孔子曰：“志于道，据于德，依于仁，游于艺。”道德仁艺内涵不同，我们对待它们的态度和方式也有所不同。道寂然至无，不能体会，只能作为志慕的对象。道离无入有而成形器，就是德业，因此德是可以据仗的。将德业施诸他人乃至诸物，就是仁，蒙受仁恩的他人和万物会予以回报，因此仁是可以依赖的。在孔子那里，道德仁艺似乎是一个不断下降的过程，艺只是满足饰身或审美的需要，不如德仁那样可以依靠，不如德仁那么严肃沉重，因而是可以游习的。孔子这里所说的艺，指的是礼乐射御书数，与今天的艺术不尽相同。孔子所说的游，指的是游习，游习于六艺之间，与今天的游戏也有区别。但是，如果我们不拘限于咬文嚼字，就仍然能够将“游于艺”视为一个美学命题，与今天的艺术和游戏联系起来。

　　从18世纪开始，西方美学家明确将艺术与游戏联系起来。根据席勒的说法，艺术满足的既不是感性冲动，也不是理性冲动，而是让它们二者和平共处的游戏冲动。我们需要游戏，不是为了获得知识或者满足欲望，而是为了让人作为一个有机整体而存在，让人活得像个人样。中国美学家对于艺术的游戏特征的认识更早，不过更多看到的是游戏无所作为的否定方面。扬雄将辞赋视为“壮夫不为”的“雕虫篆刻”，满足审美需要的文学被他视为儿戏。苏轼对当时的人们“薄富贵而厚于书，轻生死而厚于画”的现象感到大惑不解。书画本是游戏之物，生死富贵才是严肃之事。人们之所以需要书画，目的是让生死富贵不要显得太严肃，借用尼采的说法，目的是让不堪承受的人生值得一过。如果将书画看得比生死富贵还要严肃，“岂不颠倒错谬失其本心也哉？”艺术需要一颗游戏的心、超然的心。有了游戏和超然，艺术才会富有想象力而充满灵动，才会让我们摆脱日常事务的羁绊而进入自由自在的审美境界。

　　子人是当代艺术界中难得的能够游得起来的艺术家，他的作品能够给人轻松愉快的审美享受，而且出入国画、书法、雕塑、陶艺等不同艺术门类之间，出入写实与写意之间，不受题材、风格、门类等等的局限。子人近来画了不少胖女人。如果从形式美的角度来看，那些胖人物显得过于丑陋。但是，我们不能否认它们能够给人以轻松惬意的审美享受。事实上美的形式如同套子，常常给人太多的约束。当子人将这些束缚解除之后，身体获得了解放，显得自在而自信。子人笔下的胖女人仿佛触及了存在的根底，能够给人一种“接地”的真实感。这种“接地”般的真实感之所以值得欣赏，原因在于我们都生活在各式各样的“套子”之中，这些“套子”架空了我们的存在，切断了生命的源泉而使之枯萎，解套了的、接地般的存在，能够让生命恢复生机。这些作品给我们的美感，更多的来源于这种生命感受。子人的优游态度，让他的人物既摆脱了形式的局限，也摆脱了思想的束缚，呈现在我们面前的只是身体，给我们以踏实感的身体。

　　今天的中国画面临一个难以克服的矛盾，即传统文化与当代感受之间的矛盾。追求传统文化就意味着要回避当代感受，表达当代感受就意味着要舍弃传统文化。我们在子人的作品中并没有看到这两个方面的冲突。子人以一种独特的手法化解了这个不可调和的矛盾，其中的关键就在于感受的真实性。从美学史上来看，当艺术陷入假雅之后，就有艺术家举起真俗的大旗进行反抗。俗而真实，俗得有趣，俗出生机活态，这是中国艺术家追求的至高境界。子人的作品中有这种真俗，经过他那带有古意的笔墨的转换之后，真俗成了值得玩味的审美对象。在这里真俗与古意形成张力而消解各自的缺陷：真俗赋予古意以当代感，古意赋予真俗以艺术性。

　　子人的作品能够让人玩味，让精神于其中自由游戏。从美学上来讲，美并不是漂亮，而是事物在无概念限制下的活泼显现；审美不是对美的审视，而是自我在无身份约束下的自由逗留。我常常在子人的作品前逗留，以至于“乐以忘忧”，我想这就是子人作品的审美价值之所在了。

　　2009年10月30日于北京大学蔚秀园

　　The Enjoyment in the Arts

　　--Foreword to Lei Ziren's exhibition "Never Tell"

　　Peng Feng

　　The Master said, "Let the will be set on the path of duty. Let every attainment in what is good be firmly grasped. Let perfect virtue be accorded with. Let relaxation and enjoyment be found in the polite arts." Because each thing-path of duty, good attainment, perfect virtue, and polite arts-has its distinct meaning, we should treat them in different manners. The path of duty, or we could call it "Tao", is hard to fathom. We could only admire it but not reach it. On the route to reach it, we shall grasp the good attainments, which we could count on. When we hand out your attainments to other people or even other things, we can be called a man with perfect virtue. Those people or things would pay back someday, thus we could depend on our virtue. In Confucius' mind, the attainment seems inferior to "Tao", and the virtue inferior to attainment, and come last the arts, which is just to meet the decoration or aesthetic needs. Neither being depended on nor as solemn as attainments or virtue, polite arts could only be enjoyed in a relaxed way. The polite arts refer to rituals, music, archery, riding, calligraphy, and arithmetic, different from the extent of nowadays arts. The polite arts which should be learned and enjoyed are distinct from nowadays games which should be played. However, if we don't praise ourselves as old pedants, we could regard Confucius' words on polite arts as an aesthetic topic, binding it with nowadays arts and games.

　　Since the 18th century, western aestheticians made a clear connection between arts and games. In Egon Schiele's phrase, what the arts will satisfy is neither the sensible impulsion nor the rational one, but the game impulsion which makes a balance between them. We need games, not for acquiring knowledge or meeting the desire, but for living like a person, for feeling as an organic whole. Chinese aestheticians had an earlier understanding of the game characteristic of the arts, but they focus on the negative side of the game. Yang Xiong, a scholar in the Western Han Dynasty, considered the Cifu, a kind of literary form, as a petty thing on which a real man should not make great efforts. Su Shi, a scholar in the Northern Song Dynasty, also felt puzzled when people paid more attention on the literary and paintings than the birth, death and prosperity. In his opinion, paintings and calligraphy belong to the games while the birth, death and prosperity are the crucial things for man. The existence of the former is merely to relax people in face of the latter. Just as what Nietzsche had said, the former's aim is to make our unbearable life worth living. If we put the latter before the former, wouldn't we go against our real intention? The arts need a detached mind which is fond of games. With games and detachment, the arts could be full of imagination and flexibility. With games and detachment, we could enter a free aesthetic realm, getting rid of the fetter of routine business.

　　Lei Ziren is one of the few artists who can integrate games into his works. His works make people feel relaxed and happy. His works include the traditional Chinese paintings, calligraphy, sculpture and pottery, being either realistic or idealistic, without limitation on subject, style and category. Lei drew a lot of fat women recently. From the perspective of forms of beauty, those fat figures look not so beautiful, but they actually make us feel relaxed, comfortable, and real. In fact, the forms of beauty, like the shackles, would always fetter us. When Lei throws off the shackles, even the fat body in his works is set free, feeling comfortable and confident. We appreciate the feeling of "real", because we are living with various shackles which cut us from the reality and life sources, making our life withered. Unfettered experience would make our life bloom again. The aesthetic feeling in these paintings comes from this experience. Lei's detached attitude keeps the figures free from the restriction of forms and bonds of ideology, presenting us only the body which makes us feel real.

　　Chinese paintings today are in face of a formidable contradiction between traditional culture and the contemporary feeling, which means that the pursuit of the former would be at expense of the latter, vice versa. However, this contradiction can not be found in Lei's works, who resolve it with a unique technique. The crucial part is to put the real feeling into the paintings. In the history of aesthetics, once the arts were entangled in the artificial elegance, some artists would raise the rebellious flag of commonness. The supreme state in Chinese artists' mind is to be common but real, to be ordinary but interesting, and to be vulgar but dynamic. Transformed by his pen with some ancient taste, the commonness in Lei's paintings turned into an aesthetic object worth of pondering. The commonness and the ancient artistic conception are integrated and mutually reinforced: the former makes the latter more dynamic, while the latter lets the former more artistic.

　　Lei's works are worth of pondering, allowing our spirits playing in it. From the perspective of aesthetics, beauty does not refer to pretty appearance, but the presence of dynamic things without limitation of any conventional concepts; while aesthetics does not only refer to the appreciation of the beauty, but the free stay without restraint of the identity. I always linger for a while before Lei's works, enjoying them until I forget the worries. That's the value of his works, I thought.

　　At Yunxiu Garden in Peking University

　　Oct. 30, 2009

作者：彭锋