看旅德女画家白蒂的作品，自然就想起一位诗人的写作体验，大意是诗人应该将个人的经验扩大到时代经验之上，才能写出关于这个时代的诗歌（奥登）。诺贝尔奖获得者德国作家黑塞的作品里，就将压抑扭曲的人性与二战时期的气氛联系一起，将个体生存经验与世界的荒谬相互印证，使他的作品具有深刻时代精神特征。艺术家也同样如此，用敏锐的感性，在社会涌动的暗流之中抓取代表时代的基本特征，发出召唤者的先声。

歌者，2014年

　　白蒂的油画表现现代人的生存困境，包括环境和人的关系以及人与人的关系。她在绘画手法上受表现主义影响，注重个人情感大于客观事物形态，注重心理体验大于具体细节描写。她常常将人物脸部表情作模糊处理，而身体的姿态却表现得生动有力，加上简洁的道具和蕴含寓意的环境设置，体现画家对人的精神状态的表述能力。同时画家也有意模糊人物的身份标志，包括性格类型和阶层特征都不甚明显。但画面的情感特征是明确的，不是就形象而论形象的情节叙事。她笔下人物无论年轻女性，男人还是老妇人，作为情感载体都被安排在具有不同情感氛围的环境里，处在一种情感动态过程之中。但他们没有明确的行动目的和方向，不知道从哪里来要到那里去，这使观者为这些人物的命运暗暗担忧。在《歌者》、《夜》、《回音》中，人物与环境的关系都是如此，画面中人物之外只有一架钢琴，但通过歌唱者的姿态能够感觉到那种毁灭的疯狂激情，在歌声的不祥回荡中好像有命运之神在暗中隐藏。而《夜》中酒后男人借酒浇愁沮丧颓废，与《歌者》中人物的相比显然是一种静态，但两者都以一种对角线的不稳定结构和大块的红色与深暗背景组成张力对比，显示焦虑困惑的精神状态，以及生存苦闷的压抑。

回音，2015年

　　这种表现主义艺术特征让人想起画家蒙克，但白蒂有自身的特殊性。出生于中国画家家庭的她自然有一种东方式的沉静和从容，有节制的激情表现是她艺术的特色，也是她整体风格的体现。特别是在《回音》中，画中姑娘坐立不安打手机的姿态，在日常生活中常常看见，但画家成功地表现了优雅沉静背后动荡焦虑的内心世界。她以富有书写性的表现笔法和边界重叠模糊的造型手段，显示不确定性的动感，内心的矛盾纠结，激动又想掩饰的多重意蕴。作品看上去含蓄而真切，单纯而丰富，讲究分寸而不失力度，这大概就是中国艺术家的表现性艺术与西方表现主义艺术的主要区别吧。这也是一个年轻新人的焦虑，与久经沧桑老于世故的老人的焦虑不同之处。

逝去的记忆，2015年

　　白蒂善于营造宁静又有点冷寂的精神音调，当这种音调回响在那些神秘的室内空间时，更有一种“秋风秋雨”的滋味。那幅坐在墙边，用手蒙住脸的人儿，阳光也显得凄清的《奈何》；那幅有一张白色双人旧沙发的暗房间内，两个投影般的蒙着脸的人物在接吻，让人倍觉伤感的《逝去的记忆》……此类作品的冷寂风格让人猜测艺术家创作精神的来源。当这种格调成为她创作的主色，那么作品的情感指向和表现特质也就鲜明起来。画家就是要通过这种“冷风格”来表达自己对人生和世界的态度，包括对观看者的眼睛和心灵之门的扣动，想要敲击着他们见怪不怪的麻木性情。她作品中也有暖色，比如《夜》，前景是一张鲜红色的桌子，但这醒目刺激的红色并没有让人感到热情和温暖，反而有一种冷酷感，而《奈何》是金黄色暖调，恰恰表现一种落寞的孤独。从精神气质看，冷色，而且是比较阴郁的冷色调是她画面的主调。这种冷格调，与一种更为深广的时代命题相连接……一种对未来的惶惑在画面弥漫开来，这既是人生某一阶段的颜色，也是画家浩茫心事的演绎。

孤，2015

　　我们从白蒂画面里可以辨认出忧郁神秘的气息，这种气息亦真亦幻。说它“真”，不是亲临现场的真，因其感情而真，如《孤》画中主要事物是病床和垂挂滴药袋，病人并不是主要角色，但画面有一种走入病房的感觉，显然画家在此重点不是叙述“病”人的病，而是揭示由疾病带来的情感氛围。相对于蒙克作品的死亡阴影，白蒂更强调孤独和无助。但孤独感由人心所生，病态是一种处境，直接画病床而不画病人更具有一种心理上真实性和表现性。类似作品如《空巢》、《夜》、《逝去的记忆》、《奈何》等，同样是画家探索寻找表达孤独感的成功之作，也非常真实传达了画家的敏锐的思考。而说白蒂作品中的“幻”，也是因为现实的混沌难以辨认真相而致“幻”。但画里的“幻”感产生于社会和心理，是对当代人境遇的感慨，是对未来预测的惘然，而对当下现实，又索求无果所致，这份惘然必然带来难以排解的忧虑。

征途，2016年

　　她的画面如一幅幅移动的场景，也可以说是某种梦境，作品中出现的人物和环境并不明确，可以看作一种幻觉。但它犹如心灵独白，有特殊节奏和韵味，语速低缓语调有力，淡而沉，清而稳，源自心灵，而越近心灵这种特质就越明显，越有厚度和份量，那是情感的力量在起作用。作为一幅幅景像的展现，就有点幻化的感觉，犹如听音乐时眼前幻现的心灵图景。在《旧事》、《未来》、《空巢》等作品中，那些人物、道具、环境，就可以看成是用一种语调在叙述，那些画面结构元素，色调和节律，流畅而丰富，灵活多变但又有一定规则可寻，有更多的自由想象和排列组合的可能，也有言外之意让人神会。总之，特殊的气氛来自特殊的意境，也来自画家独具匠心的安排。

巅，2016年

　　白蒂作品看似描绘形体赖以存在的空间，实是叙述时间与事物的关联性，说明一种古老因果观念仍然可以发挥作用。它表明人在空间中的位置，实际上是由时间的顺序规定着，如白昼或黑夜，或某一不特定的时间段；静或动的过程，事件的开始和结尾……因为人的知性和灵性产生了对世界的认知和感觉，而情感是最灵动活泼的事物，有过程性特点。所以，精神世界无不是人物和事件在时空相交点的显现。白蒂要表现现代人的时空失措感，是通过动态的空间来表达的。她作品的孤独感和不确定性都于此有关。如《寻》、《途》、《征途》、《巅》等表现探寻未来的作品，都传递了对当下的困惑和否定情愫，她对未来的不确定性是一种对生存的疑惑，这不仅说明时间性在她作品中的重要位置，同时也反映了她对中国社会现代性变化的焦虑，那也是对时间维度的焦虑。

Cool World: Perplexed by the Temporal Dimension

Thoughts on Bai Di's Oil Paintings

Xu Hong

　　In looking at the work of Bai Di, a woman painter based in Germany, we naturally think of a poet writing. The general idea is that poets must expand personal experience to epochal experience in order to write a poem about their times (W. H. Auden). The work of Nobel Prize winner and German author Hermann Hesse was representative of its time because he linked constrained and distorted humanity to the atmosphere of the Second World War, and showed how individual life experience and the absurdity of the world influenced one another. This is also true of artists who use keen perceptions to capture the basic traits of their era from the undercurrents surging through society.

　　Bai Di's oil paintings express the existential predicaments of modern people, including the relationships between people and the environment, and the relationships between people. Her painting methods are influenced by expressionism, stressing that individual emotion is greater than the forms of objective things and that psychological experience is greater than the depiction of concrete details. She often blurs the faces of the figures, but the positions of their bodies are vital and powerful. The addition of succinct props and metaphorical environments reflect her ability to describe human states. Bai has purposely obscured symbols of status with these figures, such that even personality traits or class markers are not obvious. The emotional quality of these images is very clear; her paintings are not narratives that employ form for form's sake. Whether young women, men, or elderly women, the figures in her paintings are vehicles for emotion that are placed in environments with different emotional atmospheres. They are part of an emotional dynamic, but they do not have explicit goals or directions for their actions; they do not know where they came from or where they are going, which makes the viewer anxious about their fates. This is the relationship between the figures and their environments in Singer, Night, and Echo; the only other thing in the image aside from the figures is a piano, but from the singer's pose, we can sense an extinguished passion. The ominous reverberations of the song are like the spirit of fate hiding in the darkness. In Night, a depressed man has drowned his sorrows, and he seems static compared to the figures in Singer, but the two works employ unstable structures of diagonal lines, as well as large blocks of red that form tense contrasts with dark backgrounds, in order to show anxious, perplexed mental states and the constraints of depression.

　　The expressionist traits of Bai's art are reminiscent of Edvard Munch, but she remains distinct. Born to a family of Chinese painters, Bai has an Eastern serenity and calm. Controlled expressions of passion characterize her art and comprise part of her overall style. In Echo, the image of a girl fidgeting with her phone is common in our everyday lives, but Bai successfully expresses a tumultuous, anxious internal world behind that serene calm. Bai uses writerly, expressive techniques and layered, vague modeling methods to show uncertain movements and internal conflicts, which stir up yet attempt to conceal multiple implications. The works are reserved yet vivid, simple yet rich; she stresses restraint without losing power, which is the primary difference between expressionist art made by Chinese and Western artists. Her work reflects the anxiety of a young person, which is different from the anxiety experienced by a worldly-wise elder.

　　Bai Di excels at creating peaceful but slightly cold spiritual tonalities, and when these tonalities reverberate in these mystical interior spaces, the feeling of an autumn drizzle creeps in. In Coping, a figure sits by a wall, head in hands, and even the sunlight seems to grieve. In Lost Memories, an old sofa draped in a white cloth sits in a dark room, and two kissing people with covered faces hover above it like a projection, conveying a strong sentimentality. The cool style of these works allows us to surmise the source of the artist's creative spirit. When this style became the primary mode in her work, the emotional direction and expressive qualities of her art became fresher. Bai wants to use this cool style to express her attitudes toward life and the world, striking the eyes and souls of her viewers and destroying their fearless yet numb attitudes. Bai's work also contains warm colors. In Night, there is a blood-red table in the foreground, but this piercing red does not convey passion or warmth; it actually feels rather harsh. In Coping, Bai expresses loneliness in golden yellow, warm tones. Her spirit and temperament mean that rather depressing cool tones are the keynotes of her images. Her cool style is linked to far-reaching themes of our times. An apprehension about the future permeates these images, and these are an expression of a stage in life and an interpretation of the painter's worries.

　　From Bai Di's images, we can discern a melancholy, mystical air, which is both real and illusory. When we say that it is "real," it is not real in the sense of having personally witnessed something or feeling that something is true. The key objects in Lonely are the beds and the hanging drip bags; the patients are not the primary focus, but the painting makes you feel as if you have just walked into a hospital ward. Obviously, the painter's focus is not on describing the patient's illness, but on conveying the emotional atmosphere brought about by illness. Compared to the shadow of death in Munch's work, Bai lays greater emphasis on loneliness and helplessness. However, this feeling of loneliness comes from within, and disease is merely a set of circumstances; painting the sickbeds and not the patients has a greater psychological authenticity and expressiveness. In similar works such as Empty Nest, Night, Lost Memories, and Coping, Bai successfully explores and seeks to express feelings of loneliness, while very realistically conveying her thoughts. The illusory quality of Bai Di's work is caused by the fact that the truth is difficult to discern amidst the chaos of reality. The illusoriness of the paintings is produced by society and psychology; the paintings lament the circumstances of contemporary people, and show frustration with future predictions. The current reality is the result of a fruitless search; this frustration inevitably brings about an anxiety that is hard to dispel.

　　Bai's paintings are like a series of shifting scenes, which could also be called dreamscapes. The figures and environments that appear in the works are not clear, and they can be seen as hallucinations. They are like monologues of the soul, with a special rhythm and charm. They speak in low yet powerful voices. Thin yet heavy, clear yet stable, these pieces come from the soul, and the closer they get to the soul, the more obvious these qualities become, and the thicker and weightier they become; the power of emotion plays a role. As the pictures develop, they convey a fantastical feeling, like the soulful visions that float before your eyes while listening to music. In Old Things, Future, and Empty Nest, those figures, props, and environments convey a tone. The structures, tones, and pace of the paintings are flowing and rich, flexible and variable, but they follow discernible rules. The paintings contain freely imagined and composed possibilities, as well as implications yet to be appreciated. This special environment stemmed from Bai's unique ideas and ingenious staging.

　　Bai Di's work seems to depict forms that rely on existential space; her pictures narrate the connection between time and objects, showing that an ancient conception of cause and effect still plays a role. Her work shows the positions of figures in space; they are governed by the sequences of time: day, night, or another indeterminate moment, static or dynamic processes, and the beginnings or the ends of events… Human intellect and wisdom produce thoughts and feelings about the world, and emotion is a nimble and vital process. This spiritual world is the manifestation of humans and events intersecting in time and space. Bai Di uses dynamic space to express the sense of temporal and spatial dislocation experienced by modern people. The loneliness and uncertainty in her works are all related to this. Search, Route, Long Journey, Summit, and other works that express and explore the future convey her innermost feelings of confusion and denial, and her uncertainty about the future reflects her doubts about life; this simply shows that time plays an important role in her work, while also reflecting her anxiety about the modern changes in Chinese society, an anxiety about the temporal dimension.

作者：徐虹