我国花鸟画的历史源远流长。从出土的一些原始陶器上，可以看到花鸟己作为一种艺术形象的符号出现，传达着当时的社会信仰和审美理想。北宋时期的《宣和画谱•花鸟叙论》对花鸟画是这样论述的：“诗人六义，多识于鸟兽草木之名，而律历四时，亦记其荣枯语默之候，所以绘事之妙，多寓兴于此，与诗人相表里焉。”说明了花鸟画作为人类精神产品的审美价值与社会意义，以及花鸟画创作与诗人创作有着共性的思维特点。

　　赵紫林先生作为当代一位文化底蕴深厚的画家，在创作中也秉承了这样的诗性，在花鸟画的天地里抒写着自己的情怀。如果用品诗的标准去评论他的画，他应该被归于“豪放派”。因为，在他的画作中很少看到顾影自怜、离愁别恨的情绪，扑面而来的是波澜壮阔的豪迈之情。

　　赵紫林自幼聪慧好学，1961年毕业于山东艺专美术系。当时接受的是系统的中西融合类型的美术教育。他学习刻苦,涉猎广泛,又受到名师亲传,为后来主攻写意花鸟画奠定了良好的基础。通过半个多世纪来的勤奋学习，广收博取,刻苦钻研，终于在这一领域有所建树，形成了有自己鲜明个性的艺术风格。

　　他2011年创作的荷塘系列《朝晖》、《深秋》、《立冬时节》等巨幅作品，彷彿是气势恢宏、大气磅礴的交响乐。盛夏，铺天盖地的荷叶，竟相开放的荷花,错落有致的荷梗、各具姿态的莲蓬，充盈整个画面，热闹非凡。但满而不堵,繁而不乱。用笔苍劲有力，造型泼辣肆意，一扫常见画荷的柔媚之气。深秋，历经风霜的满塘荷色，虽褪尽风华，却莲果累累，在青青水草陪伴下,依然坚强地迎风吟唱。那种不屈不挠的生命力，给人送来“三秋桂子，十里荷花”的浓浓诗意。立冬后的荷塘，在赵紫林眼中笔下，不是一片枯枝败叶，而是由点线面谱成的优美乐章。它不是生命的终结，而正孕育着来年的新生。这体现了先生对生活的独特见解，亦展现了先生对写意笔墨技巧的驾驭能力。

　　佛经说“一花一世界”。在赵紫林花的世界里，我们可以真切地感受到力拔山兮、气吞山河的一个大世界。这种气势既来自大自然的赐予，也来自画家对大自然的领悟，来自他丰富的内心世界及其独特的艺术表达方式。仔细研究赵紫林的花鸟画便会发现，一种激情始终在他胸中涌动，一种力量诉诸他的笔端。他的线条少了灵动轻盈，多了凝重浑厚。他是在用“力透纸背”的书法用笔，抒写画中的一根根刚健有力而又韵味十足的线条。我国传统文化中历来有“书画同源”之说。明末的徐渭以草书入画，近代的吴昌硕开创金石入画之风，都创造了前无古人的笔墨风格，给国画带来一种全新的表达方式。赵紫林在他的花鸟画中，吸收前贤精华，而又另寻蹊径，引入了大篆的笔法。线条遒劲凝重、浑厚质朴，突显作画过程中以意为之的主导作用，追求书法艺术中一气呵成的抒写节奏和笔划间的抽象意味，以及线条的组合韵律，形成了画面古朴厚拙的另一气象。

　　赵紫林作画似乎很少用直接写生法，他有意减弱花木禽鸟的客观形态，追求“似与不似之间”和“不似之似”的神韵。这决不意味着他不重视对客观物象的观察和研究，而恰恰相反，他的作品大都来源于现实生活。他特别注重在充分积累对客观事物观察印象的基础上，强化“目识心记”，用自己的理解和感受从事创作。他善于把自己描写的自然之物重新构架，运用纯粹个性化的艺术语言和表现手法，或赋、或比、或兴，寄寓自己对禽鸟花木的独特情感。用他的话说，就是“以意为象，因心造境”。

　　赵紫林在画面的个人诠释上，也有其自身的特点。他在构图上十分讲究置陈布势的经营，以巧妙的布局引人入胜。他的花鸟画大多是满构图，留白较少，花木禽鸟往往布满画面。这和前面说到的画家自身修养和内在气质有很大关系。一位生活积累贫乏，感情冷漠的画家，是画不出如此内容充实、精神饱满的绘画作品的。

　　中国画是最重视自由表现心灵感受的艺术。画家组织和布局入画的题材时，可以不受时间空间等自然属性的限制，根据自己立意、表象、抒情的需要，将物象自由安排。这在赵紫林的《熙熙春物见升平》一画中可见一斑：在2003年“非典”肆虐，一时人心惶惶的非常时期，先生将象征生机的芭蕉，寓意富贵吉祥的牡丹，不怕风雪摧残、生生不息的竹子及传报佳音的喜鹊，安排在同一画面中。以饱满的激情，粗笔率写，塑造出顶天立地的芭蕉，撑持画面，水墨淋漓，生机盎然；下面的牡丹和竹子，浓彩重墨，着笔较多，繁茂兴旺；在剩下不多的空间里，又添了两只喜鹊，浓墨简笔，拖着长长的尾巴，鸣叫追逐。使静中有动，有色有声，颇具趣味......营造出一个充满生机和希望的特殊意境，体现了先生对生活的自信和乐观精神。又如他在作品《春雨》中，方笔落纸，转折刚劲，三笔折线，画出鸭的柔中带刚、运动灵活的脖颈。身体刻画着笔不多，简练准确，虚实有度。鸭子喜逢春雨，憨态可掬的生动形象，表现得淋漓尽致。这样概括、归纳后的形象塑造，舍弃了非本质的部分，对那些能体现神情的形态与细节，则采取夸张甚至变形的手法，传达出物象的情致神采，寄寓画家的审美情趣，加强了作品的表现力。可见赵紫林在意境的营造和艺术语言的锤炼方面下的功夫及所达到的高度。

　　花鸟画的终极目标是借物抒情、托物言志。在赵紫林的作品中，无论是巨制还是小品，往往具有深刻的寓意。在自然含蓄似不经意的境界中，让我们感受到画家内心喷涌的豪情，感受到这个时代蓬勃向上的脚步，得到潜移默化的审美享受。我们期待赵紫林先生有更多新作问世！

2012年5月于北京

Unrestrained Passion in Free Expression

On the Flower-Bird Painting of Zhao Zilin

By Shao Dazhen

　　Flower-bird painting has a long history in China. We can already find flower-bird as an artistic symbol in some brownwares, conveying the social belief and aesthetic ideal of the time. Flower-bird was disserted like this in Xuanhe Painting Chart • on Flower-Bird Painting: “Most of the poetic techniques are related to birds, beasts, grass and trees, and laws and rules often record their shifts and changes. Therefore, the charm of painting often lies in them, which is similar to poetic creation.” It indicates that flower-bird painting is the spiritual product of human aesthetic value and social significance, and the creation of flower-bird painting shares the common thinking features with poetic creation.

　　Mr. Zhao Zilin, a contemporary painter with profound cultural deposits, has also inherited the poetry, expressing his own affections in the world of flower and bird. If we classify his painting according to how we classify poems, his should belong to “Unrestrained School”. That’s because what blows against our face from his paintings is the magnificent heroism instead of self-affection or parting sorrows.

　　Zhao Zilin was intelligent and curious at an early age. He graduated from the Fine Arts Department of Shandong Art Institute in 1961, where he received systematic art education of integrated Chinese and western styles. He worked hard, studied extensively, and received guidance from masters, all of which laid a solid foundation for his specialization in free idea flower-bird painting. Due to his hard work, extensive study and elucubration over decades, he finally, with his distinctive artistic style, made his contribution in this field.

　　The “Lotus Pool” series created in 2011, including jumbo works of Morning Sunlight, Late Autumn and Beginning of Winter, are like breathtaking, majestic symphonies. In midsummer, lotus leaves are overcastting, lotuses are blooming competitively, peduncles are jagged and seedpods have distinctive postures, all of which fill the whole picture and make it extraordinarily bustling. But there is no block despite the fullness, no disorder despite varieties. The bold and powerful strokes, the forceful and wanton shapes removed the gentleness in the painting of lotus. In late autumn, the weathered but fruitful lotuses still sturdily intonate in the wind in the company of green marshy weeds. The dauntless vitality conveys the poetry of “the fragrance of laurel blossoms and lotuses in late autumn”. In Zhao Zilin’s eyes and paintings, the lotus pool in winter is more an elegant movement composed of dots, lines and planes than simply dead twigs and withered leaves. It’s not the end of life but the gestation of rebirth in the next year, which embodies his distinctive opinion of life, and also reveals his reining ability in free idea painting techniques.

　　Sutra says: “To see a world in a wild flower.” What we can clearly perceive in the flower world of Zhao Zilin is exactly an imposing and magnificent great world. The vigor stems from the blessing of nature, from his appreciation of nature, and also from his abundant inner space and unique artistic expression. Observing his flower-bird painting closely, we could easily notice the emerging passion in his heart and the power in his strokes. His lines are dignified and vigorous instead of active and lightsome. He is painting in a “penetrating” calligraphy style to depict those forceful and appealing lines. In traditional Chinese culture, “calligraphy and painting originates from the same source”. Xu Wei in Ming dynasty painted in the form of cursive hand calligraphy, and Wu Changshuo in contemporary history pioneered the style of painting like seal cutting and stone inscription, both of which were unprecedented and brought in a fire-new expression to Chinese painting. In his flower-bird painting, Zhao Zilin absorbed the essence of those masters and then found a new path, introducing the calligraphy of large seal script. The lines are powerful and dignified, vigorous and plain, revealing the dominant role of ideas in the process of painting. The succinct writing rhythm of calligraphy and the abstraction in strokes, together with the rhythmic combination of lines, have formed the simple and profound atmosphere.

　　It appears that Zhao Zilin seldom sketches. Intentionally, he weakens the objective shapes of flowers, trees and birds to create the charm of “between similarity and dissimilarity” and “similar in a dissimilar way”. This by no means implies that he takes no account of the observation and study of objective things, but on the contrary, most of his works derive from real life. He pays special attention to creating with his comprehension and perception, to observe with eyes and memorize with heart on the basis of full observation of objective things. He has a good hand at reframing natural objects he is depicting, expressing his distinct affections for flowers, trees and birds with individual artistic language and expression of narrative, comparison and symbolism. To express it in his own words, that is “to express the ideas with objects, and to create the situation for heart”.

　　Zhao Zilin has his unique characteristic in the interpretation of pictures. He is quite exquisite in the layout and artful in composition of the painting. His flower-bird paintings often have full composition, with flowers, trees and birds covering the picture and little blank left. This is closely related to the artist’s culture and internal personality we mentioned previously. It is impossible for an inexperienced and cold-blooded painter to finish such full-blooded and vigorous paintings.

　　Chinese painting is an art that values the free expression of heart most. The painter could arrange the objects according to his idea, expression and sentiments regardless of the natural elements of time and space when they paint. This was clearly revealed in his painting Seeing Peace and Prosperity from Spring Symbols. In 2003, at the unusual time when SARS was raging and people were panicking, Mr. Zhao Zilin arranged in one painting plantains that symbolize vitality, peonies that have a moral of prosperity and auspice, bamboos that fight against snow and repeat the life cycles, and the pied magpies that come with good news. The indomitable plantains, depicted with passion and rough strokes, upheld the picture in a vigorous and hearty way; the peonies and bamboos below were prosperous with thick and heavy colors; to the little space left, two pied magpies were added, tweeting and chasing one another with their long tales in tow. There is motion in quiescence, with colors and sounds, and souls as well… All builds a special conception of vigor and hope, which reveals his confidence and optimism about life. In another painting Spring Rain, several bold and turning strokes have portrayed the strong and graceful, flexible neck of the duck. The body was briefly and precisely depicted, with an appropriate proportion. The vivid images of the charmingly naive ducks in the long-waited spring rain were presented thoroughly. The nonessential parts of those summary and inductive images have been abandoned, and exaggerated or even distorted techniques were adopted to depict the gestures and details of the looks to deliver the charms of the objects, convey the aesthetic sentiment of the artist, and enhance the expressive force of the painting. We can see from it the hard work and the competence of Mr. Zhao Zilin in conception creation and artistic language refinements.

　　The ultimate aim of flower-bird painting is to express the artist’s emotion by portraying images of objects. The works of Zhao Zilin, either large or small, more often than not embody profound moral. In a natural, implicit and casual way, we could sense the lofty sentiments of the painter and the vigorous footsteps of the time, imperceptibly enjoying the aesthetics in them. Let’s anticipate more works of Mr. Zhao Zilin together!

May 2012

In Beijing

作者：邵大箴