水墨问题，是中国当代艺术的一个热题和难题。这个问题既牵涉最敏感的时代性，同时亦关乎最古老的传统。在最近十余年间，水墨的实验艺术正在取得推进，它被用最严肃的、抑或最游戏的方式进行着这样那样的演绎，但并非每一个艺术的实验者都能制造出令人难忘的效果。在一片标榜新奇的实验当中，邓国源的《在花园中》却体现出一种异乎寻常的凝稳和意味深隽。

　　这里有“先锋”艺术特有的激情，但这片让人心向往之的水墨的“花园”，又绝非仅仅是激情撩人神魄。邓国源大量运用黑白灰对比的水墨线条勾画近乎抽象的风景画面，象后期印象主义风格那样富于质感、机理厚重。他的作品虽不故作惊人，却自然流露出感人至深的意蕴。《花园》系列当中，光影的幻象制造出有如歌剧的交响，水墨的光亮和阴影色调，尤其是变幻多端的灰色显示出一种玄学般的静寂和同一。时若细密的针脚织出的绵绵草地，时若花团簇锦扑面而来的芬芳气息。缤纷多姿的水墨利用抽象的通感制造出色彩一般的幻觉，那是一种“天人合一”情景交融的审美境界，当我们步入花园之时，我们不仅仅是一个旁观的访客，如同一滴朝露沁入花瓣，我们的世界也就融化在花的世界之中。人与自然之间息息相通，邓国源所寄情的艺术，表达的也正是这样一个包容一切而孕育一切的超然世界。

　　邓国源的艺术的耐人寻味之处，在于它同时根源于几种截然不同的价值体系：接受过最良好的学院艺术的基本功训练，亲历过最喧嚣的艺术观念新潮，同时在心灵深处保有东方文化的审美观照——邓国源代表的恰恰是当代中国正当盛年的这代艺术家特有的文化情愫：作为一个学习油画出身的中国艺术家，邓国源既受到传统笔墨的薰陶，同时亦在积极地思索艺术如何面向时代——在东方与西方之间寻求对话，在中国水墨画的传统形式和西方的抽象画风之间进行交流。

　　传统与当代，东方与西方;大异其趣的领域之间仿佛冰山与火山，然而中国特定的历史情境，却让这种碰撞和交融显得不可避免且荡气回肠。早在百余年前，清代末年的中国知识分子就开始忧虑于传统艺术的改良与革命，从康有为的时代开始，东方艺术与西方艺术当如何相互学习，是当相互对抗还是友好相处?类似的问题争论未尝稍懈。在我们这个时代，这个问题也并未获得完满答案，只是，不同的艺术家可以用更加开放地、自由探索的方式来看待它。意识形态的政治已经不再那么重要，但文化的交融本身也正在成为我们的传统，当代的中国人可能同时薰陶于孔夫子和莎士比亚，同时喜爱毕加索、拉斐尔亦喜爱齐白石和扬州八怪;这个时代的中国艺术家总要在不同的文化中汲取和选择，这已经不再是“先锋”所特有，而日益成为艺术家自然而然的习常之事。

　　邓国源艺术的深刻之处，即在于他颇具魄力地把不同根源的传统消解于自己笔下，并且用一种最个人的方式加以重构。他的艺术源自积极面向西方现代艺术的那一代中国艺术家，更属于反思和愈加成熟的这一代中国艺术家;邓国源在他的水墨中演绎抽象，同时更超越一般意义上的现代性抽象艺术，而回归到更加原初的抽象精神之中。艺术家本人意识到，观念与技巧的分离、精神力量的丧失与自然和谐关系的丧失会让抽象艺术失去原有的革命性和探索世界本质的雄心——正如艺术家本人所说，重返自然，通往无限。未来的艺术要求我们找到处理被解放了的无意识的方式，并通过艺术的抚慰自由地寻找自己返回现实的道路。邓国源的“抽象”的水墨艺术，正是在粉碎一个世界同时，亦是在重建一个世界。

　　在某种意义上，邓国源的艺术实际上穿越了那些浮泛的短暂的实验性艺术，而与那些更久远的传统形成了关联。这种关联绝不是技巧上的沿袭，而是一种文化精神上的遥相呼应。事实上，塞尚画圣维克托山、莫奈画睡莲池、乃至郑板桥画竹，他们采用的是截然不同的方式——而换一个角度看，这何尝不是一种相同的方式?在邓国源墨色斑斓的《花园》之中，我们能感受到一种气势恢宏的沉湎与陶醉，邓国源沉湎在水墨的花园中，恍如莫奈沉湎在油彩的睡莲池上，他们的世界都试图消解物象、凌跨时间并笼罩一切。不同的是，邓国源同时借助了来自水墨传统的某些元素，贯穿在那个浩瀚的精神花园之中的，不仅仅是光和影，更是“阴”和“阳”，“虚”和“实”。东方式的宇宙哲学让天地之“气”流转邓国源的水墨世界，信马由缰，随心而作，实为情所需，气之所使。古老的画意被改造或消解，但面向自然的爱与关怀仍一以贯之。邓国源用一种自出机杼的形式，把发自悠远传统的爱的理念，与我们时代最崭新最大胆的艺术表达方式联系在一起。只有一个深刻地了解西方艺术和东方艺术、并深深地挚爱这个时代的艺术家，才能够寻找到这样一种具有张力的描述方式，寂然凝虑，思接千载，悄焉动容，娓娓道来。

　　在本体精神上，艺术不仅是一种传达，一种表白和解释，更是艺术家对自我生存的世界及自身生存意义的直觉的、能动的整体的把握。抽象的世界可以无关乎解释，但不可无关乎精神与直觉。邓国源的花园就是这样一座“精神”的花园，它超越了我们眼见的现实，亦是在更高层次上回归到精神的现实之中。The Spiritual Garden

　　-----A Reading of Deng Guoyuan’s Works of Ink and Wash

　　The problem of ink and wash, one of the central issues and difficult problems in contemporary art of China, involves both the times character, which is one of the most sensitive issues, and the oldest tradition. In the recent more than ten years, the experimental art of ink and wash has been advancing in the most serious or the most playful way, and not every experimenter of art can achieve unforgettable effects. Among various novel experiments, Deng Guoyuan’s In the Garden is unusually imposing and meaningful.

　　There is no lack of passion peculiar to the “avant-garde” art in the series. However, it is not merely the passion that is soul-stirring in the “garden” in ink and wash with a strong appeal for the viewers. Deng Guoyuan produces almost abstract landscapes by using in great amounts lines of ink and wash in which black, white and grey contrast with one another, and at the same time, his works are rich in texture, quite like the style of post-impressionism. In fact, Deng Guoyuan’s landscapes in ink and wash, though not intended to be astonishing, reveals naturally implications which are deeply touching. In the series In the Garden, the vision of light and shade forms an opera-like symphony, and the light and dark tones of ink and wash, especially the various shades of grey, show the metaphysical tranquility and identity. They are sometimes like dense meadows, and sometimes like bouquets of fragrant flowers. The ink and wash in riotous profusion creates the illusion of color by aid of the abstract synesthesia. It is an aesthetic state characterized by the unity of man and heaven and the blending of feeling and setting. When we step into the garden, we are not merely onlookers, and our world is blended into the world of flowers, just as a drop of morning dew seeps into the petals. Man and nature are closely linked. It is exactly such a detached world which includes and gestates everything that Deng Guoyuan expresses in the art he places feelings on.

　　What is thought-provoking in Deng Guoyuan’s art is that it originates in completely different value systems. He has received the fine training in basic skills of academic art, experienced the most clamorous new trends of artistic ideas, and at the same time maintained the aesthetic contemplation of the Oriental culture in the depth of his heart. Deng Guoyuan represents exactly the cultural sentiment peculiar to the generation of artists in the prime of life in contemporary China. As a Chinese artist originally studying oil painting, Deng Guoyuan, on the one hand, has been nurtured by traditional Chinese brushwork and ink-applying technique, and on the other hand, is thinking seriously about the problem how art should be geared to the modern times: to seeking the dialogue between the East and the West and to conduct exchanges between the traditional form of Chinese ink and wash painting and Western styles of abstract painting.

　　The traditional and the contemporary, the Eastern and the Western, are spheres as different from each other as the iceberg is different from the volcano. However, the specific historical situation of China makes such collision and blending inevitable and soul-stirring. As early as more than one hundred years ago, the Chinese intellectuals of the last years of the Qing Dynasty began to consider the reform and revolution of the traditional art. Beginning from Kang Youwei’s time, discussions about such problems as how Eastern and Western art should learn from each other and whether they should oppose each other or coexist in friendship never slackened. There is no satisfactory answers to such problems even in our own times, but different artists may treat them in more open manners and make free explorations. Ideological politics is no long important and cultural blending itself is also becoming our tradition. Contemporary Chinese may be influenced by both Confucius and Shakespeare and they may like Picasso, Raphael, Qi Baishi and the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou at the same time. Chinese artists of the present era will always draw something from and make choices among different cultures. This is no long something peculiar to the “avant-garde” art; it is becoming increasingly a common practice of the artists.

　　The profundity of Deng Guoyuan’s art lies in his boldness in dissolving the traditions of different origins under his brush and reorganizing them in the most personal way. His art originates from the generation of artists who treated modern Western art positively and belongs to this generation of artists who are rethinking art and who are more mature. In his art of ink and wash, Deng Guoyuan has adopted the manners of abstraction, but he transcends the modern abstract art in the ordinary sense, and returns to the more original “spirit of abstraction”. The artist himself is aware that “the separation of ideas from techniques” and “the loss of spiritual strength and the loss of the harmonious relation with nature” will bereave the abstract art of its original revolutionary character and its ambition of exploring the world. As the artist puts it, “We should return to nature, and advance to infinity.” “The future art requires us to find the way of handling the liberated unconsciousness, and look freely for the road to return to reality through the conciliation of art.” Deng Guoyuan’s “abstract” art of ink and wash is smashing a world, and at the same time reconstructing another world.

　　In a sense, Deng Guoyuan’s art has in fact transcended the superficial and transient experimental art and connected with the time-honored traditions. Such connection is by no means the adherence to traditional techniques, but the echoing of those traditions in terms of cultural spirit. Indeed, Cézanne, Monet and Deng Banqiao adopted entirely different manners in their respective depiction of Mont Sainte-Victoire, the water lily pond and the bamboos. But if we look from another angle, are the manners they adopted not the same in essence? We can sense, in Deng Guoyuan’s gorgeous “Garden” in ink and wash, a keen indulgence and intoxication. Deng Guoyuan is indulged in the garden in ink and wash, just as Monet was indulged in the water lily pond in oil. They both try to dissolve the images, transcend the time and involve everything. Their difference is that Deng Guoyuan has appealed at the same time to some elements of the tradition of ink and wash. What permeates the vast spiritual garden is not only light and shade, but also Yin and Yong, and empty and solid. The Oriental philosophy about the universe allows the “air” of heaven and earth to circulate in Deng Guoyuan’s world of ink and wash freely as he pleases. The implications in the ancient paintings have been transformed or dissolved, but the love of and the solicitude for Nature remain. Deng Guoyuan links the idea of love in the age-old tradition with the newest and boldest mode of artistic expression in his own original form. Only an artist who has a profound understanding of both Western and Eastern art and has a deep love for the era we are living in can find such a telling mode of depiction to express charmingly his profound thinking about the present day and the history.

　　Art, as far as itself is concerned, is not merely a kind of communication, a kind of profession and explanation. It is an artist’s intuitive, active overall mastery of the world in which he lives and of the meaning of his own existence. An abstract world can have nothing to do with explanation. But it must necessarily have some connection with spirit and intuition. Deng Guoyuan’s garden is exactly such a “spiritual” one. It has transcended our visible reality, and it has returned to the spiritual reality at a higher level.

作者：邵亮