20世纪60年代出生的画家，曾被人称之为“新生代”。其思想观念与审美情趣以至创作理念，与50年代以前的画家隔了一层。他们轻松逍遥，很自我，有时批判、有时反讽、有时调侃、有时揶揄。相对于此，范一鸣却多见平和与严谨，而且还有一份深沉。

　　出于对绘画艺术的热爱和真诚，使范一鸣勤奋而善于思索。无数艺术家的成功经验使他认识到：绘画需要植根于现实生活的土壤，需要时代大文化的滋养。中国当代绘画应该置身于东方和西方、历史和现实交叉的大文化背景中，回归艺术本体，生根本土，这样的艺术才会有生命力。

　　自上世纪80年代改革开放以来，中国的油画创作空前活跃，世界上所有的艺术形式在中国都已出现，这是一个潮流盛行、随波逐流的时代。中国的油画如何走向世界，如何建立或寻找自己的艺术个性，应该是摆在每·个当代中国油画家面前的严峻课题。很多人都在努力地解答这道难题，范一鸣也曾为此苫苦地追寻过，从内容形式到技法材料都作过多方面的种种尝试，他苦恼过，迷惘过，甚至在这种刻意的执著心理驱使下，几乎迷失了方向。

　　1999年一次偶然的机会，他来到了向往已久的藏区，深深地被这块神奇的土地所吸引。高原神圣、雄阔、苍凉的自然环境，藏民强健、粗犷、雕塑般的体魄，赤诚、热烈、淳朴的宗教信仰，坚韧、顽强、豪放的个性，都给他以强烈的震撼，唤醒了他的艺术直觉，激发了他不可遏制的创作欲望。他的心中豁然开朗，刻意追求的个性、风格在这里已显得不重要了，真实的感受也就极自然地流露出来。自此，他不再被潮流所左右，几乎每年都要去西藏，平静、安详、精心地进行着他的每一件作品，逐步地净化自己的绘画语言，力求完美。《朝圣的路上》、《风停了》、《卓玛》、《夫妻》、《远雷》、《仰》等一系列作品，就是在这样的心态下去塑造真实的人性和人情，呈现高原生命的艰窘与苦涩，展示在那片热土上最平常也是最倔强生命的意义。

　　作为一个油画家，范一鸣无疑是对欧洲的写实主义传统进行过悉心的研究，尤其是对文艺复兴时期的古典主义的热爱给他的绘画创作带米了许多艺术灵感，并在自己的作品中恰到好处地加以运用。但是，他对来自西方古典主义油画语言的运用，是要使之服务于中国传统艺术精神原则的。其根本之点是他站在时代的精神高地上来进行思考和探索的。画家在一种“凝视”的状态下，以一种貌似冷漠实则深邃而坦诚的目光，捕捉、透视对象细腻、丰富的内心世界。画中没有声嘶力竭的呼号，亦无嬉笑怒骂的刻薄，只有沉重而犀利的笔触。画家表述的方式是直率而深刻的，没有任何矫饰、扭捏与哗众取宠。倘若深入一步阅读范一鸣的西藏系列，就会发现，它们中的一部分作品潜藏着更深一层的内涵。即一个现代人对原始生命力所具有那种既敬畏又崇拜、既渴望又疑惧的复杂心理。正是这种心理折射，使得画面变得扑朔迷离、神秘多姿。他的创作日臻完善，在造型的严谨、准确，个性的凝烁、冷峻，器物、形体的质感表现等方面，都显示出他在高超技术下的古典形态和现代观念的追求，他正在一步步迈向他心目中那纯正的古典味和现实主义相融合的精神指向。

　　Those painters born in the sixties of 20th century have been called "the newly emerging generation," whose ideology, aesthetic interest, and even composition conception are different from the painters before the fifties. They seem to be relaxed, free, unfettered, and ego-centered, and are ready sometimes to criticize, and some other times to ridicule and to deride what they have created. Compared with them, Mr. Fan Yiming looks more gentle and mild yet severe and has reserved a touch of undemonstrativeness.

　　The devotion of his ardent love to painting art has made Fan diligent and good at pondering. The successful experiences of numerous artists have made him realize that painting needs to take root in the soil of real life and to be nourished by the mass culture of the times. Contemporary painting of China should be placed in the culture background where the oriental and western cultures as well as the history and reality are crossed. Only by returning to itself and taking root in the homeland can art be full of vitality.

　　Starting from the eighties of "reforming and opening to the outside world", the creation of Chinese oil paintings has been flourishing unprecedentedly. All kinds of artistic forms have emerged in China, which brings about an era in which the tide is prevailing and the artists are drifted with the tide. How are China's oil paintings going towards the world and how is China to build up and pursue its own artistic personality ? This is a severe task in front of every contemporary Chinese oil painter, which constitutes a difficult problem many people are working hard to solve. Mr. Fan has painstakingly pursued his goal and made every attempt in content, form, techniques, and skills .He got frustrated, perplexed, and even has lost his direction.

　　It started just as a chance in 1999 for Fan to travel to the Tibetan region he had expected to see for a long time, and he was attracted by this mysterious and wonderful land. The natural environment of holiness, vastness, and desolateness in the highland, the strong, rough, and sculpture-like physique of the Tibetan people, their faith of absolute sincerity, ardency, and honesty, and their personality of tenacity, stubbornness, and boldness, all gave him a violent shake, awakening his artistic intuition and inspiring his irresistible creative desire.

　　He suddenly got enlightened and the personality and style that he had painstakingly pursued did not become so important. His real feelings revealed unintentionally and naturally. At this time he was no longer controlled by the tide. Almost every year he traveled to Tibet, with a peaceful and composed mind elaborately creating every piece of his artistic work, gradually purifying his painting language in an endeavor to be perfect. A series of his works such as On the Road of Pilgrimage, The Wind Has Stopped, Drolma, Husband and Wife, Remote Thunder, Facing Upward, etc. were created with such a state of mind shaping real human nature and feelings, showing the hardships and bitterness of life in the plateau, and bringing forth the meaning of the most mediocre and yet the most indomitable life in this lively land.

　　As an oil painter, undoubtedly Mr. Fan carefully studied the tradition of European realism, especially his devotion to the Renaissance classicalism has brought him rich artistic inspiration and he has used it just right for creating his own work. To him, making use of the oil painting language of western classicalism is based on making it serve the Chinese traditional arts. What is most fundamentally important is that standing in the spiritual highland of the times, he starts to ponder and explore. With seemingly-apathy yet profound and straight-out eyes, he begins to catch the exquisiteness of objects and the innermost richness. There are not resounding shouts nor laughing and fury, but with only heavy and sharp brushwork left in his works. His expression style is candor and profound without any namby-pamby and flubdub. If you appreciate Fan's Tibetan series, you will find that part of his works hide a further connotation, that is, the awful and adoring as well as thirsty and suspicious mind of a modern painter towards the primitive vitality, which makes his paintings bewildering and mysterious. With their precise shaping and concise personality, his creative works are becoming increasingly perfect, which shows his pursue of merging the sterling and lofty classicality with modern realism.

作者：贾德江