我们生活在一个充满现代神话并目睹神话迅疾破灭的时代，一方面人类借助技术力量扩充了征服自然的知识形式，创造出新的理性神话和科学神话，一方面膨胀的物欲收获的恶果已经在宣告科学实用主义的种种危机。我们身处其间的，不再是传统意义上的恬静美好的自然家园，而是危机四伏正在迅速破碎的脆弱山河，在金属的框架中，在核战的阴影下，在污染与废料的销蚀过程中.人，何以诗意地栖居?同时，技术控制了整个文化工业，大众意识被全方位地操作、引导和蒙蔽。人，何以透过艺术行为严肃探讨与自然的本真关联?现代哲学的脆弱与无用根本无助于现代文明所面临的特殊困境的解脱，而是导致人类知识的进一步局部、片面和琐碎。在这种背景下，唯有坚守真知的艺术语言，唯有敢于在神圣的黑暗中走遍大地的艺术家，才能惊醒我们重返人类原初的自然与和谐，以超验的直觉方式，引领我们修复、重建被有知的无知遮蔽的心灵家园和自然家园。 、

　　邓国源的绘画正是从这一点上，通过对生存家园的悲剧处境的揭示，向世人说出焦灼的预言。在他近年来创作的以“山中”为题的系列作品中，他用冷酷的笔调呈现了一个被灾难遮蔽的传统审美意义上的山川意象，它们不是风景，而是对历史、自然与现实的沉思，它们借用中国绘画中经典的山水图式，注入了探讨生存与毁灭，实在与虚无的永恒性主题。并以全新的视觉化和冷漠的物质化语言呈现，进发出撼入心魄的冲击力。这是一幅包含现实批判与终极怀想的综合心象，它问我们：在以实用主义、科学理性主义和经验主义为先导的近代历史进程中，在人对自然的占有欲和征服欲一步步得到满足同时又为此饱受煎熬的时候，作为传统审美对象的自然山川是否能够作为美好幻想的最后视野而继续存在?

　　这些名为“山”的山川不再是田园与天国中的超尘之所，也不再是千古吟诵的畅神之地，它被抽离了任何传统美学意义上的宁静、悠远与超然的内涵，而是被汹涌而来的文明垃圾所遮蔽，美与悠然消失了，消失在永劫不返的物质化陷落之中，这是世纪黑暗中前所未有的窒息尘嚣。它们是数码、标记、信息的残片、瞬间的刮痕、凝固的时光的记忆，是靶心、跑道、烟蒂、标签、汽车广告、遮天蔽日的工业废弃物，它们没有属性，没有特征，没有色彩，而那些山型符号仅仅是正在消失的自然缩影，仅仅提示出时光流逝中对失落的栖居天国的无限感伤;仅仅暗示着自然与人为的双重灾难正在如何悄无声息地将人从这快大地上抹去……在这里。文明的碎片与自然的碎片参杂沉积，化作尘土又归于大地，历史的悠悠红尘掩埋了生动的个体存在，悠长与瞬间凝聚成最富戏剧性的对比。沉思的先贤与涂炭的山河在凛凛的沙石间撞击，它们都在倾斜、颠倒、飘零、扬洒于无情的风暴中没有半点言语。这个已经失去了具体情感特征的冰冷世界里，浸泡着画家失声的悲愤，燃烧着痛惜山河的兰色火焰。透过这些近乎残酷的视觉图象，我们依然昕到希望。看到“彼岸”的光芒，因为这依然是一个因爱而生的图象，它依然包含着对理想天国对彼岸和诗意家园的强烈怀想，它以悲凉的方式展开，同时透出缕缕并没有绝望的曙光。

　　邓国源通过对有为的无情天地的揭示，暗示我们去眺望。一个无为的有情世界，其意在唤醒我们改变这个现实世界创造美好家园的勇气和良知，主导思想仍然属于理想主义。或日古典主义情怀。透过森严的物质化壁垒，他的视觉图象背后仍然是对悠远恬静的栖居之梦的追怀，它启示我们去雨中看一看快乐的青草，感受风景中的神性，触摸晃动在脸上的阳光，放眼流云飞渡的浩渺长空并任由心性随流水任意他方，这是以棒喝方式激发理想的图象，它用冷漠的手势指向关于未来的启示;这也是一个以有为的短促开示无为的恒长的图象，它用无情的意指复苏一个觉悟的有情天地。它暗示一条道路，一条用良知与本真天性修复人与自然关系的道路，它指向时间，昭示有限中的无限，它警醒我们渡过现代文明的困境之水，通往纯真智慧的彼岸。

　　在构筑视觉图象的语言技巧上，邓国源的绘画带有强烈的后现代艺术特征，它打破具体的形象界限，综合了具有文献性的历史形象，将对材料特质的敏感融汇于悲剧性的主题表达。它不同于单纯的形式语言探索，而是以严密的主题性构图来处理形式语言的可能性，甚至不惜放弃材料的表面美感来营造一个特殊的语境。

　　其视觉图象形成的过程中，包含了三种不同的语言层面。第一层面更注重传统油画材料与综合材料的并置，其中色彩的激情占有主导位置，在画面肌理与笔触的交织处理上，表现主义的意味更加明显。第二个层次是表现性热情的消退和向单纯材料碰撞方面的兴趣转移，即对综合视觉张力与可能性的强调与关注压倒了画面的感官性，色彩情绪性的抽离，自然物象的进一步符号化使画面转向凝练的经典图式，画面结构方面也更多介入了构成与对比因素，具体图形的显现与并置，线与面的纠缠与跌荡，令语境越来越具体深化。而这些特征在第三个层面正在迅速溶解、含混，消失在灰雾的班驳中。消失在更为深化的内在结构里面。所有的紧张感都在灰色的笼罩下松弛和瓦解，形式语言由局部对比转化为统一的空间对比。其中，符号性元素的削弱增强了整体空间的统一性。而内在结构的坚固感也强化了情绪的沧桑与虚幻，中国古代山水画的意境正在慢慢显现出来。它体现出画家思想向古朴智慧与传统精神的复归，这已成为画家近作的主要倾向。

　　邓国源的绘画为二十世纪末的中国绘画提供了有力的视觉图象，其文献性价值超越了具体的画面表达，为人类重新审视现代的文明与进步，以及知识名义下的无知与野蛮做出了冷酷的启示。它启发我们重建一种以生命主义为基点的自然观照，尊重天地间的一切造物，反省人的自我中心论，以谦卑的姿态面对不可知不可逆的自然，从而构筑一个超越物质享用之上的与自然法则相行不悖的新的文明生态。

　　海德格尔曾预言：现代人类为物欲所惑所遣的历史正在接近某种诗意的转折，那么。人是否能再诗意地栖居?

　　2000年3于广州美术学院

　　当代油画家精品集—邓国源山中98(油画集)94页

　　We are living n an era in which modern myths prevail and in which one can have witnessed the rapid shatter of these myths. On the one hand, mankind has augmented the knowledge form of the conquer of nature with the help of technology; on the other hand, the evil consequences resulting from inflating material desires are declaring various crises brought about by scientific pragmatism. Where we are living is no longer the quiet and happy natural homeland in the traditional sense but a rapidly crushing fragile land where danger lurks on every side. n the metal framework, under the shadow of nuclear warfare and in the process of dissipating through pollution and waste, how can human beings live poetically? At the same time, since technology has dominated the whole cultural industry, and the public awareness has been manipulated, guided and hoodwinked, how can-human beings inquire into his true connection with nature seriously through artistic behavior? Modern philosophy, being weak and useless, is unable to contribute to the extrication of modern civilization from the predicament it is confronted with Instead. it has led to the further partialness, one-sidedness and trivialness of human knowledge. Under such a situation, only those artists that adhere to genuine artistic language and dare to travel everywhere in the sacred darkness can awaken us to resume the original naturalness and harmony of the mankind and lead us. in a superempirical and intuitive way, to renovate and rebuild our mental and natural homeland that has been screened by the knowing ignorance.

　　It is from this point that Deng Guoyuan's painting utters the anxious prediction to the world by revealing the tragic situatien of our lying homeland. In the series of works under the title in the Mountains he has produced in recent years, he represents in a-grim style an imagery of mountains and rivers in the traditional aesthetic sense suffering from disasters. They are not landscapes but meditations about history, nature and reality. Borrowing from traditional Chinese painting classical schemata of landscape, adding to them the eternal theme of existence and extermination and of reality and nihility, and using the entirely new and materialized cool language, they are astonishingly impressive. This is a comprehensive mental image including the criticism Of reality and the ultimate concern. It asks us: in the course of modern history in which pragmatism,scientific rationalism and empiricism are dominant, and when the desire of mankind to possess and conquer the nature has been satisfied step by step and at the same time they are suffering from this, can the natural mountains and rivers as traditional aesthetic objects survive as the last view of the beautiful illusions?

　　These mountains under the name of "mountain" are no longer places without earthly concerns in the countryside or in the paradise, nor are they any longer pleasant places extolled through the ages. They have been stripped of the connotation of tranquility, remoteness and detachment in any traditional aesthetic sense, and are covered by the rubbish of civilization coming like a surging wave Beauty, carefreeness and leisureliness have disappeared, and they have disappeared in the materialized downfall beyond redemption. This is the unprecedented suffocating hubbub in the dark of this century. The are digits, signs, fragments of information, scraping traces of various moments, memories of solidified times. They are centers of

　　targets, sports tracks, cigarette butts, labels, advertisements of automobiles, industrial wastes blotting out the sky and covering up the earth. They have no attributes, no characteristics, no colors. Those mountain-shaped signs are no more than the miniature of the disappearing nature. They only suggest the infinite sorrow for the lost living paradise, and only hint how the dual disasters, natural and man-made, are wiping human beings out from the mother earth quietly. Here. the fragments of civilization and those of nature mingle and deposit. They are reduced to dust and return to the earth. The vivid existence of individuals has been buried in the long course of history, and long duration and instant moment have formed a most dramatic contrast. Cold sands and rocks have witnessed contemplating sages of the past and polluted mountains and rivers clashing. They are all tilting, transposing, whirling and scattering in the merciless storm without any word. This ice-cold world, in which the concrete emotional feature is lost, is permeated with the painter's extreme grief and indignation, and the blue flame is burning to deplore the fate of the mountains and rivers. Despite of this visual image little short of being ruthless, however, we can still feel hopefu and see the radiance of the other side, for this is still an mage resulting from love and stili contains strong yearning for the ideal paradise, the other side and the poetic homeland. It looks sad, but the first light of hope is in sight. Deng Guoyuan attempts to draw our eyes toward an inactive merciful world by revealing the active merciless world with an intention of awakening our courage and conscience with which we should change the real world and create a happy homeland. His dominant ideas still belong to idealism, or classical feelings. Seen through the strongly fortified barrier of materialization, what lies behind his visual mage is still the reminiscence of the dream of a remote and tranquil residence. It inspires us to see the pleasant grass in the rain, to experience the holiness in the landscape, to touch the sunlight swaying on our faces, to take a broad view of the vast sky where clouds are hastening forward, and to let our thoughts follow the flowing water and go anywhere. It is a kind of image which arouses the ideal by means of a sharp warning and points to the revelation about the future with an indifferent gesture. It is also a kind of image which opens up the-inactive permanence with the active transitoriness, and tries to restore an awakened merciful world. It hints at a way in which the relation between man and the nature will be repaired with the intuitive knowledge and natural instincts. It points to the time and makes clear to all the infinitude within the finitude. It awakens us to cross the sea of the predicament of modern civilization and arrive at the other side of the pure wisdom.

　　As far as the language skill in composing the visual image is concerned,Deng Guoyuan's painting carries a strong character of post-modernist art.Having broken the limit of concrete image and synthesized the documentary historical images, it incorporates the sensitivity to the characteristics of various materials into the expression of the tragical theme. Unlike the exploration of the mere form language, it handles the possibilities of form language with the well-organized thematic composition and even does not hesitate to abandon the apparent sense of beauty of the material in order to create a special context.

　　The process of the forming of his visual image involves three different levels of language. The first level of language attaches more importance to the juxtaposition of the material of the traditional oil painting with the mixed media. The passion of color is dominant in this juxtaposition. In view of the combination of textures and touches, it has an obvious expressionist flavor. The second is the decrease of the expressionist enthusiasm and the shift of his interest to the-clashes of pure materials. The emphasis on the synthetical visual tension has prevailed over the sensory character of the painting. With the color being stripped of its emotional character and the natural images being further symbolized, his paintings now tend to compact classical schemata, and more factors of construction and contrast have entered the structure of his paintings. The display and juxtaposition of concrete images, and the entanglement and the flowing rhythm of lines and masses, make the context more and more concrete and profound. On the third level, however, these characteristics are rapidly dissolving and becoming indistinct, and are disappearing in the hazy gray mist and the more penetrating inner structure. Enveloped in the gray color, all the sense of tension has been relaxed and dispelled, and the form language has transformed from the contrast of different parts to the unified spatial contrast. The weakening of symbolic elements has enhanced the unity of the whole space, and the solidness of the inner structure has strengthened the changefulness and illusiveness of the sentiments. The mood of ancient Chinese landscape painting can gradually be sensed here. It shows the returning of the painter's thought to the ancient wisdom and the traditional spirit, which is the main tendency of the painter's recent works.

　　Deng Guoyuan's painting has provided the Chinese painting at the end of the 20th century with forceful visual images. Its documentary value has surpassed what is concretely expressed in his works. It has afforded the grim enlightenment for the mankind to reexamine the modern civilization and progress, and the ignorance and brutality under the name of knowledge. He inspires us to resume the contemplation on nature based on vitalism, to respect every creature in the world, to reexamine the egoism of the mankind and to treat the unknowable and irresistible nature in a humble way, so as to construct a new civilized ecology beyond the material comforts and without any conflict with natural laws. Martin M. Heidegger once predicted that the history in which the modern mankind is lured and dominated by material desires is approaching a certain poetic turning point. Then, is it possible that human beings will live poetically again?

　　March 2000 Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts

作者：车健全