin, reveals cultural cohesion and dignity. Such expressiveness, contained but massive, is a reflection of an aesthetic concept and of aesthetic values.

读《梦回故里之七》（1991年）

这样的场景，让我眼热

让我回到，另一个马坊

蹲在地头，一群

劳累的人，也是一群

骨架结实的人。不会訇然倒下去

身边的牲口，带着胃里

消化完了的，干草的味道

回头注视着，端在他们手里

一只碗，能埋住一张

支离破碎的脸

这个时候，人和牲口

拥挤在大地，被翻开泥土的一角

就是埋下，种子的

一片山河

我曾咬牙，蹲在其中

把一副枯瘦在，青春期的脸面

埋进一只碗里。记住留在

碗边的呼吸，多年以后

只要想起，饥饿

就把我带回，他们蹲过的

地头上，一片萋萋的

芳草，不会认出我

也没有我，想要看见的

场景，一切都走进画里

大家说晁海：

晁海是当代优秀画家之一，他的艺术成果和艺术品质都是一流的。在长期的艺术实践中，他创造的以积墨表现农民生活和动物世界的作品有独特的风格，语言沉厚雄浑，境界深刻，具有打动人心的力量，是在传统基础上的再创造。晁海的作品是生活的结晶，也是思想的积累和人格的写照。他为人诚实执着，对艺术高度专注，对艺术辩论法有着透彻的理解，在处理笔墨的各种辩证关系并运用到造型过程中，有许多独到的体会和见解。

——美术理论家  程大利

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 7) (1991)

Such a scene warms my eye

letting me go back to another Mafang

Squatting at the head of the field, a group

of tired people is also a group

of sturdy-boned people who won't collapse with a noise

The cattle nearby, with the aftertaste

of the digested in their stomachs

are turning their heads to watch

the bowl, held in the people's

hands, that can bury a

fragmented face

At that moment, people and cattle

are crowded on the land and a corner of the mud, dug up

is a spread of mountain-river, buried with seeds

I used to bite my teeth, squatting among them

burying my face, made skinny in my youth

in the bowl. I remember the breathings

left at the edge of the bowl as many years after

when I recall it, hunger

will take me back to the head of the field

where they squatted although the luxuriant

grass won't recognise me

and there's no scene that I want to see

as everything has gone into the painting

Cheng Dali, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Chao Hai is one of the contemporary finest artists as hisartistic achievements and quality are first-rate. In a long artistic practice, his work expressing peasant's lives and the world of animals with accumulative ink has a unique style, its language profound and majestic andits realm deeply moving, all re-creations based on the tradition. Chao Hai's work is crystalised life and also a portrayal of accumulated thoughts and personality. He is an honest and persistent personhighly attentive to art, with a thorough understanding of the artistic dialectics, who has a unique perception and understanding of the process in which he deals with the various dialectics of brush and ink as he applies them to the moulding of the figures.

读《梦回故里之八》（1992年）

赶集的路上，一片

人畜的河流，在忙罢过后的乡村

被挤满更多事物的，天空

裁剪成景

还是那条，唯一能够

走上塬顶的黄土大道，这世上

曾有一群人，空着肚子

也要相互叫上邻居，去交一年的皇粮

驮在牲口，失去平坦的脊梁上

那些粮食的山，在山河

最偏僻的地方，跟着天上的

云朵移动

也有女人，从麦田里

像抽出镰刀一样，抽出自己

苦累至极的身子，穿上昨天浆洗过的

蓝花布衣裳，坐在

一头毛驴身上，跟着头顶

苦唱的黄鹂，抹去麦芒

一样火辣的眼泪，回到

父母的村庄，

云集在一块，可以

放下很多事物，也可以打发走

很多人的地方，我们的敬重

从一头牲口，身上开始

大家说晁海：

这些年来晁海埋头苦干，经营水墨如同经营自己的命，将生民、活着的苦涩呈现为精神宇宙的敬畏与惶恐。特别是这两年的新作，我们可以看到作品中的一些局部，当水墨的细节被超常放大时让人感到有一种如黄河奔涌、宇宙洪荒的震撼。这让我联想到晁海的家乡陕西兴平，那里的黄土埋着汉武大帝、骠骑大将霍去病，特别是霍去病墓前的石刻雕像，两千多年来一直屹立在那里，威武雄浑、简约深沉、豪迈有力，化形为韵、略技重神。

——美术理论家  安远远

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 8) (1992)

The road to the market is a river

of people and cattle, which cuts into a scene

in the sky, crowded with more things

after the busy time

It's still the same avenue of loess

that can reach the top of the plateau and in this world

there used to be a group of people who, despite their empty stomachs

would call their neighbours to go together and to pay the annual grain funds

with food carried on the back, that has lost the balance, of the animals

The mountains where the food comes from move

with the sky

where the mountains and rivers are the remotest

There are also women who pull themselves

tired in the extreme, out of the wheat field

like they pull out their sickles, wearingblue-flower cloth garments

washed and starched yesterday, sitting

on a donkey, following the orioles singing in a bitter voice

overhead and wiping their tears

as fiery as the awn of the wheat, on their return

to their parents' villages

When they gather together, the clouds can put down

a lot of things and can also send the place away

that has many people when our respect

begins from the cattle

An Yuanyuan, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

For many years, Chao Hai has been working with utmost concentration, engaging in water and ink as if engaging in his own life, and regarding the bitterness of the living people as fear and admiration of the universal spirit. In his work produced over the last two years in particular, we can see that parts of it carry a sense of shock like the rushing of the Yellow River or the universe laid waste to when the details are enlarged. This reminds me of Xingping, Shanxi, Chao Hai's hometown where Great Emperor Wu of Han and General Huo Qubing were buried in the loess, particularly the carved stone stature of Huo Qubing that has been standing there for the last two thousand years, magnificent, profound and powerful,turning shape into rhythm, ignoring the skills while trying to achieve spiritual similarities.

读《梦回故里之九》（1995年）

一场收麦的大戏，正在渭河

率先黄透，自己的平原上演

带着金子的，成色

麦子的骚动，让天空失去

一片蓝调的冷色，大块汹涌上来的

云朵下面，收麦的人

匍匐在麦子，卷起的波浪里

他们的筋骨，碰得大地

在无数把，铁打的

镰刀上抽搐

割倒身边的，麦地

让风进来，吹去扎进肌肉里的麦芒

也让风，带着遍地麦香

到天上去，放下一年的祭祀

这个时候，不能抬头

不能让众神手中的，麦子

从身后赶来，夺走

卷刃的镰刀

一场人神，共演的收麦大戏

在水墨上，被简化成两个人

大家说晁海：

检阅一下最近的水墨画创作状况便可知道，晁海几乎成了一位绕不过去的人物。很多批评家都对他关注，给予好评，我想不是偶然的。晁海的作品靠其不可替代的特色，包括样式和技巧的特殊性，为自己赢得了牢固的地位。毫无疑问，就他的地域而言，他的超越性和覆盖面已经获得证明，他已经不仅仅是西安的画家了。

——美术理论家  李小山

Reading Returning Home in a Dream (No. 9) (1995)

A great drama about wheat harvesting is being staged on the Weihe River's own

plain that has taken the lead to make itself yellow through and through

the stir of the wheat, with the quality of gold

has caused the sky to lose its cold colours in blue tones, and under the

masses of surging clouds, the wheat harvesters

are crouching in the curved waves of the wheat

as their bones knock the earth

into convulsions on countless

iron sickles

Cut down the wheat at hand

and let the wind in to blow off the awn of wheat from within the muscles

and also let the wind go up to the sky

with the wheat fragrance from all over the land, offering the annual sacrifice

by then, one couldn't raise one's head

as one couldn't allow the wheat in the hands of the gods

to come rushing from behind and snatch away

the curled blade of the sickle

A big drama, jointly performed by people and the gods

is simplified into two people, in water and ink

Li Xiaoshan, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

When you have a review of the recent works in water and ink, you will know that Chao Hai is not someone you can ignore. It is not accidental that many critics have given him attention, with favourable comments. Chao Hai's work has secured a solid position for himself, with its irreplaceable features, including the particularity of its patterns and skills. Undoubtedly, his transcendence over and coverage of his own region is evidence enough that he is not a mere artist of Xi'an alone.

卷四：水墨

在土地上，生死

没有哪些神灵，能从半路上闪出来

帮你爬坡过坎。身上没有

一副扛住山河的，骨架

就是跪下，也不能从庄稼地里

讨回粮食。种地人

背起山河，每天吃着

自己的力气

Volume IV: Water and Ink

Despite birth and death on the land

no deities would appear, halfway on the road, like a flash

to help you up the slope.Without a bone-frame

that could hold up the mountains and rivers

you couldn't possibly beg back food from the field

even if you were down on your knees. The peasants

with mountains and rivers on their backs, ate their

own strength on a daily basis

读《水墨作品之一》（1989年）

你半蹲下，浑身的力气

依然提着，向上的大地

在土地上，生死

没有哪些神灵，能从半路上闪出来

帮你爬坡过坎。身上没有

一副扛住山河的，骨架

就是跪下，也不能从庄稼地里

讨回粮食。种地人

背起山河，每天吃着

自己的力气

如果可以，我会采下

你石锤一样，瓷实地扎在

大地上的每一个马步，看一粒种子

能否从中破土？而你摊开

猿人一样的手臂，像要把万物

揽在怀里，也像一次

失落的祈祷，心事苍茫

大写在脸上

我看见你，像一枚铁铸的

印章，把自己盖在土地上

大家说晁海：

晁海对农村和农民有真切的关怀。关心他们的命运，表达他的态度、他的感情。为此，他创造了一种特别的风格。即用传统没骨法塑造形象，把农民画得像雕塑一样浑厚、凝重、朴实、单纯、高度简化，甚至只突出人物的局部，如面部、臂膀、粗壮的双手，也都想雕塑那样有体量感。这样的形象，让人去想象农民的艰辛、农民的朴实和他们蕴藏着的力量。这种形象和风格全用水墨没骨法表现，是过去没有过的。

——美术理论家  郎绍君

Reading Water and Ink Work (No. 1) (1989)

You half squat, all your strength

still lifting the upward earth

Despite birth and death on the land

no deities would appear, halfway on the road, like a flash

to help you up the slope. Without a bone-frame

that could hold up the mountains and rivers

you couldn't possibly beg back food from the field

even if you were down on your knees. The peasants

with mountains and rivers on their backs, ate their

own strength on a daily basis

If possible, I shall gather

every horse step you solidly put down

on the earth, like stone-hammers, to see if each seed

will break out of it.And you spread

your arms, like those of an ape-man, as if you'd hold all things

in your arms, also like a

lost prayer, your heart things vast

capitalised on your face

I can see you, like an iron-cast seal

seal yourself on the land

Lang Shaojun, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Chao Hai has real concern for the peasants in the countryside as he is concerned with their fate and he expresses his attitude and his feeling. For this purpose, he has created a special style, in which he shapes the figures with the traditional mogu (boneless)technique, making the peasants asvigorous, dignified, artless and simple, highly simplified,like sculptures, going so far as to accentuate only the parts, such as the face, the arms and the thickened hands, all as three-dimensional as a sculpture. Such figures make it possible for one to imagine the hardship, the honesty and the hidden power of the peasants, with this imagery and style expressed in the mogu manner, with water and ink, that has never been seen before.

读《水墨作品之二》（1994年）

生命中的，所有重量

都被身边的时间，带进一双

磨灭自己的手上

也是时间，从古老得

出土一块陶片，就惊天动地的老关中

带来一双，握着时间的手

我知道，这是一双

扶着铁犁，在身体的土地上

埋进不幸的手，在很多

牲口身上，留下没有

痕迹的鞭声

脸色的凝重，也让手

更低地垂落着，这时的天空

高远得没有一朵，可以用来压惊的云

还得等着，一次洪水退去

一场瘟疫，从死寂的村庄里消失

而能传世地，记录下

演义在土地上的，灾难

不一定是文字

多年以后，看见这位

跪成铁石的人，我想那双手

也是磨灭，一个年代的手

大家说晁海：

我想晁海对于水墨表现力的最重要的拓展，就是他所创造的那种独特的“积墨”表现手法。这在今天的新水墨艺术家、实验水墨艺术家里很少有人可以和他匹敌。晁海的艺术创造也就是他的“积墨”艺术语汇，我认为是自黄宾虹以来在这方面最有创造性的艺术表现。他的作品通过“积墨”艺术语汇的创造，把水墨的表现性特质在这一方面发挥到了极致。

——美术理论家  皮道坚

Reading Water and Ink Work (No. 2) (1994)

All the weight of life

has been brought to the hands by the time at hand

that destroy themselves

It is also time that brings a pair

hands grabbing time from the ancient Guanzhong

where a piece of porcelain, unearthed, would shatter the sky

I know the hands are a pair

that has been holding the plough and buried misfortune

in the earth of body, leaving the whipping sound

on many cattle

without a trace

The dignified facial features have allowed the hands

to fall lower when the sky

is so high and far that there is not a single cloud to help one get over the shock

One still has to wait for the floor to recede

When a plague disappeared from a deathly village

but managed to record the disaster, like handing down something from the past

that had been performed on the land

although it was not necessarily words

Many years after when I see this person

that kneelsin the shape of iron-stone, I assume that the hands

must have also been the ones that have destroyed the age

Pi Daojian, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

In my opinion,the most important expansion in the expressiveness of water and ink by Chao Hai is the unique method of jimo (accumulative ink) that he created, which remains unmatched among the new water and ink artists and experimental water and ink artists. I am of the opinion that Chao Hai's artistic creation, e.g. his jimo art vocabulary, is the most creative artistic expression in this regard since Huang Binhong as his work takes the expressiveness of water and ink to the extreme through the creation of the jimo art vocabulary.

读《水墨作品之三》（1989年）

女孩的面孔，也会让你

苍茫的水墨，明亮起来

她的衣着，她的

发式，映像在她一个人身上

是一种极简的，也最适应劳动的素朴

如果用她，还原一群人

她的目光里，会溢出一些冷漠

要去代表，一个集体

苍白的年代，这会

让她蒙羞

那个年代的，女孩

多数失去了性别，带着和男孩们一样

饥饿的外表，除过死里逃生的

婚后的生育，身体只属于

忧伤的田野。扎在她头上的

那绺布片，像女孩心里

唯一飞出来，向天地展示

自己的蝴蝶

那个年代里，如果还带有

一些明亮，都在她的脸上

大家说晁海：

晁海的绘画重体积、重形、重浑厚的体积和造型，但是从客观中来。他不是不研究客观自然，我看过他一些人物的素描、速写，它们是具象表现的，具有写意性，对客观人物做了深入的研究，态度是非常严肃的、方法是非常缜密的。他很重视把握整体，又表现细节的精妙，强调那些动人的地方。晁海吸收了文人画的一些观念，但是他用的不是文人画的创作方法。他的艺术是现在很多方面和文人画背道而驰，但是文人画的精神他是尊重的。

——美术理论家  邵大箴

Reading Water and Ink Work (No. 3) (1989)

A girl's face will brighten up

your indistinct water and ink

as her clothes and her

hairstyle, reflected on her

are a minimalist unadornedness that is most fitting with labour

If she is used to restore a group of people

her eyes may shed some indifference

as she may feel ashamed

to represent an age when a collective

was pale

In those days, most of the girls

lost their gender, looking hungry

like the boys, their bodies belonging only to the sad fields

except the death-like birth. The piece of cloth

stuck in her heart resembled a butterfly

the only one that flew out of her heart

to show itself to heaven and the earth

In those days, if there was any brightness

at all, it was on her face

Shao Dazhen, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Although there is an emphasis on dimensions, shapes, size and modelling in Chao Hai's paintings, they all come from the physical.It is not as if he did not study the actual and the natural. I have seen his drawings and sketches and found that they are expressive andimpressionistic, based on a deep research into the objective persons, with a serious attitude and meticulous methods.He values totality as well as the exquisiteness of detail, emphasizing what is moving.Although he has absorbed concepts of the literati painting, Chao Hai is not using the literati painting methods. His art, in many respects, runs counter to the literati painting even though he pays respect to the spirit therein.

读《水墨作品之四》（1990年）

你的形体里，藏有

一个女人的多少羞涩，风不去问

你的形体，被你穿得

地老天荒的衣服，带着还在

流动的色块，一身青涩地

放大在人世上，我和神

都看见了

看见你，不知道屈服地站着

看见你，跟着天空耸动的肩胛

看见你，挽起风的袖口

看见你，空着的手

我只有承认，你是一个

过早地看见，或懂得自己的女人

你的稚气，未消的脸

告诉世人，一个女人的青春

不会因为出身，而被打折

天空下，带着一身的

不屈，你走来

大家说晁海：

他的画奇特不止是题材主题，更是他的水墨笔法，他的最大创新在此、他的最大功力也在此。他不用线条（晁海的线条可见到他的线条功力），而用圆块，所以他的画有强大的质感与立体感，至于他在生宣纸上能作如油画般多层次的积染，创造出水墨画如此感人效果，则是他能非常人之所能的地方了。晁海的水墨画是现代的，也纯然是中国的，中国水墨画在他的巨笔下展现出了一个奇特的水墨天地，晁海是中国水墨画的一座奇峰。

——香港中文大学原校长  金耀基

ReadingWater and Ink Work (No. 4) (1990)

How much shyness of a womanis hidden

in your figure? The wind does not

ask it and the clothes you wore

till the end of time, carrying colours

that are still running, are enlarged in the world

in all blackness, which both gods and I

have seen

seen you standing without knowing how to be submissive

seen you following the shrugging shoulders of the sky

seen you holding the sleeves of wind

seen you with empty hands

I have to admit that you are a

woman who saw or understood yourself too early

as your face, still childish

tells the world that a woman's youth

won't be discounted because of her family background

under the sky, and with

perseverance, you are coming

Ambrose King Yeo-Chi, Former Vice-Chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, on Chao Hai:

His paintings are peculiar not just because of the subject matter or themes but more because of his water and ink brushwork where his best innovation and his most power lie.He dispenses with lines (inChao Hai's lines one can see the power of lines) and uses round spots, which is why his paintings have a powerful sense of texture and three-dimensional quality.His unmatched nature lies where he can achieve multi-layers ofjiran (accumulative dyeing) on the rice paper, like oil paintings, creating such moving effects with water and ink. Chao Hai's water and ink paintings are modern and purely Chinese, and, under his huge brush, the Chinese water and ink paintings have shown a strange landscape of water and ink, with Chao Hai being a peculiar peak in the Chinese water and ink paintings.

读《水墨作品》（1990年）

黄土的起伏，其实

是人群的起伏，是庄稼的起伏

也是一群，牛的起伏

关中的，天空亮着

在很多远去，只留下一身黄土的年代

牛也是一群，大地上的主角

一刻不歇地，移动在它们坦荡的

背上，是地里的庄稼

以及在饥饿中，想着一些

粮食，死去的人

很多时候，人和牛都一样

活在地上，很像一群鬼魂

只是失去了，这些悲喜

再也回不到，关中的旧山河里

看一个很古旧的牵牛人，像牵着江山

稳当地行走在，生死与共的

田野之上，绵延在

他的身后，牛背交错的

大地，温暖起伏

看着牛背上的，大地

我想一个人深入进去，让自己

舍身，与之起伏

大家说晁海：

有一种观点是中国画到了穷途末路了。对穷途末路的解释之一是：中国画的笔墨已经有了一千多年的实验，达到了炉火纯青的程度，已经无法超越，因此只能另找出路。晁海掌握的度非常恰当，他既不黏在古人身上，但又有很深的古人笔墨的传统。也就是说他把笔墨的问题又重新提出来，挑战了笔墨不能再发展的理论，他在笔墨上作出了新文章。他的笔墨，在神髓上发扬了传统，很有功夫。

——美术理论家  刘骁纯

Reading Water and Ink Work (1990)

The heaving of the loess is, in fact

that of the crowds of people, of the crop

and also of the cattle

The sky over Guanzhong is bright

in many years that are past and that have left bodies of loess

the cattle was also a group of protagonists on the land

what kept moving, non-stop, on their magnanimous

backs was the crop in the fields

and the dead, still thinking of food

in their hunger

Many times, people and the cattle are alike

living on the land, like groups of ghosts

except that when these sadnesses and happinesses are lost

one can't possibly return again to the ancient mountains and rivers of Guanzhong

to see an ancient cattleman, pulling a cow, like pulling a river or a mountain

walking, steadily, on the field

of life joined with death, and what meanders

behind him is the land

of conjoined cow backs, heaving and warm

Watching the land on the backs of the cows

I'd like to go deep into them, giving up

myself, so that we could jointly heave

Liu Xiaochun, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

There is a view that Chinese paintings have reached the end of the road, which means that there is no point of going beyond them as they have reached a degree of perfection after more than a thousand years of experiment and the only alternative is to find another way.Chao Hai did it in an appropriate way as he did not stick to the ancient artists although he did have a profound tradition of ancient brush and ink, which is to say that he has now again brought up the issue of brush and ink by challenging the view that there is no more development for brush and ink, with his new articles created therein. He has made a huge effort in carrying forward the tradition in spirit, with his brush and ink.

读《水墨作品》（1997年）

你是心里恐惧，还是发冷

世界与你，像要分开什么

此刻，你蜷卧在

大地的哪一角，都是孤独

都是疲惫不堪，都是一个失去支撑

很难活下去的，女人

你的眼睛里，没有了泪水

也没有了，对于人世的

一丝仇恨

可能是，突如其来的

一场灾难，让你失去哭出来的声音

一个女人的身体里，有多少

坚硬的部分，可以用来

抵挡外力的摧毁？看见你

发瓷的眼睛，空气

也不敢流动

或许，一切都是一次误读

你怀抱的，是久别的孩子

大家说晁海：

积墨并不是晁海的发明，黄宾虹的五笔七墨中就有积墨，他是用在山水上，但是谁把它用在人物上，谁把它大量地用在人体塑造上？没有人。所以说晁海在美术史上的一个变革就是把水墨的写实的人物画勾、皴、点、染的方法把它归纳、整合为一种积墨的方法、积色的方法，形成了自家的语言、自家的样式。而这种积墨、积色充分发挥了中国的水墨在宣纸上那种渗洇又沉淀的特殊效果。但是，不漂、不浮，有自己的特色，给人以朴厚、温敦、混沌或者是浑融、苦涩的感受。

——美术理论家  刘曦林

Reading Water and Ink Work (1997)

Are you fearful at heart or are you cold?

The world looks as if it's going to separate from you

right now, wherever you lie curled up

on the land, there is only solitude

there is only fatigue, and there is only

a woman who has lost support, finding it hard to survive

there are no tears in your eyes

not a single shred of hatred

for the human world

It's possibly the sudden

disaster that caused you to lose the voice to cry out

How much hardness inside a woman's body

that can be used

against the destruction of an external force?On seeing

your china eyes, even the air

dares not flow

Or perhaps all is misreading

as you are hugging a child long departed

Liu Xilin, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Jimo (accumulative ink) is not Chao Hai's invention as there already is jimo in Huang Binhong's wubi qimo (five kinds of brushwork and seven kinds of ink) although Huang only applied it to the mountains and rivers. Who has ever applied it to the painting of human figures and to the shaping of the human bodies, to a large extent? None. For this reason, one change Chao Hai has brought to the history of fine arts lies in the fact that he has integrated the methods of gou (hooking), cun (cracking), dian (dotting) and ran (dyeing), in the realistic figurative paintings in water and ink, into a method of jimo and jise (accumulative colours), forming a language and a pattern of his own. And this jimo and jisehave given a full play of the special seeping and sedimented effect, created by the Chinese water and ink on the rice paper. But there is no drifting or floating as there are features of one's own, giving one a sense of simplicity, warmth, chaos or blendedness and astringency.

读《水墨作品》（1991年）

这么深邃的，夜里

你一手抚肩，只给出一个

不完整的侧面

你的头部，像女娲

补天的时候，遗失下来的一块石头

风暴摧残，洪水冲击

让它带着，灾难深处的灾难

被时间，仓促地这样安放

面部的，很多部分

还一片模糊

这样的你，能折射时间苍老

这样的你，能深埋人间苦难

你一脸的，不安

像你窥见，这个夜晚

用这么深重的墨色，掩盖起来的

那些属于，白天的罪孽

就像土地的深处，埋藏着很多

死亡的事，黑暗里

你像陷入白夜

这个时候的，夜色

碰上你身体的，某个部位

都会可怕地燃烧

大家说晁海：

我生长在西北，还曾经在晁海的故乡兴平劳动、画画。晁海作品中传达的关中风习，对于我这样的观众，自然是易于接受的。但晁海作品使我感动的并不是我所熟悉的山川人物形象，而是作品形式的文化意味和作者作画的态度，我感到这是一个秦川乡民以他们世代相沿的处事接物方式在画画。就像他们以世代相沿的方式在歌、哭、爱、恨一样。在这一点上，晁海是极具代表性的。

——美术理论家  水天中

Reading Water and Ink Work (1991)

On such a deep night

you put a hand on the shoulder, giving only

an incomplete profile

your head resembles a stone, left by Nüwa

while she was patching up the sky

ravaged by a storm and rushed in a flood

it carriesa disaster deep within the disaster

hurriedly placed, like this, by time

while much of its face

remains blurred

such a you can reflect the age of time

such a you can deeply bury the suffering of the world

your face, completely restless

like the night you have peeped into

with such heavy colours of ink that covered up

the sins that belong to the day

it's as if many things of death

had been buried in the depths of the earth and, in the darkness

you act as if you had sunken into a white night

the colours of the night, at this moment

would terribly burn

when coming into contact with a certain part of you

Shui Zhongtian, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

I grew up in the Northwest and laboured as well as painted in Xingping, Chao Hai's hometown, which is why the customs conveyed in Chao Hai's work are naturally acceptable to me as one of the viewers. But what moved me in his work is not the mountains or people I'm familiar with but the cultural significance of the forms of the work and the attitude he had when painting.It feels like it's a villager from the Qinchuan who does his paintings in the way that the other villagers have been doing in dealing with people and things, from generation to generation, the same way they sing, they cry, they love and they hate. It is of this that Chao Hai is very representative.

读《水墨作品》（1993年）

很多时候，就在这样的

姿势里，乡村卧得恬静

卧着的牛犊，看不懂

一群闲下来的人，如何打发

堆积在身上的时光。每个张开的嘴里

都像有一些，咽不下去的东西

他们脸上的，表情

掩盖着他们，喊出在地里

吆喝牛的声音

卧着的牛犊，听不懂这些

卧着的牛犊，安静在初生的世界里

卧着的牛犊，嗅着嘴边的胎液

卧着的牛犊，像把阳光

接受到跟随季节，卸下苦难的身体上

每一处的皮毛，都是金色的

开始泛滥，直至冬天

在失去所有，色彩的乡村

一头初生的牛犊，卧在哪里

哪里就有佛光

苦焦的乡村，很多时候

从牛犊身上，看到温暖

大家说晁海：

晁海的画册为“大红袍”系列增添了新的光彩，这个系列原本虽然规格高，有经典感，但在艺术家人选上过分强调了“定论”，视野不够开阔。晁海这本画册的出版，使“大红袍”系列有了名副其实的“当代”意义。这其中，程大利功不可没。画册从封面到内图，选择和编辑都极有学术感觉和质量品位。不按作品的创作时间，而按作品的主题关系与视觉效果编排次序，产生了极佳的阅读节奏流线，一些细节剪取得非常精彩，则使视觉空间跌宕起伏。

              ——中国美术馆馆长、中国美术家协会主席  范迪安

Reading Water and Ink Work (1993)

On many an occasion, in such

a posture, a village lies peaceful and quiet

a lying calf does not understand

how a group of leisurely people can kill time

accumulated on them, each of their mouths

seems to have something unswallowable

their facial expressions

covering up the sound with which they

call out the cattle in the field

the lying calf does not understand all that

the lying calf is quiet in the world, just born

the lying calf smells the foetal liquid at a corner of its mouth

the lying calf appears to have accepted

the sunshine onto the body that has unloaded the suffering

its fur golden everywhere

that has begun flooding until the winter

in a village that has lost all the colours

wherever a calf, just born, lies

there is the light of Buddhism

in a scorched village, and on many occasions

one sees warmth in a calf

Fan Di'an,Director of National Art Museum of China and Chairman of China Artists Association, on Chao Hai:

Chao Hai's album has added a new colour to the Big Red Gown Series, which did not have an expansive vision despite its high specification and a sense of classicism as there was an over emphasis on definitiveness in the selection of the artists for inclusion. The publication of this album by Chao Hai, though, has endowed the Big Red Gown Series with a contemporary significance true to its name, to whose success Cheng Dali is indispensable.The album has an academic feel and is of good quality in terms of the cover design, the attached pictures, the selection and the editing as the works are not grouped in accordance with the time in which they were created but according to the relationship between the themes and visual effects, producing an excellent flowline of reading rhythms, particularly when details are wonderfully cropped, creating an unrestrained visual space.

读《水墨人物》（1992年）

农耕的结局，写在

你身体的土地上，就像这些

一节比一节，粗大到了

变形的骨头

蹲在地上，你喊着的

或许是走远了，到泥土的更黑暗处

解开衣裳，看一眼身上的

伤痕，决定是否转世到

人间的，一些亲人

也许是一场，天灾

你跟着一头牛，播种在地里

长得金黄的麦子，快要收割的时候

被冰雹砸得，倒在地里

没有了收成

这个时候，任何安慰

都不能打动你，就像农耕者

走到了今天，需要有人

从土地上，逃离

大家说晁海：

在晁海的众多绘画中，以《农民》系列和《牛》系列最为瞩目。这些作品充分表现出画家如何以独到的手法进行探索，并成功地建立个人的面貌与风格。《农民系列》以西北农村为对象，将当地农民的生存状态与坚强意志，透过独特的艺术手法提炼出来。晁海从雕塑造型的角度着眼，以层层积叠的墨块，突破了人物整体的浑厚感觉，并以铺天盖地的构图方式，直接以实体表现内容，磅礴的气势令人咋舌。

——美术理论家  莫家良

Reading Water and Ink Figures (1992)

The end to the rural farming is written

on the earth of your body, like these

deformed bones, of joints

one bigger than the other

squatting on the ground, you cry for

those who may have gone away, into the darker places of the mud

all loved ones who unbuttoned their clothes

to take a look at their wounds before they decided

whether they wanted to be reincarnated

it was perhaps a disaster

you followed a cow, sowing the seeds in the field

when the golden wheat, about to be reaped in

fell under a hailstorm

no harvest to be had

then, no comfort

would move you, like the farmers

who have got this far today and need people

to run away from the land

Mo Jialiang, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Of numerous paintings by Chao Hai, the Peasants Series and the Cattle Series stand out as these works fully display how the artist explores with a unique method and successfully establishes his individual features and style.Based on the rural Northwest, the Peasants Series refines the state of existence and strong will of the local peasants with unique artistic methods.From the angle of sculptural shaping, Chao Hai breaks through the massive feeling of the figures as a whole, with layered ink blocks, and directly expresses the contents via the real objects, with an overwhelmingly formative method, its powerful momentum taking one's breath away.

卷五：年代

我只想，你们能否

突然转过身来，跟着这几头

挺起巨大骨架的牛，站在更高的地方

让我看清，深藏在你们

脸上的气色，那是被劳动的

强度和姿势，长久地

埋没了的气色

Volume V:The Age

I'm just wondering if you can

turn around and, following the huge bones

erected by the cattle, stand on higher ground

so that I can see the colour

hidden deep in your faces, the colour long

buried by the intensity and posture

of the labour

读《1990系列之一》

黑云压顶，天空

像在摇晃中，开始倾斜

一头牲口，倒在大地上

这头拉过，一架木犁

或一驾马车的，高角牲口

它走过来的田野上，万物都长了志气

都透出，激动山水的

一身灵性。它从地上站起后

就一生挺着，铁桩一样的

长腿，直至死亡

才倒下身子

倒在地头的，牲口

不再用钉着铁掌的，蹄子

抓住大地发力，解脱了田野上的苦役

尸体舒展，却让天塌

下来的人，躲不过季节的纠缠

埋头坐着，那些成熟了的

庄稼，站在悲伤里

等待着腐烂

一头牲口，也像

一个离去的人，留下的

阴影，风不能很快吹去

大家说晁海：

严格地说，晁海不能完全划入实验水墨的阵营，他的特殊性如此明显，在任何场合，他的作品能被一眼认出，但是，这种“认出”有合理的原因，不是他刻意追求某中新奇或异样，恰恰倒是他的朴实，他的执着，他像老农一样的诚恳，打动每个观赏者。晁海没有那种跟随风气的投机心态，这一点，是他的最大优势。正是因为他长期处在相对封闭的境地，一方面起到了先天的抗拒外在诱惑的作用，另一方面又为自身确立了坚固的信念。

——美术理论家  李小山

Reading The 1990 Series (No. 1)

The dark clouds pressing down, the skies

seemed to be shaking, starting to tilt

as a cow fell on the ground

the high-horned animal

that had pulled a wooden plough

or a carriage

had walked the field where things were ambitious

and had a kind of spirituality

that thrilled the mountains and waters. When it stood up from the ground

it stood on its long legs like the iron pillars

for the rest of its life till it died

falling

the animal, fallen at the edge of the field

no longer able to unleash its strength by grabbing

hold of the earth with its iron hooves, had rid itself of the hard labour in the field

its corpse spread out, with the result that the sky-collapsed

peoplecouldn't escape from the entanglement of the season

as they sat there, buried in their hands, the ripened

crop, standing in the sadness

waiting to rot

a cow, like

a departed person, left a

shadow that the wind couldn't not blow away in a hurry

Li Xiaoshan, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Strictly speaking, one can't completely categorise Chao Hai as part of the experimental water and ink camp as he is so obviously special that wherever it is his work will be recognised in one glance.But there is a valid reason for this as it's not that he deliberately pursues the new or the strange but it is his simplicity, his persistence and his sincerity like an old peasant that moves the viewers.The best thing about Chao Hai is that he doesn't have the mentality of a speculator who follows the trend. The very fact that he stays put in a relatively isolated situation for a long time plays a part in his innate resistance to the external temptation, on one hand, and, on the other, in establishing a firm belief in himself.

读《1991系列之一》

活着时，这些在地上

保持得最沉静，也最解困的姿势

死后，会被带到地下

看见身边，这几头

若有所思的牛，我不想从这些不顾忌

天空的姿势里，舒畅聆听

被一身粗大的衣服，包裹起来的

那些喘息，它不一定

代表此刻，那些匍匐在

心里的情绪

我只想，对仰卧者说

能否翻身坐起，跟着这几头

挺起巨大骨架的牛，站在更高的地方

让我看清，深藏在你们

脸上的气色，那是被劳动的

强度和姿势，长久地

埋没了的气色

天空，永远看不够

这些宽大得，也像麦地

一样的腰背

大家说晁海：

他的画有神秘感，宗教感，又有一种朴厚的土地的感觉、泥土的感觉、雕塑的感觉。而这种雕塑绝不是玻璃雕、绝不是玉雕，而是一种泥塑，有一种泥巴味。这种泥巴味是朴厚的，是农民的，是民间的，圆、柔、朴厚其外，雄强刚健其中。它也有像渗透在黄土里面的秦腔的穿透力，有一种生命的厚度在里面，有一种性情的厚度在里面。像他从父亲那里继承来的拳法，从他弯臂隆起的肌肉里相信他有中国武术化刚为柔、外柔内刚的修行，并将之化入笔墨。

——美术理论家  刘曦林

Reading The 1991 Series (No. 1)

The postures, kept most quiet

and refreshing on the ground when alive

would be brought underground when dead

watching the pondering

cattle, I did not want to listen

with ease, to the breathings

wrapped up in the rough clothes

in the posture of the sky as they did not necessarily

represent the feelings prostrate

in my heart at this very moment

All I wanted to tell the ones sleeping on their backs

wondering if they can

turn around and, following the huge bones

erected by the cattle, stand on higher ground

so that I can see the colour

hidden deep in your faces, the colour long

buried by the intensity and posture

of the labour

but the sky can never have enough of seeing

the backs as broad

as the wheat field

Liu Xilin, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

His paintings have a sense of mystery and religiosity as well as a sense of plain earth and soil and of sculpture, not the kind of glass sculpture or jade sculpture but the kind of clay sculpture, with a taste of the clay that is plain, of the peasants and of the folks, round and soft, plain on the outside and strong and energetic on the inside.They also have the penetrating power of the Qinqiang Opera that has seeped through the loess, with a thickness of life and of temperament in it. Like the kind of boxing he has inherited from his father, he believes from the muscles in his upper arms that he has reached the cultivated state of Chinese martial arts where strength is softened so that one is soft on the outside and strong on the inside, all turned into brushwork and ink.

读《1991系列之二》

像从一块岩石上，凿出来的人

浑身上下，都带着岩石的粗糙

比起你，高过天空

落满云朵里，那一层灰的头顶

我的目光，不由自主地落在你的手上

也落在，你结实的脚面

搬开每一根，很粗大的关节

都像弯折后，一块依然

锃锃作响的铁

这是雕凿，还在继续的声音

这是岩石，粉碎在你身上的声音

这也是神灵，打开天空的声音

抱着土地，裸露在

你的骨骼，与肌肉之间

那一身正色，我看见你坐在天地之间

一手撑地，一手高抬

想用尽洪荒之力，站立起来

更远处的地方，有庄稼

也有一些坟墓

或许，你在大地上走过的一生

就是把自己，还原成一块石头

大家说晁海：

他的创造有三个重要特点。第一个是技术上的特点：大家都熟悉他的水墨雕塑技术，进一步推动了传统水墨技术，可以说完成了自主的转型升级。第二个特点是题材上的特点：他跟自己家乡陕西的农村环境保持联系，画了很多他非常熟悉的家乡的劳动农民和动物。这个让我联想到第三个，即精神上的特点：你看晁海的画，人物也好，动物也好，在各个众生的画里都表现出对生命的敬畏。又强壮又疲劳的种田农夫，充满人类的力量和具体人生的困境。

                     ——德国驻华大使馆文化参赞  凯瑟.沃夫刚

Reading The 1991 Series (No. 2)

It's like someone, carved out of a rock

who carried the roughness of the rock all over him

compared with the crown of your head

covered in dust, that is higher than the sky, covered with clouds

my eye, despite itself, fell on your hand

and also on your sturdy instep

separating every thick joint

that, bent, looks like

a piece of iron that makes a loud sound

this is the continuing sound of the carving

this is the sound of the rock smashing over you

and this is also the sound of the deity breaking open the sky

a full body of colours

between your bones and your muscles

naked and holding the earth, I can see you sitting between heaven and earth

one hand holding the ground and the other, raised high

straining to stand up

further on, there are crops

and also graves

or perhaps, your life of walking on the land

is meant to turn yourself into a stone

Keith Wolfgang, Councillor of Culture, German Embassy in China, on Chao Hai：

His creation has three important features, one technical, in that, as everyone knows, his techniques of water and ink sculpture have further advanced the techniques of traditional water and ink, completing the update of autonomous transformation, so to speak. The second feature relates to the theme. He is soconnected with the rural environment of his native Shanxi that he has producedthe country people and animals of his native place that he is very familiar with, which reminds me of the third feature, the spiritual one. If you look at Chao Hai's paintings, about people and about animals, you'll realise that all of them are an expression of his awe of life, with strong and tired farming peasants that are full of human power and concrete living dilemmas.

读《1992系列之一》

天暗下来，你的身上

落满冷漠的土地上，飞舞了

很久的灰

很多时候，庄稼

在冷漠里生长，就像此刻

太阳带走了，充盈在天地之间的光亮

也带走了，你传染给

牲畜的喘息，剩在身边的风

吹不动，带着冷漠

枯坐的你

你的手势，告诉我

在苍茫的土地里活命，这是一种本能

这双伸得，像猿一样长的手臂

只要醒过来，就不会停止

对大地的摩挲，而你能

揽在怀里的，东西

其实有限

天暗下来，从你身上

我能取走的，是一个冷漠的人

坐在穷困里，抱有的虔诚

大家说晁海：

晁海所接续的文脉，就是从传统的脉络上延续过来的，他的做法就是“舍笔求墨”。就是把“用笔”这一根线断掉，他要直接呈现的并不是“用笔”，他所有的用笔都呈现为用墨，都是通过墨的一层一层的加、一层一层的积，最后呈现出那种非常浑厚、非常丰富的一种天然的效果来。这是靠他多年的经验积累，对作为材料的宣纸、墨和水的不断探索、研究，最后寻找到一种理想的效果，一种既非常单纯，又非常深厚，非常丰富，非常透明的效果。

——美术理论家  贾方舟

Reading The 1992 Series (No. 1)

The sky is darkening as you are

covered with the dust of the indifferent earth

that has been dancing for a long time

Many of the times, the crop

is growing in indifference, like now

when the sun is carrying away the light between heaven and earth

and also the breathings you have

infected the animals with, while the wind left alongside you

can't blow away you

sitting, drily, with indifference

Your gestures tell me

that it is an instinct to survive on the vast earth

the arms extended as long as those of an ape

won't stop caressing the earth

as soon as they wake up but all you can

hold in your arms is in fact

very limited

as the sky is darkening, I can only take from you

the piety, held by an indifferent person

sitting in poverty

Jiang Fangzhou, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

The pulse of literature as connected by Chao Hai continues from the veins of tradition as his practice consists of abandoning the brush for ink alone. That is to say, he cuts off the line of 'brush usage' as it is not what he wants to directly represent, all his 'brush usages' are presented as the use of ink, added layer by layer and accumulated layer by layer through the ink, until a natural effect is produced that is simple, vigorous and rich, an effect he managed to eventually find through many years of accumulated experience and his continual research into and study of rice paper, ink and water as materials, an effect that is purely simple but also profound, rich and transparent.

读《1992系列之二》

只有碗里，有可以穿过

肠胃，去照亮他们的光

这是一天，最放松

也最幸福的时刻，一家人

能围坐在一起，吃着自己种下的粮食

下到地里，就是与死神

搏斗，都不算什么

种地人，为了一碗滋润的饭食

太阳底下，不惜血汗

也不惜走到，天地

苦焦的尽头，在一个陌生的地方扛活

有如候鸟，从远方带回来的

粮食，要分一些

作为对神灵的，有限祭品

这样，一家人吃起来

心里踏实

种地人的生活里，如果有光

都聚集在，照出喜悦的碗边

大家说晁海：

他那独到的，突破了前人成就的，被推到了一种极致的积墨语言，既润又苍又涩，如同一种肌理效果，既丰富，又变化入微。晁海的积墨语言又绝非是笔墨游戏，理由是它不仅表现了人物（或动物）画的性格和命运主题，而且也融入了画家主体充沛的情感和精神性的追求，同时又体现了东方老庄哲学理念（大象无形、无中生有、以柔克刚）和西方现代哲学理念（尼采的“生命里”“超人”说和叔本华的“唯意志论”）的一种交融，真可谓是“一箭三雕”。

——文化学者  陈孝信

Reading The 1992 Series (No. 2)

It's only in the bowl that has the light

that penetrates the bowls to shine on them

This is the most relaxed

and happiest moment of the day when the whole family

can sit around the table to eat the food they themselves have harvested

when it's planted in the field it's a battle against

Death but it's really nothing

as the planterswon't stint on their blood and sweat

working under the sun, for a bowl of nourishing rice

and they won't stint on walking

to the end of heaven and earth, working in a strange place

like birds of passage, and when they bring food back

from afar, they'll give a proportion of it

to the deities as limited sacrifices

so that the whole family will have peace of mind

when they start eating

If there is light, in the life of the planters

it will gather around the edge of the bowl that shines on happiness

Chen Xiaoxin, a cultural scholar, on Chao Hai:

His jimo language, so unique that it has broken through the achievements of his predecessors and pushed to the extreme, is moist, desolate and astringent, like a textual effect that is subtle and rich with change. But Chao Hai's jimo language is not just a play with brush and ink because it not only expresses the character of the figures (or animals) and the theme of fate but it is also merged with the artist's vigorous feeling and his pursuit of spirituality. At the same time, it reflects the combination of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi's Oriental philosophical concepts (shapelessness, something out of nothing, and overcoming the strong with the soft) with the modern Western philosophical concepts (such as Nietzsche's superman and Schopenhauer's will to power), achieving the one-arrow-three eagles effect.

读《1992系列之三》

堆积在阳光里，你和

身后的牲口，散发着埋没在

陈年里的，味道

只要坐在，阳光底下

你黄土一样的身上，像有捂不住的火

从斜披着的，棉衣深处

露出种地的人，心里会随时

编排的酸曲，那双

赤着的脚，也摆放得很刺眼

像有意去展示，被它

踩过的山河

而集中在，你的脸上

却有低贱的生命中，一直

不肯说出来的委屈，你暗淡的眼睛里

很少流露，心里的光亮

你被苦力，凿成洞穴的嘴巴里

没有一句话，说出来

是为自己的命运，讨伐曾经

亲切的神灵

解开棉衣，把身体

最有力的部分，堆积在阳光里

也很让你满足

大家说晁海：

晁海的画使我联想到与之视觉语汇相近的中西两种艺术：一是汉代画像石的拓片。汉代画像砖、画像石的拓片就是一种影像，是不见骨线却很有力度、很有动感的一种影像。经过拓印后，行不是那么连贯清晰，墨不是那么死黑一团，而汉代粗犷的大气势隐藏其间。一是西方行为艺术家的《蓝色时期的人体测量》。我觉得晁海作品里的墨团好像是人体在上面滚动后拓下的痕迹。东西方这两种具有拓印特点的团块艺术，在晁海笔下得到了创造性的结合和升华。

——美术理论家  翟墨

Reading The 1992 Series (No. 3)

Heaped up in the sunshine, you and

the cattle behind you smell of the smell

buried in the years

Once you sit in the sun

youseem to have an inextinguishable fire on you, like loess

from the depths of the slopey cotton clothes

a planter is revealed, whose heart will make up

a sour tune any time and whose

naked feet are also in glaring display

as if deliberately on show, about the mountains and rivers

they had trodden

and there is a grievance, unspoken of

on your face

in your low life, and your dim eyes

hardly ever reveal the heart's light

your mouth that has been carved into a cave by the hard labour

has not a single word to say

it having sent a punitive expedition against the deities

who were once kind, for its own fate

When you open up your cotton clothes

and heap up the most powerful parts of it in the sun

you feel pleased

Zhai Mo, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Chao Hai's paintings remind me of both Western and Chinese arts that are close to his visual language. One of these is the rubbings of the mural paintings of the Han dynasty. These rubbings are images that are powerful, with a sense of movement, without the bone-lines. When rubbed, the lines are broken and not clear, and the ink is not masses of dead darkness, with the great momentum of the Han dynasty hidden in them.And the other is Anthropometries of the Blue Period by Yves Klein. My feeling is that the blotches of ink in Chao Hai's work look like the rubbed traces of where the human bodies have rolled across. Such an art in the West and the East, of blotches, with the characteristics of rubbing, is creatively merged in under Chao Hai's brush, becoming sublimated.

读《1992系列之四》

我总觉得，你们不是为了歇息

把自己像木头一样，放倒在地

一切都开始，深陷在

泥土的催眠之中，包括头顶上的天空

那些站着，像在你们睡去的

身上，要嗅出一些

干草味道的牛，也在翻新过的

松软如草窝的，泥土里

站不稳当

无所顾忌，男人

活着的时候，在大地上

仰躺下去的姿势，和死亡后保持一致

只是被贴身的泥土，隔开天光

女人不一样，睡去的脸面

不能让天空看见，正面

躺下，是死后的事

我总觉得，你们倒地之后

像刚刚出土的，一对文物

大家说晁海：

传统理论在晁海的作品里没有蜕变为我们司空见惯的符号，而是演绎成为完全不同的表达方式。宋庄的空气比北京城里还差，透过浓重的烟雾几乎什么也看不到。在一个看起来是刚刚才盖好的展览厅里展出着五幅晁海的作品。映入眼帘的是宣纸上深沉厚重的形体，倒退一段距离才辨认出一头牛的轮廓。在他的作品中，人们首先看到的是一种质地感和不同层次的水墨痕迹，这些深浅不一、状若痂痕的墨迹仿佛在一片沉重中吐纳呼吸。

                                                        ——德国文化学者  马克•西蒙

Reading The 1992 Series (No. 4)

I always feel you put yourselves down

like timber, not just to rest

Everything begins in the hypnosis

sunken deep in the soil, including the sky overhead

the cattle that stand, as if wanting to smell the hay

on the sleeping you, also find it hard

to hold steady in the soil

just ploughed

as soft as a nest of straw

Having no fear of anything, men

when alive, keep the posture of lying

on the land consistent with that of dying

except the soil on the body that holds off the light of the sky

Women are different in that their faces, in sleep

can't be seen by the sky and whey they lie face up

that's after death

I always feel that when you fall

you look like a pair of cultural relics, just unearthed

Mark Siemons, a German cultural scholar, on Chao Hai:

In Chao Hai's work, traditional theory has not transmuted into the commonly seen symbols. But it has become a completely different way of expression. The air in Songzhuang is worse than that in Beijing as you can hardly see anything through the heavy smog. In a freshly built hall, five of Chao Hai's works are on display. What one sees is the profound and heavy figures on the rice paper and one can only retreat a distance from it all to make out the outlines of a cow. In his paintings, one first sees a textural sensation and then the differently layered traces of water and ink, which, different in thickness and looking like scars, seem to be breathing with a heavy weight.

读《1992系列之五》

是一块断崖，让这些耗尽

力气的牲口，半路上丧命

也像一场，土地的疫情

击倒它们，在身体也很虚弱的田野里

赶过来的风，从它们躺得无力

开始僵硬的，四肢上

吹出一股，还没有冷去的

汗腥的味道

对于种地者，很像

失去了最亲的人，顾不上

放在心头的悲哀，也顾不上伸手摩挲

那些比起人，还要善良的面孔

抬走它们的躯体，不要让

天空，看得太久

一场土地的灾难，被一群

倒地的牲口，背负在身上

大家说晁海：

人生有诸般苦难，生老病死，佛谓之四谛。而生为农民的苦难，恐怕是永无休止的劳累。晁海绘画的主题，似乎就集中在一个累字上，我真的还没有看到哪个画家倾注如此巨大的心血来表现生命中累的沉重。他作品中的人物，或者颓坐于地，双腿伸直，双手平摊向前；或者双腿叉立，双手自然下垂，仰面朝天；或者撩擦拭是流入眼中的泪水；或者张开大嘴沉重喘息，都是累乏之极才有得种种姿态。他笔下的男女麦客，是这个尘世上劳累之命的象征。

——文化学者  王鲁湘

Reading The 1992 Series (No. 5)

It is a broken cliff that causes the death

of these exhausted cattle

and it's like a plague of the earth

that fells them onto the field that is enfeebled

the wind that has hurried over, bringing

a smell of sweat, still hot

from their limbs, lying powerless

that have begun hardening

For the planters, this very much resembles

the sadness that they have no time putting in their hearts

after the loss of their best loved ones, and they have no time to hold out their hands

to touch the faces kinder than people

carrying their bodies away, without letting

the sky watch for too long

The disaster of the earth is being carried

on the backs of the fallen animals

Wang Luxiang, a cultural scholar, on Chao Hai:

There are all sorts of misery in life, at least four: that of living, of getting old, of getting sick and of dying, called sidi, four truths, in Buddhism.Once born peasants, the misery and fatigue are endless and the theme of Chao Hai's paintings seems to be concentrated on the word 'fatigue' for I have never seen any other artists spending so much heart-blood giving expression to the heaviness of fatigue in life. People in his paintings sit in a collapse, with their legs straightened out and their hands held forward, or they stand with their legs spread open, with their hands naturally at their sides, or they open their mouths agape, breathing heavily, all gestures of extreme fatigue. The wheat harvesters under his brush are the symbols of fatigued lives in this dusty world.

读《1993系列之一》

你的状态，像从一种

隐晦的世事里，带着身体的

沉重，虚无地挣扎

或许赶上，一场

连续的阴雨天，土地在过剩的雨水里

救不活成片，停止呼吸的庄稼

对着阴晴，失控的天

你的脸色，也阴沉得可怕

土地巨大的脉络，浓缩在你

铁青的脸上，永远戴副苦相

或许陷入，一场

灵魂的救赎里，你能够清晰地梦见的

都不在你的现实里，带来你

想要的结局，身边的

草木，却带着微笑

如果能抬起，粗大的手

自己抚平，一脸的惊恐

也就能抚平，一些世事

大家说晁海

在我看来，晁海的“团墨”恰如浇淋不到，郁积于胸中的块垒，充分表达本身的干渴与焦灼之意，以它来对应苍茫干硬的北方土地、艰涩刚劲的人物、任重道远的志向，实在是恰当不过了。钱钟书在《谈艺录》里论李长吉之诗的一大特色，就是“变轻清者为凝重，使流易者具锋芒。”单就语言而论，晁海的画正可以此言以蔽之，他完工后的笔墨虽固体而具流性也。这种语言确实具有极为独特的表现力。

——文化学者  朱朱

Reading The 1993 Series (No. 1)

Your state resembles a vain struggle

with the heaviness of your body, out of the obscure

things of the world

or if you happen to catch up with

a continuous rain so that the field, oversaturated with rain

cannot save spreads of crop that have stopped breathing

and in the face of the weather that has lost control

your face is terribly darkened

the vast veins of the earth have condensed

in your iron-blue face, always wearing a bitter look

Or you have sunken into

a redemption of soul, in which whatever you can clearly dream of

is not in your reality and cannot bring

the conclusion you want although the grasses

and the woods by your side are smiling

If you can raise your rough hands

and wipe the terror off your face

you may be able to straighten a few worldly things as well

Zhu Zhu, a cultural scholar, on Chao Hai:

For me, Chao Hai's tuanmo, blocks of ink, are like masses of emotion suppressed inside his chest that are fully expressive of their own burning thirst. Thus it is most fitting to use them to express the vast dry land of the North, the hard and harsh human figures and the ambition of someone with a long way to go.In his On the Art of Poetry, Qian Zhongshu discusses one of the main features of poetry by Li Changji, saying that his poetry 'turns the light into the heavy while causing the flowing stuff to bristle with sharp edges'. Such can also be a description of Chao Hai's paintings in terms of the language as his brush and ink, when complete, are solid but that also flows. The language of this quality is indeed uniquely expressive.

读《1993系列之二》

每个人，都像一座

拓印出来的山，在可以活下去的

路上，以死抵挡着身边的

一切不测

这样的山，在已往

不会再现，模样的年代里

遭遇过的饥荒，像一些带血的痂痕

也像一些，祭奠亲人的

纸花，在离歌里

与风吹散

这样的山，最终

会与神灵走散，遗失在苍茫的塬上

可以扰乱，皇家的坟冢

只是看似，粗壮的

身躯，会在吹过的风雨里

掉下石头的，碎屑

站在塬顶，像站在祖先

死不瞑目的心中，那只从脸部

拖稳自己的手，像抓着群山

喊出的声音

大家说晁海：

晁海对当代中国画家运用娴熟的常规的笔墨技法如皴、擦、点、染等加以弱化，不过多地突出和强调笔墨的趣味和熟练，而是在湿润、含蓄的用笔中达到一种单纯、平和，于浑然中见涩、见苍、见厚、见刚、见势的笔墨境界，这是一个具有相当难度的境界，需要画家付出艰苦不懈的努力，将看似矛盾冲突的不同笔墨因素统一在一个恢弘的画面氛围中，在淡墨、涩墨中见出沉雄苍厚，以此来传达画家所礼赞的坚韧不拔的人格力量和永恒的生命力。

——美术理论家  殷双喜

Reading The 1993 Series (No. 2)

Each and every one is like a mountain

that comes out of the rubbings, resisting things unexpected

by their side, with death, on a road

where they can survive

such mountains existed in the past

and in the years in which they can't possibly reappear

the famines they encountered were like bloody traces of scar

and also like paper flowers to mourn the beloved

scattered by the wind

in the songs of departure

Such mountains will eventually

disperse with the deities, getting lost on the vast plateau

and they can disturb the royal tombs

except that they look like sturdy

bodies, the shreds of their fallen stones

in the blown wind and rain

Standing on top of the plateau, one feels like standing

in the heart of one's ancestors with unclosed eyes, with the hand

that held oneself steady from the face, as if holding the sound

yelled out of the mountains

Yin Shuangxi, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Chao Haiweakens routine skills of brush and ink that contemporary Chinese artists are familiar with such ascracking, wiping, dotting and dyeing. He does not over-emphasise the taste and the skilfulness of brush and ink. Instead, he reaches a state of peace and purity, in which one sees the astringence, the cangness, the thickness, the steeliness and the momentum with his moist and subtle brushwork, a state that is very difficult, so difficult that it requires the artist to make an indefatigable effort in unifyingdifferent kinds of brush and ink in conflict with each otherin an extensive painting atmosphere so that one sees the magnificent and magnanimous in faint or astringent ink to express the artist's praise of dauntless personality and eternal lifeforce.

读《1993系列之三》

这是一次，惊动

土地的狂欢，也是被回家的

神灵，看见了的狂欢

被这样的，狂欢

牵动起来，要想让天地

在泥土的怀里，放弃一天的烦躁

静止下来，都很难

大地还保留着，太阳的余温

这些躺下，打滚的牲口

卸下负扼，很像一次

集体撒野

这也是，身体

与身体的，一次十分狂野的接触

牲口的皮毛，被地上的干土

擦得更亮，抖动鬃毛

像抖动一身的火焰，驾辕

或犁地的，那些疲累

带着浓重的气味，消失在

渐暗的夜色里

这是忙了，一天的高角牲口

解除体内疼痛，集体举行的

一次原始，神秘的仪式

大家说晁海：

晁海早期的创作实际上是现实主义与原始主义的混合体，而原始主义更多地体现于精神性，不是简单地记录农村生活，而是从农民形象与生活中体验和挖掘出与自然融为一体的强壮的生命意识，在粗犷与血性中唤醒生命的崇拜，沉思现代文明的缺失。这种意识是如此强烈，当晁海在现实语言的转换时，它也顽强地在现代语言中体现出来，但是这个过程并不是自然生成的，而是包含了艺术家的自觉的选择、大胆的实验和程序的设计。

——美术理论家  易英

Reading The 1993 Series (No. 3)

This is a carnival that has

shocked the earth, also one seen

by the deities on their return home

Once agitated by such a

carnival, it is difficult

to let heaven and the earth remain

quiet in the arms of the soilwithout getting fidgety

The earth still keeps the residual warmth of the sun

while these rolling cattle

have unloaded, it looks like a collective going-wild

It is also a wild contact

between body and body

the fur of the cattle is made shinier

by the dry earth and when they shake their mane

it's like shaking something full of fire. Those who are pulling a cart

or ploughing the field, tired out

and with a heavy smell, are now disappearing

into the darkening night

This is a primitive and mysterious ritual

in which the high-horned animals who have laboured all day

are trying to get rid of their inner pain

Yi Ying, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Chao Hai's early work is a mixture of realism and primitivism, a kind of primitivism that is more reflected in its spirituality instead of merely recording rural life. Rather, it is an experience and excavation of a strong life consciousness, merged with nature, from the images of peasants and their lives, while meditating on the lack of modern civilization, calling for the worship of life in savagery and blood. The awareness is so strong that, when Chao Hai did his change in realist language, it was also stubbornly reflected in the modern language. But it's not a naturally generated process; rather, it includes the artist's conscious selection, his courageous experiment and his design of the program.

读《1994系列之一》

可以一生，不拥抱女人

但不能不拥抱，一头牛

一头牛，身上负有

多少重任，一块被深耕过的土地知道

一块土地上，长势很好的

庄稼也知道，那些被

成熟的味道，每天滋养着的人

知道一头牛，卧在

神灵早已消失的，田野上

也有，它的神位

它的神位，就立在

拥抱它的人，浑身破烂得

提不起衣服的心里，它也像一块生铁

打出的界碑，让一头

不会越过地畔的牛，一眼认出

熟悉的庄稼，知道

卧在哪里，才能聆听到

土地的召唤

敢于拥抱，一头牛的人

他的孤独，像一座花园

大家说晁海：

晁海出生、成长的关中地区就是所谓的黄天厚土。这个地方的地理特征是土质很细腻、土地肥沃，生活中的一切也多与黄土有关，盖房砌墙用土坯，刷墙用泥浆。晁海少年时习字也是用泥浆水写在泥墙上的。这一切，都奠定了他以后在画面中的习性与感觉，更何况这黄土滋养了几千年的中华文明，特别是周秦汉唐以来，中华文化在这个地方的昌盛所留下的深厚积淀对他的滋养。因此他在绘画上对于这种黄天厚土的表达是有独特感受的。

——美术理论家  安远远

Reading The 1994 Series (No. 1)

You can live a life without hugging a woman

but you can't do so without hugging a cow

as a cow has so much

burden on her, which a plot of deeply ploughed land knows

and the well-grown crop on a piece of land

also knows. Those who are nourished

by the taste of ripening, on a daily basis

know a cow, lying

on the field where deities have long disappeared

has also her godly position

that is situated in the heart

of those who embrace it and whose clothes are such rags

that they can't hardly hang on them, and it also resembles

the boundary marker, wrought of the pig iron so that a cow

who doesn't cross the boundary can recognise the crop

in one glance, knowing

where to lie to hear

the call of the land

One who dares embrace a cow

has a solitude that resembles a garden

An Yuanyuan, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Where Chao Hai was born and grew up is what is known as the huangtian houtu (Yellow Sky and Thick Earth), its land rich in texture and fertile. Everything in life is also related to loess as it is used for building houses, making walls and whitewashing them. When practising calligraphy as a teen, Chao Hai did it on the mud wall with the slurry, all that leading to his habit and feeling in his subsequent paintings, plus the nourishment to him from the thousand-year-old Chinese civilization nourished out of the loess, particularly from the profound sedimentation of the prospered Chinese culture in the place, exactly why he has a unique way of expressing how he feels about the Yellow Sky and the Thick Earth.

读《1994系列之二》

生活中的，无数纠结

都在这只，轻微地握着另一只

放在衣襟的手上

只要面对，别人

任何时候，都是这个手势

都有心里的不安，在每个指头上传递

这双铁硬地，抓过农具的手

也抓过烈性的，牲口

此刻，摩挲着放在身体的

哪个部位，都像

多余的东西

比起你的，衣裳

展示出的身体，我不以为土地多宽大

这是被过多，痛苦的生育

逼得变了形的，身体

也是这片天空下，只剩下苍凉

剩下对亲人，一些念想的

土地上，已经多年

走不动的佛

也让我，从你轻握着

放在衣襟的手上，含着泪找出

被你抓着，我小时的影子

大家说晁海：

仔细比较一下，他的“积墨”艺术语汇和黄宾虹的积墨画法有很大的不同。他的“积墨”语汇里对淡墨的运用非常独特，很好地表现了那种水的渗透感与浸润感，晁海的笔墨因此而获得了丰富的肌理感觉、时间的感觉甚至是光的感觉。我想这就是晁海自己说过的，他要表现一个生命千年走来所经历的种种坎坷，他就是这样用淡墨的层层堆积把这一切生动地表现出来。我想他是达到了他的艺术追求的高度。

——美术理论家  皮道坚

Reading The 1994 Series (No. 2)

Countless entanglements in life

are in this hand here that is gently holding

another hand, placed on the front piece of the clothing

It's always this gesture as long

as you face someone else

and there always is restlessness, conveyed via every finger

the hands that used to iron-hardly grab hold of the farm tools

and of the ferocious animals

are now caressingly placed on a certain part

of the body, but wherever they are placed

they look like something redundant

Compared with the body, revealed

by your clothes, I do not hold that the land is big

it's a body forced out of shape

by too much painful birth

and also a Buddha that can't move

for many years on this land, left with

a lingering desire for the beloved

and with bleakness

Please also allow me, in tears,to find

the shadowof my childhood

from your hand gently holding the front piece

Pi Daojian, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

If you carefully compare them, his jimoart vocabulary is vastly different from Huang Binhong's in that it makes an excellent use of light ink, giving a great expression to the sense of seepage and moistening by water and because of this Chao Hai's brush and ink have acquired a rich sense of texture, time and even light. I think this is what Chao Hai himself has said, that is, what he wants to express is the ups and downs a life has experienced in thousands of years and it is by the layered light ink that he has brought all this out vividly. In my opinion, he has reached the height of his artistic pursuit.

读《1994系列之三》

还是那个，年代的发饰

用手拢拢，就走出门去

而那个年代的

衣着，成了身体的底片

漫长的时间里，能被原样洗出的细节

已经不多了。不是颜色丢失

也不是，光线暗淡

手工的粗布，用一袋靛蓝染成

深重的天空，穿在身上

矾的味道，很浓

而那个年代的

脸色，没有生动可言

像把所有人的表情包裹起来，铁青着

看待这个，让人发愁的世界

就是用刻刀，也难

从紧抿的嘴角上，挖出女人的

笑容。天空黑了

在这张脸上

还是那个，年代的冷清

落在身上，时间像块铁

大家说晁海：

他的个性很强，为人诚实、做事执着，在困难和挫折面前不会轻易低头。这和他练习武术、气功有关系，培养了他的忍性、韧性、不屈不挠和刚柔相济的品格。在个性方面，我觉得这种固执、倔强的性格对艺术探索有好处，因为艺术探索是无止境的、是要冒风险的，不能畏首畏尾、不能在困难面前望而却步。晁海沉着、淡定，又有胆量和勇气发挥自己潜在的智慧与才能，他是一位艺术鬼才、一位奇才。

——美术理论家  邵大箴

Reading The 1994 Series (No. 3)

It's still the same hairstyle of those days

you only have to brush it aside before you go out

and the clothes of those

days have now become the negatives of body

not many of which can be developed, with original detail

after such a long time. It's not the loss of the colour

or the dim light

the hand-woven rough cloth, dyed with a bag of indigo

wearing a profoundly heavy sky

with a pungent smell of alum

and the facial expression, in those days

had nothing vivid in it

iron-blue, in a wrapping up of all the expressions

looking at this worrying world

even with a carving knife

you wouldn't be able to dig a smile

out of a woman from the tightly shut corner of her mouth. The sky is dark

on this face

It's still the coldness of those days

that falls on the body, like a piece of iron

Chao Dazhen, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

He is a strong character, honest, persistent, who never bows his head before difficulties and frustrations, which has a lot to do with his practice of martial arts as it helps build his endurance, toughness, indomitableness and a combination of the strong and the soft, which I find useful in artistic explorations because these explorations are endless, requiring courage in taking the risk, not afraid of anything, not balking at anything.Chao Hai is the devil, and the weirdo, of a genius, as he is chenzhuo-ly and danding-ly calm, with a courage to fully display his potential intelligence and ability.

读《1995系列之一》

云在头顶，把天压下来

风在身后，把地卷起来

牵牛的人，走在

天地的昏暗里，像在自己

弯曲的脊梁上走着，也像在城墙

一样厚的乌云，喘不过来的气里走着

带着汗味的，尘土

落在牵牛人身上，很像一层

死去的灰，让不清的

面部，更加模糊

我只能说，这时候

一定有神灵，隐身在旁边

把他从乌云里，能收集到的灰色

都涂抹在牵牛人身上，而亮在云缝里

那些带着，神秘的光

在牛的肩胛上，豁然开朗

它的体格里，像有土地

取不完的力量

云在头顶，压下一片天光

风在身后，卷起一层虚土

大家说晁海：

长久以来，线造型是中国画的艺术形式。书画同源，我一向喜爱线之美、线之魅力，但又不由得不想起晁海来。晁海来自西安，近年崛起画坛，有一个“晁海现象”。他是我所见唯一不用线而用积墨团块在生宣纸上构建艺术造型的中国水墨画家。他的笔墨宣示了一种新造的中国绘画语言。他在生宣纸上所做难度至高的积墨，质感强，有油画、雕刻的厚重，却又有“隐”与“空”的气韵。读他的画，有一种与天地精神相往来的崇高感。

——香港中文大学原校长  金耀基

Reading The 1995 Series (No. 1)

The clouds overhead are pressing the sky down

and the wind behind one is whirling up the earth

while the one, pulling a cow, is walking

in the darkness of heaven and earth, as if walking on his own

curved back, as if walking in the air the dark clouds

as thick as the city wall that couldn't breathe

When the dust, carrying a smell of sweat

falls on him, it resembles a layer

of dead dust, making the unclear facial features

even more obscure

All I can say is that now

there must be a deity hidden nearby

spreading the grey colours on the cow-pulling guy

that he could gather out of the dark clouds and the lights in the cloud-seams

the mysterious ones

are opening up, on the shoulder-blades of the cow

its physique seems to contain

an inexhaustible power, like the earth

The clouds overhead are pressing down a spread of sky's light

and the wind behind one is swirling up a layer of floating dust

Ambrose King Yeo-Chi, Former Vice-Chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, on Chao Hai:

For long,line modelling is the art form of Chinese paintings. As calligraphy and painting come from the same source, I always love the beauty and allure of lines. But I can't help recalling Chao Hai, who, from Xi'an, has been rising in the world of paintings, creating what is known as the Chao Hai Phenomenon as he is the only Chinese water and ink painter who constructs art formations on rice paper with the jimo blotches instead of lines, announcing the creation of a new Chinese painting language, with his brush and ink. The jimo, made by him on raw rice paper, has reached an extremely difficult degree, with a strong textural sense and the thickness of oil paintings and sculpture, containing nevertheless the rhythms of the hidden and the airy.Reading his paintings gives one a sense of sublimity connecting heaven and the earth.

读《1995系列之二》

你的笔墨，在纸上发出

铁锤一样敲击，大地的声音

我能听见

一切都在，一张

很薄的纸上，惊天动地

也惊动神灵地进行着。你让我看见的

岩石一样的牛头，正在一块

倒地的槐树身上，挣扎出了

一头牛，应有的面相

这是土地，慈善万物的面相

这是人群，忍辱负重的面相

或许，这是一头

借助槐树之身，生下另一个自己的牛

树身里发出的，时间的声音

是牛在回头，看一个从自己身上

凿下来的背影，站立在

大地上，是否强壮

你在朽木里，发现了

一块温润的白玉，让它做了

牛的犄角

大家说晁海：

农民的形象透着艰辛，而且正是在艰辛中才展示出他们的淳朴、坚韧、顽强。但我们的现实主义长期以来却粉饰了这种艰辛。因此晁海首先面对的问题是正视农民生存状态的真实性，找回现实主义真正本质。所以，晁海的艺术是从现实主义切入的。与此相应，他的造型是从写实造型切入而不是从意象造型切入的。晁海是在写实水墨人物画基础上发展的，但他第一个叛逆对象就是这种水墨画的近期传统，反驳粉饰而直接找回了写实水墨人物画开山师祖蒋兆和的那碗“苦茶”。

——美术理论家  刘骁纯

Reading The 1995 Series (No. 2)

Your brush and ink are making

the noise on the paper, similar to the knocking of a hammer

which I can hear

as everything is progressing

on a thin piece of paper in a way that is sky-shattering

and deity-shocking. The head of the cow

you let me see that resembles a rockis struggling

out of a fallen pagoda tree, with the facial features

that a cow ought to have

such are the features of all things that are kind

and such are the features of the people bearing the burden of the shame

Or, perhaps, it is a cow

that has given birth to itself, with the body of the tree

and the sound of time that comes out of the tree

is the cow turning its head to see the shadow of a back

carved out of its own body, to see if it is strong

standing on the land

You have found a warm white jade

in a piece of rotten wood and allowed it

to become the horn of a cow

Liu Xiaochun, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

The image of the peasantsis that of hardship.But it is through this hardness that their simplicity, toughness and stubbornness are shown despite the fact that our realism has been trying to whitewash this hardship for a long time. For Chao Hai, the first thing to do is confront the authenticity of the peasants' existence in order to find back the true nature of realism, which is why his art cuts in from the angle of realism. Similarly, his modelling also cuts in from realism, not from imagery. Although he developed his art from the basis of realist figurative paintings in water and ink, the first thing Chao Hai rebelled against is this recent tradition of water and ink paintings. In striving against the whitewashing, he has directly found back the 'bitter cup of tea' from Jiang Zhaohe, founder of realist water and ink paintings.

读《1996系列之一》

一群袒胸露背的人

带着从万物身上，取来的光

照亮自己

史诗性的，笔墨

在一片起伏的天空下，推动着

身后的麦浪，也推动漂浮在头顶的

云朵，在他们扭动山河的

身体上，飞出的每一笔

都是大地，停止

不下的舞蹈

让他们，从自己身体的

土地里，携带着终身的压迫感走来

也给他们，一些从盘古手里

传下来的草帽、镰刀

这些土地上，被释放了的

囚徒，他们的狂野

疼痛压不住

哺育大地，他们带着

孕育在笔墨里，那一抹

人性之光

大家说晁海：

有人问我：“晁海不画伟大人物，甚至也不画名人，对他作品的传播和成名不利吧。”我的回答：“晁海要的是艺术，要的是良心和高贵的品质，至于作品的传播和成名，不是他意识中的关键。”但我翻阅艺术史，世界上还没有一个画总统像而成为杰出的艺术家的。毕加索、凡高等只画些船工、老农、医生、妓女、舞女、酒吧招待之类，反而成为世界著名的画家。当然，画家以伟人名人肖像作艺术试验者除外。

——美术理论家  陈传席

Reading The 1996 Series (No. 1)

A group of people, with naked chests and backs

have light that comes from all things

lighting themselves up

Brush and ink, epic in nature

are pushing the wheat waves at the back

under a heaving sky, and also the clouds drifting over

head while every brush

flying out of them twisting the mountains and rivers

is the dance, unstoppable

of the earth

Let them come walking from the earth

of their own bodies, carrying a sense of oppression for life

and give them the straw hats and sickles

passed down from Pangu

the released prisoners

of the land, with a wildness

irrepressible by pain

Nurturing the earth, they carry

the light of humanity, born

in the brush and ink

Chen Chuanxi, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

When someone said to me, 'If Chao Hai does not paint great personalities, not even celebrities, it may not be very good for the propagation of his work and fame,' I said, 'But what Chao Hai wants is art, conscience and noble qualities regardless of the propagation of his work and fame as that is not his focus.' When I went through histories of art, I haven't found one single outstanding artist who became so because of his or her painting of a president. Picasso and van Gogh became world famous, painting only boatmen, old peasants, doctors, prostitutes, dancing girls and bar maids. But, of course, there are exceptions, such as those who experiment with the portraits of celebrities.

读《1996系列之二》

土地的颜色，披在你

山河一样宽广，坦荡的身上

这对于我，还有身边的

庄稼，像种安慰

至少，从你隆起

浑然一体的身躯上，我看到的田野里

没有你舍身，对付不了的苦力

不只是神，手握的粮食

这一册永固的山河，也像建立在

你的骨架上，每一座

起伏的峰峦，都浓缩进

你的肌体里

你一身的，负重之相

也让世界自愿，安静在一头牛的背上

踩踏下去，蹄声被大地吸收

气息，被庄稼吸收

跟着你的步伐，那头走得天长

地久的牛犊，带着你浑身的

血性，等待对土地的

一次牺牲

我能看见的，山河

都在牛的躯体上，稳健地

走过，都带着一种气息

滋养人间

大家说晁海：

晁海作品中整体结构或某个形象的局部结构，是可以作为关照、欣赏对象来加以研究的。在画面整体结构上，他追求单纯明晰，他的作品在整体结构上是完整而醒目的；在形象局部结构上，他追求错综往复，墨韵深厚多变，形成丰富而不杂乱的视角效果。显示了他既敢放纵笔墨，又不忽视控制大局的气度。使我们在看他的作品时可以远观气势，近观其质，得到咀嚼品味的愉悦。从整体看，晁海的作品属于表现性水墨画，处于具象绘画的边缘。

——美术理论家  水中天

Reading The 1996 Series (No. 2）

The colours of the earth are draping over you

as broad as mountains and rivers

which, for me, and the crop

by my side, seems like a comfort

for, at least, from the field I see

in the bulging, integrated body of yours

there is no hard work you can't deal with at the expense of yourself

not just the food, held in hand by the deity

but this piece of permanently fixed mountain-river appears to be also built

on your bonestructure, where every

heaving peak has condensed into

your muscles

The way you look all your life, bearing the burden

makes the world willing to be quiet on the back of a cow

When the hooves are put down in treading, the soundis absorbed by the earth

and the breathings are absorbed by the crop

Following your steps, the calf that has been walking

as long as the sky is waiting for the sacrifice

to the earth

with all your bloody nature

All I can see is that the mountains and rivers

are on the cow's body, walking past

steadily, carrying a smell

that nourishes the world

Shui Zhongtian, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

The total structure of Chao Hai's work or the partial structure of a certain image in his work can be studied as an object of concern or enjoyment. In terms of the total structure on the painting, he is after the simple and the clear, resulting in his work being complete and eye-catching as a whole. And, in terms of the localised structure of the images, he is after the complex, with variable depths in the rhythms of the ink, forming rich visual effects that are not messy, showing that he has a magnanimity to let go with his brush and ink without giving up control onthe overall situation. As a result, when viewing his work, we can regard its momentum from a distance or gaze at its texture close by, enjoying the pleasure of chewing over the aftertaste. As a whole, Chao Hai's work sits at the edge of figurative painting, belonging to expressive water and ink paintings.

读《1996系列之三》

青春期的饥饿，让你常常

在自己的梦里，陷落下去

从土地上走出来

我们有着，比一身的饥饿

还难以打发的青春期。那些看惯庄稼

被铁打的农具，磨练得成熟的

身体，在贫瘠的夜里

得不到呼吸

身上的力气，丧失在泥土里

身上的骨头，敲打不去寂寞

身上的血液，能把自己点燃

而挥不去的，暗夜里

让我们孤独地，死亡在身体的每一个

带伤的部位。被黑暗投来的

乱石击醒，我们不敢

在夜色的皮肤上

摩挲自己

死在青春的饥饿期，我们

能带着的，是醒来的身体

大家说晁海：

他能够在画面的结构上营造现代的张力，但是在笔墨的用法、笔墨的语言方式上又能够精微入扣，这就构成了他的作品非常高的学术质量，这种质量也正是中国画的当代发展特别需要的品质，晁海用自己的大批力作书写了中国画当代学术水平的高度，尤其在思想的深度上和语言的强度上显露出他的贡献。晁海作为一个当代艺术家，他的思想观念特别是他研究艺术的方式方法以及他十分集中地对绘画语言的探索，对我们整个当代美术当代艺术都具有重要的启发意义。

             ——中国美术馆馆长、中国美术家协会主席  范迪安

Reading The 1996 Series (No. 3)

Hunger in your youth often causes you

to sink into your own dream

Walking out of the field

we have the period of youth

harder to deal with than a body full of hunger. The bodies

used to seeing the crop and worn down into maturity by

the iron farm tools can't breathe

in the impoverished night

The strength of the body is lost in the mud

The bones of the body can't lose their solitude despite the knocking

And the blood of the body can light itself up

and in the dark night that one can't dismiss

let us die lonely, in every injured part

of the body. Hit awake by the wild stones

of the dark, we dare not

touch ourselves

on the skin of the night

All we, dying in the hungry period of youth, can carry

is our wakeful bodies

Fan Di'an,Director of National Art Museum of China and Chairman of China Artists Association, on Chao Hai:

His creation of a modern tension in the structure of the painting and his meticulousness in the use of his brush and ink and his language of brush and ink leads to the high level of academic quality in his work, a quality particularly needed in the contemporary development of Chinese paintings. With a large number of his own powerful works, Chao Hai has reached a contemporary academic height in Chinese paintings, making contributions to the depths of thought and the intensity of the language. As a contemporary artist, Chao Hai, with his thought and concepts, particularly his artistic methods and his concentrated efforts in the exploration of the painting language, is of important enlightening significance to the contemporary fine arts as a whole.

读《1996系列之四》

世界的余光，留在一个

女人的怀里，以此照亮

她抱着的孩子

在如此沉重，高冷的

笔墨里，这是一次难得的

需要揣摩的绘事：她的怀里没有黑暗

也不会有寒冷；她的怀里有我们

需要被光，照亮的一切

她的怀里，生命呱呱坠地

她的怀里，万物获得灵性

她的怀里，也有

每一个过来的人，能留住的一些记忆

而被夸张出来：女人的手

孩子的脚，都是要对付身边的

世界，才长得这样粗大

我的目光，牵动下的

我的呼吸，因为这幅画

不再那么急促

大家说晁海：

晁海谈到他的艺术观念，在他那里，精神这一玄妙的东西似乎是具体的，他的生活，他的经历，以及他在许多年里执着的思考，为自己建立了一个思想框架，但他面对白纸、笔墨时，精神已经融化。因为我认为，晁海在作品之外的一切宣言都无必要，他的作品已经说明了所有。我想补充一点，眼下有不少艺术家在作品中宣言各种思想，有的甚至声嘶力竭叫嚷，这是不对的。好作品像一部完整的书，通过它观众什么都能领会，而宣扬的东西可能正是与作品相悖的东西。

——美术理论家  李小山

Reading The 1996 Series (No. 4)

The split vision of the world is kept in

the arms of a woman, henceforth illuminating

the child she is holding

as this is a rare thing

for painting, in such heaviness and high coldness

of brush and ink: there is no darkness in her arms

nor is there any cold as, in there, she has everything

of ours that needs to be lit up

In her arms, a new life is born

In her arms, things acquire sacredness

And in her arms there is also

everyone who has come over, with kept memories

that can be exaggerated: the woman's hands

and the child's feet grow this big because they

need to tackle the world at hand

My breath, pulled by

my eyes, is not so hurried

because of this painting

Li Xiaoshan, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Chao Hai talked about his artistic concepts that, with him, things spiritual seemed concrete and that his life, his experience and his stubborn thinking over the years had established a frame of thought for himself. But when he faced a piece of white paper, his brush and ink, his spirit was melted. For this reason, I thought that there was no need for his declarations outside his work which explains everything. I would like to add, though, that it is not right that quite a few artists these days like to declare all sorts of ideas in their work and some even went as far as yelling till their voice became hoarse. Good work is like a complete book through which the readers would understand everything. But a declared thing may possibly run counter to the work.

读《1996系列之五》

你的形体，还像在天地的

分裂之中，被还原着轮廓

如果没有，那只关节

被涂抹得粗大，指甲上带着光亮的手

我看不出，你宽坐在大地上

是失去亲人的人，心里

纵然有万千山水，也只能在

自己破碎的，怀里

低头倾诉

很多时候，我愿意你

赤裸地坐在，一堆乱石里

通体保持着，一块石头

从海底隆起来的过程中，应有的天性

打磨在你的身上，每一根骨头

都怀有一些，需要神

才能听懂的哭泣

你从心里，挥不去的思念

坐在哪里，哪里就是人间

大家说晁海：

晁海运用他的浑朴的笔墨体现民生的时候，取得了内美和外美的一致。他画农村里面的老人、壮汉，甚至麦客那些妇女，都是用这样的一种浑厚的笔墨来表现，是他对农民本性的一种探索，也是一种反思。因为他的画并不以情节取胜，他只是用这样的语言塑造了一个个如雕如塑的形象。我想到了四个字，不知道和他贴切不贴切，叫“体量墨塑”，这种塑造既是温厚的、朴拙的，又是模糊的、神秘的，或者是混沌的。

——美术理论家  刘曦林

Reading The 1996 Series (No. 5)

Your figure seems to be still returned to its original shape

in the splitting apart of the sky from the earth

But for the hand with its fingers of light

and its knuckles smeared into thickness

I can't see that you are someone, sitting broad over the earth

who has lost his beloved and can only

lower your own head, pouring your heart out

in your own broken arms

On many an occasion, I'd like you

to sit naked amidst the rocks

keeping upright, in the shape of a stone

when it's risen from the bottom of the sea

while every bone, honed out of your body

harbours weeping of a kind

that only a deity can understand

You have nostalgia that can't be chased out of your heart

and wherever you sit there is the human world

Liu Xilin, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

When he used his simple brush and ink to represent people's lives, Chao Hai achieved an external and internal beauty. His portraiture of the old people, strong men and even women wheat harvesters in the country was done with such simple brush and ink, his way of exploring and reflection.His paintings are not strong in the plot but he has used such a language in the shaping of sculptural figures.I'd like to describe his work as ink sculpture as it is warm andclumsy and also blurry and mysterious or chaotic.

读《1996系列之六》

立在大地上，种地人的

血肉之躯，也能为自己树立一座

天长地久的纪念碑

这是大地上，一座

最谦卑的纪念碑，它的顶端

永远被朝向黄土的，一组头颅支撑着

他们敬畏天地，偶尔仰面

只是看一眼太阳，是否走到头顶

他们低头，撩起毛巾

一个擦汗的动作，被绘成

大地之门

这是大地上，一座

有温度的纪念碑，它的底部

是种地人的双脚，抓得

紧紧的泥土，它们触摸到的万物之根

也让自己，得以繁衍

他们对面，在自己心里

打开一扇，祈祷

忏悔之门

这个时候，我也想站在

他们的对面，带着一种敬仰的

心情，低头拱手

大家说晁海：

他的整个的根、命脉以及精神其实都是传统的，但是他又不是用传统的方法表现。所以在他的艺术中，呈现的又是很现代的因素，完全属于一种当代人对自己传统文化的思考，一个当代人对我们祖先创造的上千年的农业文明的思考，我们就是靠的这些父老乡亲们支撑下来的这样一个国家，他们的那种坚韧不拔的毅力，那种忍受苦难的精神，在他的作品中都能呈现出来。他就是通过这样一种非常单纯的画面处理，最后把它凝固化，把它凝练为一种精神性的东西。

——美术理论家  贾方舟

Reading The 1996 Series (No. 6)

Standing on the land, the planters, of flesh and blood

can erect a lasting monument

for themselves

a most humble

monument, its top always supported

by a group of heads facing the loess

They are awed by heaven and the earth and, occasionally, they lift their faces

only to see if the sun has reached overhead

and they lower their heads, lifting their towels

an act of sweat-wiping, depicted

as the gate to the earth

This is a monument on the land

of warmth, its pedestal

the feet of the planters, grabbing

a tight hold of the soil, reaching the roots of things

and allowing themselves to breed

Opposite them, they open a door

of prayer and confession

in their own hearts

At such times, I'd also like to stand

opposite them, with awe

my head lowered and my hands cupped in obeisance in front of my chest

Jia Fangzhou, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

His roots, bloodline and spirit are all traditional. But he doesn't express himself in a traditional way, which is whyhis art represents modern elements, entirelythinking done by his contemporaries of their own traditional culture, the kind of thinking of the agricultural civilisation created by our ancestors more than a thousand years ago and it is on that basis that this country was founded by the fellow countrymen, whose indomitable perseverance and spiritual suffering are represented in his work. By way of a pure and simple pictorial treatment, he condenses it into something spiritual.

读《1996系列之七》

很多时候，最平静的样子

就是生活里，睡去的姿势

可以收紧身体，躺下来

也可以弯腰坐着，却让四肢

失去最后一丝，力气

平静地展开。可以想象

他们就这样，在自己接近散架的

身体里睡去，也在风

一吹就会，倒下的

姿势里睡去

他们的梦，却在自己

睡去的身上，花朵一样醒来

不用想，活在哪里

都是在身体的土地上，为了一粒

种子的命运，让大地吐尽

最后一口血。站在梦里

他们依靠着的，大地

也这样睡去

看见他们，很放松的姿势

我能想见，醒来后的不安

大家说晁海：

晁海的艺术和武术相同。团块本身的深浅变化以及团块与团块模糊的空白间仿佛有气的流动、贯穿和回旋，形成一种看不见却能感到的气场，一种内聚力和外张力的冲突，一种虚与实穿插、交汇、滚动、闪烁的氤氲图像。近看是抽象，像包里的卵石土豆，又似滚动的棉团浓烟。远看似具象，是梦中的乡亲麦客或是特写的一张大脸。这大约也正是晁海心中中的关中农民。从某种意义上说，他们就是中华民族永远拔不绝的深根，中国文化永远割不断的韧魂。

——美术理论家  翟墨

Reading The 1996 Series (No. 7)

Many times, the most peaceful manner

is the living posture in sleep

You can gather yourself together and lie down

or you can sit bent, letting the limbs

spread about in peace, losing their final

strength. You can imagine that

they, like that, fall asleep

within themselves close to collapsing, and also in

the posture that might fall

with the blow of a wind

Their dreams, though, wake up

in their sleeping selves, like the flowers

without having to wonder where to live

as all of them spit out

the last mouthful of blood, on the earth of body

for the fate of a seed. Standing in the dream

the earth they rely on

also sleeps like that

Seeing their relaxed posture

I can imaging the restlessness when they wake up

Zhai Mo, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Chao Hai's art is like martial arts.The bumps and blocks are in varying sizes and depths, and the obscure blank spaces between the bumps and blocks seem to have a flow of airs, going through and coming back, forming an air field, invisible but tangible, with a conflict between the gathering and extending forces, and an atmospheric image of the real, interspersed, conversed, rolling and twinkling with the virtual. When you look at them in close quarters, they look like the potatoes in the sacks or thick rolling smokes of cotton lumps. If you look at them from a distance, they become the wheat harvesters from the same village or a huge facial closeup, which is probably the peasants in Guanzhong in Chao Hai's heart.In a certain sense, they are the deepest roots, ineradicable, of the Chinese civilisation, the tough souls, unable to be cut, of the Chinese culture.

读《1997系列之一》

是天地，拉长了

你们的形体，也是天地

拉长了你们的，生命

是一层月光，代表着

那些在天上，看见你们

心中生发出，很多痛苦的人

想要洗掉，你们每寸

皮肤深处，生硬的尘垢

让铁黑的，身上

也有一些月光

这是你们，很少

有过的姿态，因为天地

很多时候，让万物一身苍茫

也让你们，把头颅

埋在闷热的，庄稼地里

而一身粗壮，是泥土

塑造下的，固定形体

你们带着，被天地

拉长了的形体，你们身上

也有更多的，神灵之光

大家说晁海：

他只所以漠视油彩，钟情水墨的原因恰恰在于水墨的肆意和不可预测。晁海发明了一种特殊的技巧，原本就清稀的水墨被稀释后加入赭石粉，再被一层层涂到吸水能力非常强故而更难驾驭的生宣上。这样，水墨留下的就不再是那些容易掌控的精致图景，而造就出一种具有野心、像黄土一样粗粝的形象，这些形象并不源于画家的意图，它可以被视为画家内心受到偶然机缘突袭时的一种景象。这些作品材料感厚重，但它们体现出的生机显然超越了西方艺术形神分离的理念。

——德国文化学者  马克.西蒙

Reading The 1997 Series (No. 1)

It is the heaven-earth that is stretching

your figures long and it is also the heaven-earth

that is stretching your lives

It's a layer of moonlight that represents

the people in the sky watching how much pain

you have generated in your hearts

wanting to wash off the hard dust and dirt

in the depths of every inch of your skin

and letting the iron-black body

keep a certain amount of moon

This is a rare gesture that

you have because the heaven-earth

on many occasions, lets ten-thousand things remain boundless

and also lets you bury your heads

in the simmering crop-field

while the thickness of your bodies is the fixed shape

that soil has made

With your elongated figures by the heaven-earth

you have

more sacred light on you

Mark Siemons, a German cultural scholar, on Chao Hai:

The reason why he ignores the oil paints and sticks to water and inkhas to do with the randomness of the water and ink and unpredictability. Chao Hai has invented a special technique in adding the ground ochre in the diluted water-ink, already clear and thin, before spreading it, layer by layer, onto the rice paper that is very absorbent but harder to manage. Thus, the water-ink does not leave exquisite pictures easy to handle but images as rough as loess, full of ambition. The images do not come from the artist's intention; rather, they can be regarded as a landscape created by the artist when his heart of hearts experiences an occasional coincidence. These works have a sense of heavy material but the vitality expressed therein seems to have beyond the Western art concept of soul detached from body.

读《1997系列之二》

穿越灵与肉，这是你一生

要用水墨，叠立的三块碑

天地人，萦绕在你

灵魂的深处，有时是

一种让荒野更加孤独的声音，有时是

一尊寂寞人间的造像，有时是

一阵车裂，身体的疼痛

推开那些，让一个人的灵魂

平庸的水墨，你让流出身体的血

结痂成心中，早有的映像

天地人，你省去的

是你不知道的，一些隐秘的东西

你在最黑暗的部分，只给予他们一对

看穿黑暗的眼睛，还有紧抿着

等待时间，张开的嘴

穿越你的灵魂，天地人

世界因此，站立得高远

大家说晁海：

晁海画的都是劳动者，包括动物也都是牛、驴、马之类的苦畜。他在这些苦畜和人的命运间寻思。什么是《大地之魂》？什么立于《天地之间》？晁海的思索浩茫而沉重，一种大悲悯的情怀笼罩着他的全部作品。晁海超越了他的前辈所取的那种简单歌颂劳动和劳动者的态度，也不是像批判现实主义作家那样，拭去揭示劳动者命运的社会学内容。不，他没有这些形而下的目的，他的思索是形而上的，他认为这就是我们这个世界的本质，劳苦是我们这个世界必须接受的宿命。

——文化学者  王鲁湘

Reading The 1997 Series (No. 2)

Going through body and soul: that is the three monuments

that you have to pile up with water and ink, in your whole life

Heaven, earth and man are hovering

around the depths of the soul, occasionally a sound

that makes the wilderness even more solitary, sometimes a

sculpture of the lonely world and sometimes

a pain as if of the body pulled apart by a chariot

Pushing aside the water and ink that reduces a soul

to mediocrity, you let the blood run out of the body

form a scab of reflection already existent in your heart

Among heaven, earth and man, you have omitted

certain hidden things unknown to you

and, in the darkest part, you give them only a pair

of eyes that penetrate the darkness and a tightly shut

mouth that is awaiting time

By going through your soul, heaven, earth and man

the world stands far and high

Wang Luxiang, a cultural scholar, on Chao Hai:

All Chao Hai paints are labourers and the animals he paints are bitter beasts of burden, such as the cows, donkeys and horses.He is thinking amongst them. What is 'The Soul of the Earth?' And what stands 'Between Heaven and the Earth?' Chao Hai's thoughts are vast and heavy, his feelings of great sorrow shrouding all his work. Chao Hai has transcended the attitude in which his predecessors sing of labour and labourers. Nor does he try to reveal the sociological contents of the labourers' fate, like the critical realists. No. His are not these physical purposes as his are metaphysical because, in his opinion, that is the nature of our world and bitter labour is the fate our world has to accept.

读《1997系列之三》

这是一块来到人间的陨石

这是一块有着人面的陨石

这是一块与神通灵的陨石

如果大先生还在

他会欣然宣布：这个世界

不再是冷峻的鲁迅，一个人愤笔疾书

不再是《呐喊》里的，一种声音

他会站在，这幅画前

想象手术刀，沿着哪个部位

解剖，才能准确地触到

人间的悲凉

我也想知道，多年以后

这对鼓凸在黑暗里，一直在自己脸上

挣扎着的眼睛，还和所有灵魂

纠缠不休？手上

握满这个世界，很多的不幸

一把水墨的，刻刀

滴着血凿下，他们仰天

长啸的那张脸

这是一张堆满忧伤的脸

这是一张穿越死亡的脸

这是一张惊动神灵的脸

大家说晁海：

如果说苦难的现实决定了他绘画的题材及现实主义基调，那么，作为中华帝国文明中心之一的西安所蓄积的艺术底蕴，无疑是催生他个人风格的源泉。想要“触摸”那种“如生铁一样”的现实，就必须寻找到“如生铁一样”的语言。他独特的积墨手法据说就深受霍去病墓及其他汉唐陵墓石刻的影响，经历长久的磨砺，以至的毛笔与生宣达成至刚的效果，最终在当代水墨画中别开生面。晁海懂得个人语言的重要性，即一个人应当在艺术语言形式上呈现陌生感。

——文化学者  朱朱

Reading The 1997 Series (No. 3)

This is a meteorite that has arrived in the world

This is a meteorite that has a human face

This is a meteorite that is connected with deities

If the Great Gentleman is still there

he'll announce with delight that this world

is no longer the cold and severe Lu Xun, writing with energy

no longer the voice in 'Yelling'

as he'll stand in front of this painting

imagining which location the lancet needs

to go along to accurately touch

the cold sadness of the world

I'd also like to know that, in many years

if the pair of eyes bulging in the dark, consistently struggling

in my own face, will still get entangled with

all the souls. My hands have a grabful

of much misery of the world

and a carving knife of water and ink

dripping with blood, cut down their

face, raised in long cries

A face heaped with sorrow

A face going through death

A face that shocks the deities

Zhu Zhu, a cultural scholar, on Chao Hai:

If the reality of suffering determines his subject matter and hiskeynote of realism, then his artistic intelligence, accumulated in Xi'an, one of the centres of civilisation of the Chinese Empire, must undoubtedly have given birth to his personal style. If one wants to touch the raw-iron reality, one must search for a language like the raw iron. Allegedly, his jimo methods have been deeply influenced by the Huo Qubing graveside and other stone inscriptions of the Han dynasty and the Tang dynasty. After a long practice, his softest brush was able to produce the hardest effect on the rice paper, eventually breaking a new path in contemporary water-ink paintings. After all, Chao Hai knows the importance of a personal language in that he knows that one ought to produce a sense of strangeness in artistic language.

读《1997系列之四》

一块黑得，有如生铁的岩石

一块硬得，棱角凌厉的岩石

我看见，两处带着

光亮裂开的地方，是一个人

睁得天昏地暗的眼睛，而挤压在里面

有岩石里的水，也有

岩石里的火，流泪或燃烧

是一种抵抗，很多时候

却被黑色压住

我也看见，那些隐在

黑暗处的部位，一定在等待神来雕凿

包括我想，从中取走的表情

都等待激发。那些藏在

岩石里的，水与火

也在天地的阵痛中，寻找

裂开的地方

我们看见，最早的祖先

也是他们，头骨的化石

大家说晁海：

作为农民生存基础的家园和土地，正在被现代工业和城市的发展一天天蚕食，他们的文化和价值观也在商品经济和商业文化的冲击下日趋解体，黄河流域的民间美术的衰落和消失就是一个明证。所有这些，当然给农民出身的晁海以巨大的震撼，他不能不思索脚下正在震动的土地，思索这块土地上人民的命运。他的作品中，不再有红光满面、笑容可掬的幸福形象，代之而起的，是一种深深地渗透了历史感的苍凉。

——美术理论家  殷双喜

Reading The 1997 Series (No. 4)

A rock, as black as raw iron

A rock, so hard its corners are fiercely sharp

I can see that it is a person

with his sky-darkening eyes

where it cracks in two places with light and what's pressed inside

is the water in the rock and also

the fire in the rock. Although tears or burning

are a resistance, they are suppressed

by the dark on many occasions

I can also see that parts hidden

in the dark must be waiting for the deities to carve

including the expressions that I'd like to take away with me

that are also waiting to burst out. The water and fire

hidden in the rocks

are also seeking, in the throes of the sky and earth

a spot to crack open

As we can see that the earliest ancestors

are also the fossil of their skulls

Yin Shuangxi, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

The home gardens and the land,the foundation of existence for the peasants, are being encroached upon on a daily basis by the development of modern industry and cities. And their culture and values are also disintegrating under the impact of commodity economy and commercial culture, a clear evidence for that being the decline and disappearance of the folk fine arts in the Yellow River valley, all of which are a great shock to Chao Hai, from a peasant background. He can't stop thinking of the land shaking under his feet or of the fate of people on the land. As a result, his work is not full of the happy images of glowing faces with radiant smiles; instead, it is suffused with a sense of bleak history.

读《1998系列之一》

从时间里，走来

向时间里走去，你们和自己

擦肩而过

从时间里，走来的时候

身后拖曳着，一片天地苍茫的世事

伸长的脖颈，把破碎的面孔

举得再高，能看见的

还是停滞在，土地表面的创伤

那些旧山水，带着一身的

幽怨，却不知道

朝哪里奔逃

向时间里，走去的时候

一种召唤，让你们看见了

这个世上，从来没有存在过的光亮

你们的形体，被映照得

只剩下，一层粗粝

或许脱尽了，表面的尘土

好让神看见，那些留在

骨头里的痛

走在时间的，简史里

你们的今生来世，都被这些

水墨留住

大家说晁海：

晁海的艺术具有范例的意义，在水墨画的革新或现代水墨的探索上他没有局限于封闭式的语言实验，而是面向现实、面向人生经验，将水墨语言的可能性置于广阔的现实与历史空间之中。他超越的不仅是传统艺术及媒材，而且还超越了地域文化的局限，使一度陷入风情画困境的黄土文化得以向现代艺术展开。晁海的艺术是一个发现自我、重塑自我的过程，这个过程是缓慢的，也是坚实的，因为他的艺术说明对现实的参与和对自我的挖掘已成为他生命的一部分。

——美术理论家  易英

Reading The 1998 Series (No. 1)

Walking from time

and walking into time, you have brushed past

yourselves

When you come walking out of time

you drag behind you a world of heavenly and earthly things

your extended necks raising the broken faces

as high as possible but what you can see

remains the wounds on the surfaces of the earth

and the old mountains and waters, with all their

resentment, do not know

where to escape

When you are walking into time

a call lets you see

a light that has never existed in this world

your figures so lit up

that a roughness remains

possibly stripped off the surface dust

so that the deities can see the pain

kept inside the bones

When you walk inside the brief history of time

your present and future lives are all kept

by these waters and inks

Yi Ying, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Chao Hai's art is of paradigmatic significance.In the renovation of water-and-ink paintings or in the exploration of modern water and ink, he does not limit himself to the closed-up linguistic experimentation; instead, he places the possibility of water-and-ink language between the broad realities and the historical space by facing the realities and facing the life experience for what he goes beyond is not only the traditional art and media but also the limitations of the regional culture, with the result that the loess culture that used to sink into the predicament of the fengqing hua, or wind-emotion paintings (stylised paintings) is now able to expand into modern art. Chao Hai's art is a process of self-discovery and self-shaping, a slow and solid one, because his art shows that his participation in the realities and his excavation of his own self has become a part of his life.

读《1998系列之二》

像我在乡村，大户人家的

头门上，见过的宝盖铁钉

死死地钉在，一张

沟壑一样的脸上，这双冷寂了的眼睛

像看过人世上，太多的不幸

折断最后，一束亮光

带着不再涌现的表情，瓷在

自己的脸上，泪水的河流

沿着鼻翼，在半途

悄然干涸了

在一个人，内心

裂出无数碎片，又无法

缝合的时候，我看见的万物如此凄迷

这样的眼睛，钉在

这样的脸上，像从老去的宇宙里

挪移过来的黑洞，整体的

坍塌，带来一场

整体的黑暗

这样的眼睛里，涌满了刺痛

大地的光，却被时间石化了

大家说晁海：

他从小习武，基本功着力很深，也得到过名师指点，并且几十年来一直没有放弃苦练，直至现在也保持了很好的竞技状态。在年轻时为了磨练意志，经常从位于长安县兴国寺的西安美术学院骑85公里的自行车回兴平老家去看母亲，一路汗水一路风景。他从乡土少年到知识分子的生活经历，他能把不堪回首的苦难砥砺化作对土地乡民的感情，乃至成为一种艺术的感觉，都是得益于他对于武术的切身体会，对于传统文化中太极阴阳的理解。

——美术理论家  安远远

Reading The 1998 Series (No. 2)

These nails, like the round-headed ones

on the gates of the rich families

are nailed dead into a

face resembling a valley, its eyes, turned cold

seeming to have seen so much suffering in the world

When you break the final bunch of lights

and let it stick to your own face

with expressions no longer surging, when the river of tears

quietly runs dry halfway

along the nostrils

When countless fragments break in one's

heart of hearts, impossible

to be sewn together, things I see are so desolate and forlorn

When such eyes are nailed

in such faces, they resemble the black caves

brought over from the ageing universe, collapsing

as a whole, leading to a

total darkness

Such eyes are surging with pain

while the light of the land is turned into fossil by time

An Yuanyuan, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

He practised martial arts when he was a child, having received basic training as well as instructions from the well-known masters. For decades, he has not given up on his hard practice and is in excellent form to this day. In his youth, and to put himself through the mill, he would often ride his bike, covering 85 kilometres, to visit his mother at Xingping, from Xi'an Institute of Fine Arts at Xingguo Temple in Chang'an county, sweating all over and enjoying the landscape along the way. In his experience growing up from a rural teenager to an intellectual, he is able to turn his unforgettable suffering into a feeling for the land and its rural residents until that becomes a feeling for art, all benefited from his experience with martial arts and his understanding of the Taiji principle of yin and yang in the traditional culture.

读《1998系列之三》

一脸挣命的，苦相，

比从泥土里刨出来的，土豆

还要伤心

你半蹲在，地头

还是院子里？这都不重要

一定是你披着衣裳，弓腰走路的时候

有不幸的消息，带着

揭地而起的大风，从头顶吹来

你的腿脚，能支撑住大地

却支撑不住，突然

下沉的身子

庄稼人，很多时候

都被不幸的事物，不分黑白地纠缠着

每走一步，摆在身边的棋子

都提心吊胆。而半蹲在

瓷实的地上，是一种接受不幸的

姿态。握住双手

像握住倾斜的，天空

不要倒下去

等你站起来，想清了

这是遭遇，该流泪的事情

就抹一把泪

大家说晁海：

晁海面临的新课题是如何创造出不同于前人但又有新意的艺术作品来。有别于不少“新潮画家”把目光专注于西方现代艺术潮流，在形式上做花样翻新，他反复体会和钻研中国传统文化的精神，也适当吸收西方现代绘画的创造经验，决心在“体验”“印象”“感觉”“表现”上做文章，把自己的艺术创造牢牢扎根于西北农村的土壤上。他体验农民的生存状态和他们的感情，写他耳闻目睹的印象和感觉，但采用的是不同于一般写实手法的表现性语言。

——美术理论家  邵大箴

Reading The 1998 Series (No. 3)

A face of bitter features, in the struggle for life

is more heart-broken than the potato

dug out of the soil

Where are you half squatting, at the head of the field

or in the courtyard? Neither is important

It must be an unfortunate news that came blowing overhead

curling up from the land when you walk, bent double

with your clothes thrown on you

Your feet can support the land

but can't support your body

that takes a sudden plunge

The croppers, on many occasions

are entangled in the unfortunate things

and every step they take, the pieces by their side

are on tenterhooks. The half squatting posture

on the china earth, though, is one in which one accepts

the misfortune, their hands held together

as if they were holding the inclining sky

against falling

When you stand up, having sorted out that

this is tantamount to having encountered something that leads to tears

just wipe your tears off

Shao Dazhen, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

The new challenge that Chao Hai is facing is how to create work of arts that is different from those of his predecessors but that is also new. Unlike many new-wave artists whose attention is drawn to modern art trends in the West, turning over the old things in a new guise, he repeatedly experiences and studies the spirit of traditional Chinese culture while appropriately absorbing the creative experience of the modern Western painting, determined to do his work in terms of impressions, feelings and expressions, taking artistic roots in the soil of rural Northwest. He based his experience on the existence of the peasants and their emotions and wrote about his impressions and feelings but he adopted an expressive language that is different from the general realist methods.

读《1998系列之十》

捏在手里，什么样的食物

让你们彼此，要注目一下

大地的富有，与贫穷

你们都能安静地，活在其中

活在一年，不能躲过一天的日子里面

苦累和饥饿，都可以

在怀有敬畏的，心里忍受

只要能裹腹，分享任何一种食物

成了对待，苦难的

一种态度

此刻，头顶的太阳

让你从肩膀上，褪去破烂不堪的衣裳

或许在一次，大逃荒的路上

走过的村庄里，一些

能伸出来的手上，放着不多的

却让眼泪，忍不住的东西

一路上，能遇到的

都是大救星

等到稀薄的麦子，成熟了

逃荒的路上，你是好麦客

大家说晁海：

我有一位同事，他是牛津大学获博士学位回来在中文大学教书，叫莫家良，他看到晁海的画后，说他的画“感人”。我开始对“感人”两个字还没太在意，后来我想“感人”两个字用的非常好，因为画要感人实在是不容易的事情。我刚才讲晁海是一个思想型画家。为什么？因为心中一直有一个想法，怎么样在全球化情况下，能够把中国画摆到世界画坛上去。他心中的中国画应该一方面强烈地表现中国的精神特质，另一方面又能够与世界精神相通。

——香港中文大学原校长  金耀基

Reading The 1998 Series (No. 10)

What kind of food, held in your hands

induces your attention?

Whether the earth is rich or poor

you can all live therein, quietly

living the whole year in which you can't escape a single day

bearing with the fatigue and hunger

with a heart full of awe

as long as you can allay your hunger. To share food, of any kinds

is to deal with

suffering

Right now, the sun overhead

may have stripped you of all the rags

or, on one occasion, when fleeing the great famine

going past the village, the extendable hands

are placed with things that are not many

but that can make it hard to hold the tears

All the way, whoever you can meet

is a great saviour

When the thin wheat is ripe

you are a good wheat harvester on the famine road

Ambrose King Yeo-Chi, Former Vice-Chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, on Chao Hai:

I have a colleague, by the name of Mo Jialiang, who came back to teach at the Chinese University of Hong Kong after he got a PhD at Oxford University. When he saw Chao Hai's paintings, he said that they were very 'moving'. At first, I didn't take note. But, later on, I thought it was a well-used word because it is really not easy to paint in a moving way. Just now, I said that Chao Hai is a thoughtful artist. Why? Because he always harbours a thought in his heart that he'll find a way of putting the Chinese paintings in the painting world in a globalised context. In his heart, the Chinese paintings ought to strongly represent the Chinese spiritual quality, on one hand, and, on the other, they ought to be spiritually connected to the world spirit.

读《1999系列之二》

一头从泥土里，脱胎

出来的牛，在大地下沉的

时刻，站起来

这是你犁过的，大地

翻出泥土里，那些能感动

每一粒种子的气息，奔流在你的身上

汗水的河流，早已从田野绵软的

身后，打湿了暮色

天空寂静，只有你驻足在

埋下阳光的，土地上

聆听一些声音

那是比你，咀嚼一口

金黄色的干草，还要响亮得多的声音

那也是上帝，在一团隐秘的

黑色氛围里，放大

每一粒种子，打破泥土的声音

你不急着，走回有石槽的

圈里，你因此听到了

土地里的声音

站在大地，下沉的

时刻，一头牛就是我看见的

世界的全貌

大家说晁海：

晁海深感他所崇尚的农民品行是真实的，不仅从幼年到成年他曾在身边许许多多的农民身上实实在在地感觉到，甚至那种坚韧和顽强就活在自己的血脉中。然而一旦欲弘扬它时，存在又转化成了虚无，近在咫尺又远在天边。真真确确又化为无着边际，这大概是虚无缥缈的笔墨所产生的潜在心理因素。逃遁而又无法逃遁，无法逃遁偏又逃遁，这是晁海艺术精神上的双重结构。面对寻根与失根、真与幻、色与空的永恒矛盾，却不断追求精神的超越，这既是晁海的价值。

——美术理论家  刘骁纯

Reading The 1999 Series (No. 2)

A cow, born out of

the mud, stands up

as the earth sinks

This is the earth you have ploughed

where the breath, out of the soil

that moves every seed, is rushing through you

rivulets of sweat have moistened the dusk

from soft back of the field

The sky is quiet, only you have paused

on the land where the sunshine is buried

listening to a number of sounds

sounds that are much louder than

the golden hay that you are chewing a mouthful of

and that is also the sound of each seed breaking the soil

enlarged by God when He put it

in the black atmosphere

You are in no hurry to return to the ring

with a stone trough, and, for this reason

you hear the sound of the earth

Standing in the moment of the earth

sinking, a cow is all of the world

that I see

Liu Xiaochun, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Chao Hai has a deep conviction that the character of the peasants that he admires is authentic. He could actually feel it among the many peasants around him but that toughness and tenacity are kept alive in his own veins. However, as soon as he intends to promote the spirit, the real becomes unreal, within reach but as far as the horizon, real but irrelevant, probably a potential psychological factor, created by the illusory water and ink. Trying to escape but finding it impossible to escape and trying to escape again, that is the double structure of Chao Hai's artistic spirit.The value of Chao Hai lies in that he keeps pursuing a spiritual transcendence in the face of the eternal contradiction between roots sought and roots lost, the real and the illusory, and the sexy and the empty.

读《1999系列之三》

黑夜，聚集起天地之间

有辐射的光，对你扫描

你的面部，刻骨地

显示出人类的表情，那是黑夜

抹杀不了的，一种必须活下去的坚韧

或许，你是独自一人

守在一孔，天色暗下去的窑洞里

黑夜，用一些剩余的光线

简单地照亮你

照亮你，一脸的灰暗

照亮神，看见的灰暗

那是白天，留下的

一种接近死亡，又会在黑夜里

复活过来的灰暗，沿着这样

凄迷的底色，我在你充满骨感的脸上

看见一双，眼睛的硬核

可以释放出的，爱恨

天地载不动

你被夜色，扫描过的表情

移到大地上，也震撼山河

大家说晁海：

晁海讲述这些农民，世世代代在黄土地上，他们无所求，默默地劳动，无私地贡献。偶尔吃上一顿饱饭，便心满意足，甚至会吹上一通唢呐，唱上一阵秦腔。可是他们很少能吃上像样的饭菜，衣服补了又补，手破了，用一块破布包上，仍旧在干活。孩子上不起学，便在家帮助大人劳动，他们就这样一代一代繁衍下去，不怨天，不尤人。什么叫忠厚、朴实，在晁海的画中，你可以得到形象的解释。这些劳苦者，正是支撑中华民族的脊梁，他们就是中国的现状。

——美术理论家  陈传席

Reading The 1999 Series (No. 3)

The dark night is gathering the radiated lights

between heaven and the earth to scan you

Your face, bone-cuttingly, reveals

human expressions, which is not something

that the dark night can wipe out, a toughness to survive

or perhaps you are alone

sticking to the hole of a darkening cave

when the dark night is, simply, lighting your face up

with the remaining lights

lighting you up, with a face of grey dark

lighting the grey dark up,as seen by the deity

the kind of grey dark, left by the day

approaching death but that could become alive again

in the dark night. Along such

desolate ground colours, and on your bony face, I can see

a pair of hard-core eyes

capable of emitting love and hate

more than heaven and the earth can bear

Your expressions, scanned by the colour of the night

can shake the mountains and rivers when shifted to the land

Chen Chuanxi, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

The peasants that Chao Hai is telling about have been living on the land of loess from generation to generation, without any desire, just labouring away in silence and making selfless contributions. Occasionally, when they have a full meal, they feel content and will blow their suona horns and sing a number from Qinqiang opera. But they can rarelyhave anything decent to eat and their clothes are patches. If their hands get bruised, they'll just wrap them up with a rag before resuming work. When kids can't afford the school, they help their parents at home. They thus live from generation to generation, making no complaints whatsoever. What is loyalty and what is simplicity? You can find answers in Chao Hai's paintings. These labourers are the backbone of the Chinese nation and they are the Chinese realities.

读《1999系列之四》

土地，还是那片土地

我们，不是那个我们

我们对土地的，虔诚

就像那些被躯壳，坚硬地包裹起来的

五谷的种子，年年把自己

种进一片，落下云朵的山坡上

然后，守护在时间

冷暖的身边，听风吹拂

庄稼的神秘

我们改造土地，很多

地方的原貌，已无迹可考

但若干年的风，会吹出土地身体里的

那份慈悲，会恢复生殖的力量

只是，在土地上

改造的我们，却滋生了

很多的野蛮

我像看见，一只摩挲

土地的手，有些颤抖

大家说晁海：

在关于生命的感怀与笔墨感觉二者之间有了更紧密和内在的联系，真正达到了化万物与心胸、于寂静中思接万物的境界。从具体地对农民、土地、黄牛等物象的描绘，上升到对生命灵魂的塑造，这是十分内在地接通了中国文化传统的精髓和现代人的感性表现。从他《2004系列》看，他近年的作品真是有发展。同样主题、同样题材、同样相近的结构，与上世纪九十年代一路过来的几个系列比，都更加精粹了！在我看来，走向精粹，是当代中国画的任务。

            ——中国美术馆馆长、中国美术家协会主席  范迪安

Reading The 1999 Series (No. 4)

The land remains the same land

but we are no longer the 'we' then

our devotion to the land

like the seeds of the five cereals, wrapped up hard

in their own shells, plants itself, annually

in a spread of the mountain slope where the clouds drop

before, keeping to the warm-cold side

of time, listening to the wind brush across

the mystery of the crop

When we reform the land, the original features of many places

have no traces for research

but a wind of a number of years may blow the mercy out of

the body of the earth, to rejuvenate the reproductive power

except that we, reformed

on the land, have grown

so much savagery

I seem to have seen a hand

caressing the land, slightly trembling

Fan Di'an,Director of National Art Museum of China and Chairman of China Artists Association, on Chao Hai:

Between the feeling for life and the sense of brush and ink, there is a closer and inner connection, truly a state where things have melted in the heart and thoughts are connected with things in silence. When a concrete description of things like the peasants, the earth and the cows is raised to the shaping of souls of life, it is a sensual expression that interiorly connects the essence of Chinese cultural tradition and the modern man. Judging by his The 2004 Series, his work in recent years is really developed as the same themes, the same subject matter and the same similar structures are more refined than the series he had consistently produced in the 1990s. In my opinion, moving towards a refinement is the task for contemporary Chinese paintings.

读《2000系列之一》

水墨一样，淋漓的天空

落在你的纸上，很湿润

这个时候，人间的

万千气象，都在你铺展开大地的纸上

带着沉积了，很多年的事物

留下心里的，云卷云舒

那些用汉字，很难诉说生动的

细节，只有交给隐秘

且恣意的，水墨

这个时候的，天空

像在一片，空濛的雨色里

把我们熟悉的事物，笼罩进灰色之中

从一些斑驳的，光亮里

我很想取走，你寄托在情绪

深处的意象，却恍惚看见

卧状里的，世界

沉浸在你，湿润的水墨里

我们被天空，过度出灰色

大家说晁海：

《农民》系列令人瞩目的地方有几方面。首先，在题材上，晁海的选择以西北地区的农民为主题，为这系列平添了地域色彩。作为陕西画家，晁海的作品不仅让人对艺术创作与画家根源及生活体验的关系作为思考，同时亦为艺术地域性问题做出很好的示范。其次，《农民》系列所描绘的虽然是西北地区农民雄浑坚毅的造型，但观众所能感受的，却是一种人类可贵的强大生命力。这种生命力是没有地域性的，是人类经过世世代代、面对恶劣环境磨练出来的一种精神。

——美术理论家  莫家良

Reading The 2000 Series (No. 1)

The sky, dripping like water and ink

is moist when dropped onto your paper

At such moments, things of the world

spectacular are on your paper spread over the land

carrying things that have been in sedimentation for many years

and left the clouds curling in your heart

The details, hard to make vivid with Chinese

characters, can only be handed over to the water and ink

that are mysterious and wayward

And at such moments, the sky

seems in a spread of empty rain colours

shrouding things we are familiar with in the colour of grey

I'd really like to take the images

you entrusted in the depths of emotions

from mottled lights but, in a trance, I see

a world in a lying state

Immersed in your moist water and ink

we are excessed into grey by the sky

Mo Jialiang, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

There are a number of places in The Peasant Series that catch attention. Firstly, in terms of subject matter, Chao Hai has chosen the peasants in the Northwestern region as the theme, adding to the regional colour of this series. As a Shanxi-based artist, Chao Hai, in his work, not only allows people to think of the relationship between the artistic creation and the sources and living experience of the artist, but also serves as a good example in dealing with the issue of artistic regionality. Secondly, even though The Peasant Seriesis a depiction ofthe virility and fortitude of the North-western peasants, but what the viewers can feel is a strong precious vitality of the humanity, one that is not regional but a spirit chastened from generation to generation in the face of adverse circumstances.

读《2002系列之二》

一块从宇宙，落到

地球的陨石，在一片水墨里

重获生命

这是最后的，命运之门

一块黑铁一样的陨石，在亿万年的

死亡过程中，被时光遗弃在

大地的天坑里，直至

越过一切暗物质的，目光

犀利地落在，它被熄灭

火焰的表面

直至水墨，沿着它

熄灭身体里，所有火焰时

剩下一副，外力不能再摧毁的形体

它的完美，有如所有生命的

俊俏的面部。而那些

点睛之笔，是激活穿过

宇宙黑洞的光

请给予这些，人或牛

一双在黑暗中，凝视生命的

高贵的眼睛

大家说晁海：

他像很多以往的成功的艺术家一样，呕心沥血，一丝不苟，而且一以贯之追求完美。按习惯地区分，所谓农村题材、城市题材等，晁海超越了题材对他的包围，细细观察其作品，便发现他突围的本领，简而言之，他已从“苦大仇深”的情结里解脱出来，笔下的农民、土地、牲口都成了某个符号，对象性的描绘弱化了，而内涵的东西——普通的人性和存在的实在性得到了渲染。或许，他突然画起城市的人，画起汽车之类，其效果也可能是大同小异的。

——美术理论家  李小山

Reading The 2002 Series (No. 2)

A meteorite that has dropped from the universe

to the earth regains its life

in a spread of water and ink

This is the final gate to fate

a meteorite, like a black iron, and in the process of death

over hundreds of millions of years, is abandoned by time

into the sky-pit of the earth until

it crosses the vision of all the dark matter

acutely dropping onto the surface

of its extinguished fires

until the water and ink, along its body

of all the extinguished fires

left with a figure that no external force can destroy

its perfection like the pretty faces

of all lives and the punchline

brush is the light activated to go

through the black hole in the universe

Please give these people or cows

a pair of noble eyes

that stare at life in the dark

Li Xiaoshan, art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Like many of the successful artists in the past, he has spared no efforts in being meticulous and has always been pursuing perfection.Chao Hai has gone beyond the surround of such subject matters as the rural subject matter and urban subject matter. If one carefully looks at his work one can find that he has a knack in breaking through the surround. In short, he has rid himself of the complex of great bitterness and hatred as his peasants, land and cattle have all turned into mere signs and while the description of the objects is weakened, things with rich content, such as the ordinary humanity and the actuality of existence are dramatised. If he, of a sudden, starts painting people and cars in a city, he might produce similar things.

读《2002系列之四》

耸起的土地，带着

浑厚的成熟，雕刻出披着一身

金黄的牛

这一刻，牛的身体

像代表着沟壑纵横，又深藏下

万物之灵的土地，大义凛然地站立在

人和神的，视觉中心

如果有可能，人们会伸出

抚摸过亲人的手，从牛的头部

开始轻触，那些对应着

山河的骨架

这一刻，牛的眼睛

像反射出，人间的过去

那些扶着犁的人，不会在青山里埋骨

他们翻开的土地，留给所有

带着恩爱的种子，最后

留给自己，是一堆被荒草

蔓延的土冢，一些牛

会去那里吃草

牛的头颅，抵挡住

风的呼啸，带着牛的身体

在大地上，山一样移动

大家说晁海：

晁海从内美到外美他都是有自己的追求。他把农民画得很伟大，就像纪念碑一样塑造在宣纸上，但是和“**”以前的仰望农民是不一样的，“**”以前***伟大，知识分子是臭老九，所以知识分子画家是仰望工农兵的。现在晁海也是一种仰视，也是对农民的一种崇拜，但是他是从一种永恒的精神气质角度，一种形而上的，一种品行的一种爱、一种追求，是与以前的放大工农兵、仰望工农兵不同的一种内涵，或者说是现代的一种新的艺术的精神内涵。

——美术理论家  刘曦林

Reading The 2002 Series (No. 4)

The erected land, carrying bold

ripeness, has a cow carved

draped in gold

In that moment, the body of the cow

as if representing the land, criss-cross with gullies

and buried with the spirit of all things, standing, with a strong sense of righteousness

in the centre of vision of man and deity

If it is possible, people may hold out

their hands that have caressed their loved ones, beginning from the head of the cow

to gently stroke the bone structure

of the mountains and rivers

In that moment, the eyes of the cow

seem to be reflecting the past of the humanity

and those who are behind the plough won't have their bones buried in the hills

as they'll leave their ploughed soil to all the seeds

containing love and eventually leaving

the grass-covered graves

to themselves, and cows

will go there and eat the grass

The head of the cow can resist

the roaring of the wind, moving with the body of a cow

over the land, like a mountain

Liu Xilin, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Chao Hai has a pursuit of his own, from the internally beautiful to the eternally beautiful.His depiction of the peasants as great, shaped on the rice paper like a monument, is different from the peasants in the Cultural Revolution, for people to look up to, a period in which the workers, peasants and soldiers were great, as compared with the intellectuals in the stinking category, so much so that intellectuals-artists had to look up to the workers, peasants and soldiers.Chao Hai continues to look up to them, a worship of the peasants. But he does so from an angle of eternal spirit, something metaphysical, the love of a quality, a pursuit, different from the enlarged image of the workers, peasants and soldiers for people to look up to, or the spiritual content of a new art in modern times.

读《2002系列之五》

灰头土脸，是你们一生

留给大地的，一种样子

这样的脸，只要

看上一眼，就无法忘记

就像有一根铁打的钉子，钉进布满了

伤口的目光，不能继续看下去

因为，再心硬的人

也抵挡不住，自己的泪水

会夺眶而出

这样的脸，也让大地

涌起无限的伤感，让所有的生长之物

想着从身体里，释放出全部慈悲

以此接近，这些命运

多舛的人，从一脸的灰暗里

确定他们，是死了

还是活着

亮在鼻翼、嘴唇上的光

衬得他，更加灰头土脸

大家说晁海：

强韧而富于弹性的肌腱是人体力量的基本单元。具有视角张力的团块是晁海绘画的基本语言。晁海的人物形象好像是从山石里剥出来的，有一种雕塑感；但又不是那种被打磨得整体光滑的铜或玻璃铜雕，而是像许多斑驳的卵石经过地壳变动被挤压成难以再拆解开的疙里疙瘩的石泥混雕。似乎隔着衣服也能隐约看到或摸到那一块块饱满的肌腱，隐约感到每一块肌腱都在有力地向外鼓胀。

——美术理论家  翟墨

Reading The 2002 Series (No. 5)

Ashen heads and earthen faces are the way you look

that you want to leave to the land in your life

as such faces are unforgettable

if looked at for a single glance

like an iron nail that is driven into a wound-infested

eye that can't keep looking

because however hard your heart is

you can't hold your tears

from surging out of your eyes

and such faces can also cause the land

to surge forth with infinite sadness, letting all things growing

want to release all their mercy from their bodies

in order to get close to these people

with a fate of frustrations so that one can determine

from the face of grey darkness whether they are alive

or dead

The light that is light on the nostrils and lips

sets him off even more ashen-headed and earthen-faced

Zhai Mo, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Sinewy and elastic muscles are the basic unit of human power. The masses with visual tension are Chao Hai's basic language for painting. His figures seem to have been stripped off a mountain rock, with a sense of sculpture, not the kind of bronze sculpture or glass bronze sculpture, all polished as a whole. Instead, they resemble the sculpture mixed with mud and stones, with the dappled pebbles squeezed into a mass difficult to disassemble, as the result of crustal movement. It seems that you could feel the bulging tendons underneath the clothes that are forcefully swelling up.

读《2002系列之六》

一座移动着的，山峰

像被巨大的神力，搬到一头

黄牛的背上

这是水墨里，从形体

逼真到神态，最接近山峰的黄牛之一

它移动过的田亩，夯实地面的

那些蹄印，是可以考证出

某个动荡，或安稳

年代的土层

让牛的山峰，在大地上移动

让牛的山峰，像一部耕种史

团块的水墨，沿着

黄牛巨大的头部，向着更深处的天空

灿烂地堆积出，一脉蜿蜒着

暖色调的山巅，暗黄的

皮毛之下，闪烁出每一个

精力充沛的季节

我们和土地，沿着

一头黄牛的背，像一座移动得

缓慢的山峰，

大家说晁海：

我们和晁海坐在一家优雅的四合院里吃皮萨、沙拉和维也纳肉饼，但吃的方式却是中国式的。所有的菜肴都放在桌子中间，每个人都把想吃的菜夹到自己面前。一位韩国文化理论家发现，这种没有主菜的饮食方式可以象征那种新生的、受亚洲影响的超级文化。估计早晚会有更多的中国艺术家在国际崭露头角，他们从四处拿来自己喜欢的东西，然后创造出属于自己的艺术。

——德国文化学者  马克.西蒙

Reading The 2002 Series (No. 6)

A moving mountain peak

seems to be moved to the back of a cow

by a huge sacred force

This is one of the cows in water and ink who, in shape

and spiritual shape, is closest to a mountain peak

and from the fields it has crossed and the prints of the hooves

that have tamped the ground one can verify

whether a layer of earth bears years of

upheaval or stability

Let the cow peak move over the land

Let the cow peak resemble a history of farming

Masses of water and ink, along the huge head

of the cow, brilliantly piles up, towards

the depths of the sky, a vein of meandering

peaks of warm tones, and, under its darkyellow

fur, every energetic season

is twinkling

We, with our land, are moving

along the back of a cow, like a peak

that is slowly moving

Mark Siemons, a German cultural scholar, on Chao Hai:

We and Chao Hai were sitting in an elegant quadrangle dwellings, eating pizza, salad and Vienna pies, but in a Chinese way, with all the dishes placed in the middle of the table and every one picking up whatever they liked and bringing it to themselves. As a Korean cultural theorist found, eating without main courses is a symbol of a newly born super culture, influenced by Asia. It is estimated that more Chinese artists will cut a fine figure internationally, creating an art that belongs to themselves by bringing stuff that they like from everywhere.

读《2002系列之八》

一头牛，能从人类手中

或大地上，获得充饥的干草

就足够了

超越干草，从一头牛

带着蛮荒之力的身上，人类所进行的

多么像一场，不动干戈的掠夺

每粒来自，土壤里的粮食

都怀有一头，拉动木犁的

牛的喘息

我们的胃里，装着牛的肉

我们的身上，穿着牛的皮

而在人情，被磨碎得

像纸张一样薄的今天，还能在土地上

看见一头牛，用充满慈悲的目光

向跟在身边的小牛，传递

一种爱怜，是否暗示人类

不能失去舔犊之情

人类，从一头体派

健全的牛身上，获得的

不只是力气

大家说晁海：

晁海的写实功底，在他对人物的变形夸张中显现无余。他的人物不管如何变形夸张，都没有解剖学上的错误——我想这是他的作品尽管“陌生”却仍然近情近理，让观众能够接受的一个原因。晁海笔下的人物、姿态、神情是写实的，甚至每一块肌肉和每一根筋脉也是写实的，但晁海同时又能做到让它们都充满表现力。那些特有的人物姿态和神情，有深厚的生活基础，却又打上浓重的晁海印记，是在晁海生命意识的朗照下才获得艺术表现力的。

——文化学者  王鲁湘

Reading The 2002 Series (No. 8)

It is enough for a cow

to obtain hay to allay its hunger

from the human hands or the land

When they go beyond the hay, what the humans do

to the cow's body with savage power, is so much like

a pillage without using any weapons

but every grain of food that comes out of the soil

contains the breathings of a cow

pulling the wooden plough

Our stomachs contain the cow's meat

Our own persons are clothed with the cowhide

and these days when human kindness is worn

as thin as the paper, one can still see a cow

on the land, with eyes filled with mercy

conveying love to a calf

following by its side, indicating perhaps to humanity

that they ought not to forget the love of licking the young

What humans gain from a physically

sound cow is more than

just strength

Wang Luxiang, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Chao Hai's power as a realist artist is thoroughly shown in his distortions and exaggerations.But however distorted and exaggerated his figures are, there are no anatomical errors, which I think is probably because his works, despite their strangeness, are reasonable enough for the audiences to accept. Chao Hai's figures, postures and expressions are all realistic, down to each muscle and tendon. But, at the same time, Chao Hai can fill them with expressiveness.The postures and expressions of these special people have a rich living foundation and are also heavily printed with the Chao Hai brand. It is under the bright light of Chao Hai's living consciousness that they have gained an expressive power of art.

读《2004系列之一》

保存那些年代的，记忆

一张黑白照片，足够了

其实，那是一个

集体失忆的年代，刻凿在人们身上的

那些疼痛，不在文字的行列里

也不在大红，大绿的

色彩之中，烙印在谁的脸上

都是被黑白，包裹

起来的模样

那些被疼痛，压迫

出来的表情，只能在黑白

反复调和的灰色里面，才能保存下来

一脸的茫然，也像一页

自己写给，自己的判决书

多年以后，只有风

读出些悔恨

那个年代，在一张黑白

照片里，我们活得凄凉

大家说晁海：

大道如何溯及？即使一个人若有所悟，也不该视真理在握，说教于众。对一位艺术家而言，他的工作正是以形象精心编织成隐喻、寓言和象征。《梦回故里》是晁海的一组系列作品，这个题目本身不啻就是一次重返大道，重返至福精神家园的精神吁求，它在千百年来的中国文人墨客的笔下一次次生花。在这个系列之中，他将我们惯来所称的“终极关怀”于一己的童年记忆和现实经验交融，创现出忧患与欢乐、繁劳与静谧并存的梦一般的境地。

——文化学者  朱朱

Reading The 2004 Series (No. 1)

To keep the memory of those years alive

you only need one black and white photograph

In fact, that is an age

of collective loss of memory as the pain, carved on people

is not found in the word

not in the colours

of great red or green, all wrapped up

in black and white whoever's face

it's branded on

and the expressions pressed out of

the pain can only be kept

in the colour of grey, repeatedly mixed with the black and white

a face of vacantness also resembles a verdict

that one has written oneself

Many years after, one can only read the regrets

in the wind

In those days, we lived a bleak life

in a black and white photograph

Zhu Zhu, a cultural scholar, on Chao Hai:

How can one trace back to the Great Way? Even if one is enlightened, one ought not to assume that he or she is holding the truth in his or her hand so that he or she could preach to the masses. For an artist, his is to weave his images into metaphors, fables and symbols.Returning Home in a Dream is a series by Chao Hai, its title a literal return to the Great Way in itself, a spiritual appeal to a return to the spiritual garden of total happiness, which has been flowering under the brushes or pens of the Chinese men of letters or calligraphers over the millennia. In this series, he mixes memories of his childhood and his real experience in what is known as the ultimate concern, creating a dreamlike state in which suffering and joy, labour and peacefulness co-exist.

读《2004系列之二》

你的眼睛，是你死去之后

能刺穿人世的，两盏明灯

你的眼睛，也是今夜

刺穿我记忆的，最后的灯盏

埋没在我的印象里，你像从田野之上

走到田野之下的，那些人

回到地上时，多数带着

自己的尸体

因此，你的眼睛

像在煤井里，照亮过漆黑的煤层

也凄惨地照亮过，那些甘愿扔下土地

去挖煤的人，贫穷让你们

曾经走到，无法预测

死活的地下

你的眼睛，或许被死亡

照成今夜的，一片盲区

大家说晁海：

晁海在艺术上对周秦汉唐气象的仰慕，对古代石雕、碑刻的视角迷恋，就不仅仅是发思古之幽情，而是面对大自然的风雨沧桑，感受悠远的华夏之魂，激发起世纪之交的奋斗精神，迎接一个民族的伟大复兴。这不是民族主义的保守，而是与世界进行平等的对话和文化交流的前提。晁海的作品，在苍凉中有阳刚之气，含蓄中见刚强人格，它与明清以来传统中国画的柔弱纤巧，多愁善感是不可同日而语的。

——美术理论家  殷双喜

Reading The 2004 Series (No. 2)

Your eyes are bright lamps

that can penetrate the world after you die

and your eyes are also tonight's

last lamps that have penetrated my memory

Buried under my impressions, you are like

those who have gone from above the field to below

most of whom, on returning to above, carry their

own corpses

For this reason, your eyes

seem to have lit upthe layer of pitch-dark coal in a coal mine

and have lit up those willing to abandontheir land

to dig for coal, poverty allowing you

to walk underground

where it's impossible to predict life and death

And your eyes may have been lit up by death

into a blind spot tonight

Yin Shuangxi, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

When Chao Hai artistically expresses his admiration for the greatness of the Han and Tang dynasties and hisvisual obsession with the ancient stone carvings and gravestone inscriptions, it is not an outpouring of sentiments for the ancient times but a fighting spirit at the turn of the century, induced to feel for the soul of China in the face of Mother nature, with its wind and rain and to usher in the great survival of a nation. This is not the conservatism of a nationalist kind but a premise on which a dialogue and cultural exchange can both be made on an equal footing. Chao Hai's work has something that is virile and unyielding, not in the same breath as the kind of enfeebled and sentimental stuff in the traditional Chinese paintings from the Ming and Qing dynasties.

读《2004系列之三》

像一直生活在，寒冬里的人

等不来一个春天，让你拥有

脱去一身，棉衣的时候

我也看见，你要挪动

那双在泥土里，像扎下根的脚步

应该很难。一个人行走在

简单的日子里，身上的衣着

成为一种累赘，粗大

沉重，像穿着供养

多年的土地

脸色和衣着，像被一场

接着一场的雨水，洗染过一样

铁黑，是浑身的底色

那些从头到脚，虚土似地

浮现出一层亮色，也是身体里的

铁锈，拓出一个

粗糙的人形

生活里深藏的寒冷，让你

多年以后，穿着同样粗大

厚重的衣服，离开人世

大家说晁海：

从晁海的创造中得到的启发是，中国画的革新之路是广阔的。走以笔墨为中心的文人画之路，有发展的前景；背离笔墨为中心，着眼于文人画之外的民族绘画大传统，也是一条可行的道路，采用西方艺术经验，将之融入中国画创造，会给中国画增添新机。晁海走的是独立的路，他重视文人画笔墨的作用，更尊重笔墨当随时代，笔墨为新的创造服务的原则，广泛吸收古今中外绘画之长，创造出有新意、有生气，又有传统美学意蕴的绘画风格，这是难能可贵的。

——美术理论家  邵大箴

Reading The 2004 Series (No. 3)

It's like people living in a cold winter

that fail to see a spring coming when you possess

the time to strip yourself of all your cotton clothes

I can also see that it's difficult

for you to move your footsteps

as if rooted in the mud. When someone walks alone

in single days, his clothes

become burdensome, thick

and heavy, as if he were wearing

the earth nourishing him for many years

The colours of the face and the clothes look as if

they were washed and dyed in rain after rain

as iron-black is the bottom colour of the whole person

and the bright colour that emerges

from head to toe, like the surface dust, is also the rust

of the body, expanding into

the rough shape of a person

The cold, hidden deeply in life, allows you

to depart the world many years after

wearing the same rough and heavy clothes

Shao Dazhen, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

The inspiration from Chao Hai's creation is that the revolutionary road in Chinese paintings is broad.When you take the literati painting with brush and ink as the centre, you have prospects for development. If you detract from that and focus on the great tradition of national painting outside the literati painting, it is also a feasible road as the adoption of Western artistic experience and merging it into the creation of Chinese paintings can also add new opportunities to Chinese paintings. Chao Hai has taken to an independent road as he values the role of brush and ink in the literati painting and he puts more value on the principle that brush and ink must go with the times and serve the new creations by extensively absorbing the advantages of both Chinese and foreign paintings and creating a style of painting that is new, vivid and that contains traditional aesthetics, a quite praiseworthy effort.

读《2004系列之四》

苍天在上，看见这样的

面孔，也会禁不住发抖

都是喝着，一条河里流来的水

都是吃着，一块地里打下的粮食

都是穿着，一样的土布衣裳

都是住着，一样的土窑洞

这样的面孔，破碎不堪

这样的面孔，像荒芜很久的田园

这样的面孔，夹杂着死亡之相

这样的面孔，也带着尊严

苍天在上，看见看不见

这样的面孔，都在世上

大家说晁海：

敦煌之行，看到那些壁画、那些雕塑的时候，特别看到飞天那些美妙线条时，突然想起我的一位画家好友晁海不是用线条，而是用积墨墨块来代替线条。我知道晁海这些年来，他的画已经被中国画坛，特别是很多重要的绘画鉴赏家，所了解、肯定，这是很难得的。因为他的画你说很容易喜欢，实在未必那么容易。晁海的绘画语言，尤其是绘画背后的思想语言，实不是一般喜欢画的人能够读懂的，读懂他的画需要一个过程。

——香港中文大学原校长  金耀基

Reading The 2004 Series (No. 4)

When they see such faces

even the skies can't help trembling

all drinking the water running from one river

all eating the food that came from one field

all wearing the same earthen-cloth clothes

all living in the same earthen caves

such faces broken up

such faces resembling fields and gardens lying barren for a long time

such faces mixed with features of death

such faces also having dignity

Whether the skies can see them or not

such faces are all in the world

Ambrose King Yeo-Chi, Former Vice-Chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, on Chao Hai:

When I made the journey to Dunhuang and saw the murals and sculptures, particularly when I saw the beautiful lines in 'The Flying Apsaras', I suddenly recalled Chao Hai, a good friend of mine, who did not use the lines but he replaced them with blocks of ink, known as jimo. As far as I know, over the years, Chao Hai's paintings have been understood and affirmed inthe world of Chinese painting, particularly many important art connoisseurs, which is rare.You can say that it is easy to like his paintings. But, in fact, it is not necessarilyso easy to like them.Chao Hai's painting language, particularly the thinking language behind his paintings, is really not something that art likers can understand as a process is required in order to understand his paintings.

卷六：涅槃

这个时候，天空

不会提前进入冬季，为他飘落下一地

送行的雪花。在他入土的前夜

只有你，可以伏在棺材上

一笔一划，把他的

死亡之相，像遗照一样

刻画出来，留在他带着躯体

走后的世上

Volume VI: Nirvana

The skies at this time

won't enter into the winter ahead of time to scatter the ground

with snowflakes to see him off. The night before he is interred

only you can, bending yourself over the coffin

draw his features of death

brushstroke by brushstroke

keeping his portrait in a world

where he's left with his own body

读《涅槃》（1996年）

一个死去的人，带着

一副棺材，就要回到他俯首了

一生的土地里

这个时候，天空

不会提前进入冬季，为他飘落下一地

送行的雪花。在他入土的前夜

只有你，可以伏在棺材上

一笔一划，把他的

死亡之相，像遗照一样

刻画出来，留在他带着躯体

走后的世上

也只有你，在一个

死去的人身上，看见他拼命

种过的土地里，庄稼也长出他的模样

你的水墨，带着葬礼上的哭泣

放大出他，山一样的形体

你以为，他活着的时候脸上无光

只有死后，才会拥有人世上

很多的光

一个死去的人，被你

画出他头顶上的，一片佛光

他的身后，不再黑暗

大家说晁海：

晁海不主张激烈地宣泄不平，而是强调“单纯、中正、平和、温润、松软、圆和、含蓄、恍惚”，他认为太刚是“自残”，“冰中含火”更有力量。冰中含火、淡泊中见雄浑——这不是弱而是更具威力的内强，不是软而是更具韧性的内刚。我不赞成水墨画无法寻求张力的意见，现代水墨画如果不能在总气势和大结构上显出应有的精神震撼力和视角冲击力，便不会有什么出路。关键是要摸索出水墨不同于油画、中国艺术不同于西方艺术的张力。“冰中含火”即是要点。

——美术理论家  刘骁纯

Reading Nirvana (1996)

Someone dead is about to return

to the earth where he has been bowing his head to all his life

with a coffin

The skies at this time

won't enter into the winter ahead of time to scatter the ground

with snowflakes to see him off. The night before he is interred

only you can, bending yourself over the coffin

draw his features of death

brushstroke by brushstroke

keeping his portrait in a world

where he's left with his own body

and only you can, on the body of someone dead

see that the crop has grown with his features

in the field where he'd risked his life working

Your water and ink, carrying the cries of a funeral

is enlarging his mountain-like shape

and you thought that when he was alive his face was lightless

which would possess much light of the world

only after he died

When someone dead is portrayed by you

in such a way that Buddhist light is shown above his head

it will no longer be dark behind him

Liu Xiaochun, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Chao Haidoes not argue for giving a vehement vent to his resentment; instead, he emphasises the qualities of 'purity, balance, gentleness, mildness, softness, roundness, subtlety and entrancedness' because he is of the opinion that being unyielding is 'self-destruction’while 'ice containing fire' is more powerful. When the ice containsthe fire, the same way plainness contains virility, it is not weakness but is more inner strength and it's not softness but inner steeliness with more tenacity. I don't agree with the view that water and ink paintings are not capable of finding tensile force because I don't think water and ink paintings can have a way out if they are not able to show the kind of spiritual power to shock and the shocking visualisation, both of which they should have, in terms of the total momentum and the great structure. The key lies where one needs to find out about the tensile force that differs between water-ink and oil paintings, and Chinese art and Western art, the key-point being the ice containing the fire.

读《轮回》（1996年）

从生到死，都像模拟着

一个人，极简地活在另一个人

身上的样子

都像在时间，苍茫地

抢先走过的路上，前后不舍

一直笼罩在身边的天地，暗示出人间

很多时候，黑白并不分明

一个人，或许带着

另一个人，活着的时候

留下的影子

天地之间，也不过

几十年时间，一个人从另一个人身上

带着一双，能吃饭的手走来

等到那双手，再也端不起

一只碗的时候，只有走回到

另一个人的身上，把自己

安心地放下

跟着相濡以沫的人，走在

有生有死的大地上，世界的样子

很像他们，前后不舍

大家说晁海：

晁海的笔法直取大自然，他不仅师法大自然，更出自大自然。黄土高原雨水稀少，黄土地干涸得开裂似冒烟。晁海笔墨中就有一股烟状和氤氲状，也有一种干涸感。他将清晰的线化为面，由分明变模糊，但又将面聚为线（骨），在模糊的烟状中仍能感悟到线，古今华中，没有见到这样的似线似面的笔墨。可以说这是晁海的发明，其实是陕甘地区水土造就的必然在他笔下显现出来了。如果不是他有意识的师法，便是他潜意识中有之，生在江南的画家就不会有此线和面。

——美术理论家  陈传席

Reading Reincarnation (1996)

From life to death, it all looks like

the way one person lives minimally

in another person

It seems everyone is rushing, indistinctly

scrambling on the road trodden, one chasing after another

while the heaven-earth, all around, is hinting about the world

On many occasions, black and white are not far apart

the same way one person may carry

the shadow of another person

when alive

Between the earth and heaven, it's but

a few decades when one person

comes over from another person, with a pair of hands that can help eat

and it's not till the hands can no longer hold up

a bowl when the person has to return

to another person, putting himself

down, with peace of mind

Following mutually helpful people in bleak circumstances and walking

on a land of life and death, the look of the world

very much resembles them, one chasing after another

Chen Chuanxi, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

Chao Haidirectly goes after nature, imitating it and sourcing it. The plateau of loess lacks rain so much so that the earth cracks up as if it is smoking. In Chao Hai's brush and ink, there is something that resembles smoky and misty, a sense of something dried up. He turns clear lines into planes that become blurred and he also gathers the planes as lines (bones) to give an impression that there are still lines in the obscure smoke. In the paintings past and present, such brush and ink have never been seen as they are Chao Hai's invention. In fact, it's an invention by the water and earth in the Shanxi and Gansu regions, which is necessarily represented under his brush.If it is not a purposeful imitation on his part, it must have been something lying in his unconscious for an artist from the River-south would never have been able to produce such lines and planes.

读《岁月悠悠》（1992年）

唢呐的声音，响起来的时候

黄土地上，该有一个人走了

响在乡村的，葬礼上

那些比黄铜，还要亮的声音

像为死在黄土上，依然不愿离去的人

吹出缠绵的哭腔，借着

寂静在灯火里的

夜色安魂

活着的人，多数站在光亮里

死去的人，全部站在黑暗里

那个时候，乡村被唢呐

吹成了一群人鬼，分不出阴阳的世界

都像守在，死去之人的心里

看他怎样，穿上很新的衣裳

一身闪亮地，告别脸上

无光的日子

吹出黄铜，生满铜锈的声音

吹唢呐的人，多数也下世了

大家说晁海：

他的积墨并非简单地原样照搬，而是将它的元素强化和提炼，变成单独的关照对象。观赏者可以在他的画面上看到墨迹之美，看到晕化之美，看到层层迭迭的积淀之美，那些貌似发腻的斑块状，那些看似沉闷的面目不清的形象，蕴含了作者深厚的功力，这是多少年来逐渐积累起的，也是灵性和才华的实际展示，其中有许多难以言传的奥妙。因为视角艺术转化为语言，只能暗示、类比、破译，艺术的原意永远只是作品本身。

——美术理论家  李小山

Reading The Years Flow(1992)

When the suona sounds

it is time that, on the land of loess, someone left

the sound, in a village burial

louder than the yellow copper

seems to be for those who, dead on the loess land, are still unwilling to leave

with a lingering crying tone and

trying to appease the soul

on the strength of the quiet night colour

most of the living ones stand in the light

all the dead ones stand in the dark

Just then, the village was blown into a group of people-devils

by the suona, in a world where the yin and the yang are inseparable

as if both were keeping watch in the heart of the dead

to see how he puts on very new clothes

and how he, flashingly, bids farewell

to the lightless days on his face

Blowing the rusty sound out of the yellow copper

most of these suona-blowers are also dead

Li Xiaoshan, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

His jimois not simply borrowed as it is. But it has its elements enhanced and rarified, turning into a single object of concern so that the viewers can see the beauty of traces of ink and cloudisation, and the beauty of layers of sedimentation, in his paintings. All those greasy stains and unclear images contain the profundity of the artist's power as they are a result of many years' accumulation and a display of his spirituality and talent, with much in them that can't be conveyed in words. When visual art is turned into a language, it can only be implied, compared and interpreted, its original meaning always the work itself.

读《瞬息》（1994年）

一堆云越过天空，从头顶涌来

一只鸟越过云层，从头顶飞去

云和鸟，带着自己

可以在瞬息之间，越过天空的身体

向着地面俯冲下来，或者远去

都不磨损，我们头顶的

一丝光线，都不惊动

一对安静的羊

只是草地，于瞬息之间

被突然涌起的水波，淹没起来

天空里的云朵，越过一对低头的羊

倒映在水里。吃草的路上

那些时刻落在，身上的尘土

也斑斑点点

瞬息之间，通过云或者鸟

天地，静止在哺乳者身上

大家说晁海：

关中腹地深厚，汉唐气势浑茫。晁海拥抱厚土汲取生命营养，超越时空追寻精神力量。前者向下向内深植其根，后者向上向外莫见其根，其反向回互的张力积成天地之间一团不散的浑茫之气。积累就成团块。西方叫情节，中国叫块垒。肌肉的疙瘩衣服的疙瘩源于内心的疙瘩，我在晁海的画里看到的是郁积不化的心中块垒。这块垒是以农民情结为内核的民族情结，是黄土地磨练出来的不畏艰辛默默耕耘的奉献精神，是黄河哺育出来的不畏强暴默默抗争的拼命精神。

——美术理论家  翟墨

Reading The Instant (1994)

A pile of clouds is surging overhead across the sky

and a bird is flying overhead across the layer of clouds

The clouds and the bird, carrying their own

bodies that can cross the sky in an instant

downwards towards the ground or further away

do not wear down the ray of light

over our heads or surprise

a pair of sheep

except that the grassland is drowned

in an instant by the waves rising on a sudden

while the clouds in the sky, when crossing the pair of sheep, heads lowered

are reflected in the water. The road where the grass is eaten

the dust that drops onto the body in those moments

is quite flecky

In an instant, the sky and the earth

via the clouds or the bird, become quiet on the body of the breeder

Zhai Mo, an art theorist, on Chao Hai:

The Guanzhong hinterlandis a profound one with the grandeur of the Han and Tang dynasties, where Chao Hai embraces the thick earth, taking nutrition from it and going beyond time and space in pursuit of a spiritual power, the former extending its roots downwards and inwards and the latter extending upwards and outwards, with invisible roots, the kind of tensile force, out of this reversal, forming a mass of indispersible airs. Accumulation leads to masses. In the West, it is called the plot. In China, it is called kuailei (masses). The knots of muscles and of clothes are those of the inner heart. What I see in Chao Hai's paintings are the accumulated kuailei of the heart, which is the national complex with the peasant complex as its core, a devotional spiritworking in silence without any fear of hardship, honed out of the yellow earth and a desperate spirit bred out of the Yellow River defying violence and struggling in silence.

读《天地之间》（1992年）

天地之间，走来

土地一样宽大的人，和山一样

高大的马

天地之间，一匹马

腾起一副，极简的形体

万物拥挤着的世界，就像被横扫一空

就像只剩下，马的呼吸和汗渍

那位牵马的人，已不是

从战场上，带着一身血迹

爬在马背上

天地之间，一匹马

抖落鬃毛上的云烟，被一位种地的人

重心牵回到土地上。马头高昂

身边的山河，没有不被

感动，站在马的身边

牵马的人，像站在土地的

金銮宝殿上

天地之间，被一匹马

也被牵马的人，彻底用一身

正大之气占满

大家说晁海：

在笔墨师承上，他可能更多地处于对赵望云、石鲁、方济众等画家的私淑，成功地将长安画派的山水笔墨转化到人物画中并有所发展，这是晁海作品文化气息不离本土，具有浓郁的关中味、黄土味的重要原因，在语言上他让我们找到了一种地域的共同性。人活天地间，人最苦，所以人才有佛、有耶稣。晁海视苦人为佛，带着大感激、大悲悯、大敬畏画出了人世间的这些现世佛。看完晁海的画，至少我会更加默默地迎受命运——因为劳累是我们活着的本质。

——文化学者  王鲁湘

Reading Between Heaven and the Earth (1992)

Between heaven and the earth are coming

people as wide as the earth and horses as tall

as the mountains

and between heaven and the earth, a horse

is raising its minimalist figure

as the crowded world looks like it's been swept clean

and it looks as if only the horse's breathing and sweat stains are left

The man pulling the horse is no longer

lying face down on the horseback

back from the battlefield, blood-soaked

Between heaven and the earth, a horse

shakes off the cloud and smoke in its mane, taken back again

to the field by a planter. The horse's head is raised so high

that the mountains and rivers nearby can't remain

unmoved while the man who pulls the horse

stands next to it, as if standing in the golden temple

of the earth

Between heaven and the earth, all is filled

with the bright and right air of a horse

and the man pulling it

Wang Luxiang, a cultural scholar, on Chao Hai:

In learning the skills of brush and ink as an apprentice, Chao Hai took more from such masters as Zhao Wangyun, Shi Lu and Fang Jizhong, successfully turning the mountain-and-water brush and ink in the Chang'an School of Artists into his figurative paintings and taking it further, which chiefly explains why Chao Hai's cultural breath, not far from his native land, has a strong smell of Guanzhong and yellow earth as he allows us to find a regional commonality in his language. When human beings live between heaven and the earth, they are the bitterest, which is why there is a Buddha and there is a Jesus. Chao Hai views the bitter people as Buddhas and he paints these present Buddhas of the living world with great gratitude, great sorrow and great awe. When I finish viewing Chao Hai's paintings, I can at least bear with my fate with more silence as labour and fatigue are the nature of our life.

                                    Xi'an, October 2018