十二年前的秋天，当对写实油画还懵懵懂懂的我怀揣艺术梦想进入广州美院油画系学习后，惊讶的发现，我之前对写实油画的了解是那么的支离破碎，也深刻体会到写实技法的深奥与写实油画道路之不易，在广美的学习让我找到了隐约的方向，那段时间，除了刻苦画画，我也梳理了自己的艺术思路。同时更加坚定了对于写实油画的坚持。

　　当然除了长期磨练的绘画技巧之外，要想再往更高的境界去，画者个人的修为就至关重要了，这就是人们常说的“画外功夫”。我认为生活本身与画画关系自然是密不可分的，生活的点点滴滴会浸润至你的内心，然后再发酵进而在自己的艺术中发出光茫。平时也尽量多走多看多读，生活便是我艺术创作的源泉。随着阅历见识的增长，越发知道画画是多么不容易的艺术，不能光靠死练。古代大师在画画以外更是有各种的爱好，不断的充实自身。我本身并不是个怀旧传统的人，但我只是在闲暇时喜欢收集一些老的东西，每到一地便会去“淘”点老货，我喜欢这些东西身上所特有的包浆和质感，我特别享受那种在工作室中安安静静的泡壶好茶，慢慢把玩着摆放在身边的这些散发着特有历史气息的宝贝，那些陶陶罐罐是如此的美，也许历史对他们的主人来说是很严酷的，但他们对于岁月来说却是幸运的。也正因为历史的沉淀才使它们有了那些自然温和和赏心悦目的润光,就像古代大师的绘画所散发的光芒一样，看着它们象有一件东西牵引着，在时光面前停滞，慢慢的回转头去，那些沧桑和尘封了的故事就在人心中蔓延开来……。作为蕴含历史记忆的独特载体，或许这些古玩的对于我在画画中意义可能也就恰恰在此，而让我画面也有了晶莹温润和厚重的质感的追求。而我一直以来所画的藏民系列正是给了我一个很好的传统和现实相接的切入点。

　　开始画藏民是我在自身油画技术的思考和实践进程中的一次实验。久而久之画多了更加使我觉得这个民族犹如陈酿的美酒，值得细细品味，在我眼里藏民是民风保存极为完好的,极其真诚无邪的，就像刚出土的玉虽历经岁月却仍然光泽盈润，藏民身上具有现代人所没有的一种永恒性，没有现代社会中人们的那种世俗气，西藏女子更是有着令人神往的明亮清澈眼睛，有着健康的皮肤，她们心底善良，极富同情心并且心胸宽广，在藏民身上，能让人感到生的温暖气息和一种振撼的美。这些都有是让我偏爱藏民这个题材的根本。

　　除了以上这些因素，藏民这个题材对于我个人来说其实也是座桥梁，一般我画画的题材以单个肖像人物为主加以单纯而凝重的背景，表达了一种宗教的恒定与庄重的意味，当然近来也开始尝试画一些多人物群像，一来这种形式便于保持一定纯粹性及个人风格，二来我希望把我对传统油画的内涵和美理解、阐释及对生命、生活的体验，在我的作品形态中得以传承。我也希望我的作品最终不是复调，而是对传统绘画继承和发扬的独白。

　　写实油画在中国的发展是当代中国艺术史上一个短暂，脆弱却颇具特质并令人激动的过程，进入现代社会以后，写实油画似乎乎愈来愈变被边缘化了，社会快速的发展，改变了中国人本身的精神状态，人们在大规模的经济建设中并没有注意到原本属于我们的“灵魂”、“信仰”悲伤离去，渐行渐远的朴实背影和文化断裂的呻吟。大家对当下尚且应对不暇，又能对传统的伟大有多少认真的体会，人们被各种奇观震撼的视觉经验，也有过难以言表的视觉愉悦或反感以及普遍存在着的“文化焦虑”，在突忽间，人们丧失了自我存在感，人们困惑了，迷失了…。也许用不了几年，当变化刺激的兴奋和快感逐渐退去之后，就像国内一位评论家说的“是否还会有充盈的文化记忆，来填补巨大兴奋逝去后的心里空白，到那时，我们大概会仔细清扫出那些坍塌了的记忆的碎片，再试图缝补还原。我们可能会再次挖掘、纪念、整修记忆的零砖残瓦……”。今时今日，在当代艺术大行其道的同时，写实油画作为一种传统艺术，更需要维持它本身具有的艺术特质，力求能继续昂起它那滋润华贵的额头。

　　也许，新创造的未必就比我们抹掉的东西要好。就像画画一样创新也只应该是挖掘传统某种体现。当然我在这并不是想对写实油画现状评头论足，我只是衷心希望写实油画的未来更加美好，而我作为写实油画群体中的一份子也会与同道中人在这条路上一起前行，坚守写实油画之正道。

　　Vagrant Thoughts of Art

　　Tang Weimin

　　Twelve years ago in the autumn, I was still muddled about realistic oil painting. With an artistic dream, I came to Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art for further study. It was until then did I realize how fragmentary my understanding was about realistic oil painting. And the academy allowed me to re-recognize this genre of realism as well as to understand profoundly about the technique and the difficulty of the artistic road. I gradually found my direction at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art. In those days, I sorted out my thoughts on art except diligent training of painting. At the same time, I was more determined to insist my opinion of the prior significance of the technique of realistic oil painting. The content that an artist wants to deliver could be only fulfilled by certain mastery of painting technique, while techniques require long-term insistence to make progress.

　　With no doubt, the education and cultivation of an artist is key to a higher level except constant training of painting techniques. This would be the commonly mentioned saying of “skills beyond painting”. To my understanding, the relation between life itself and painting is naturally closed to each other. Since I myself am an easygoing person, and I would try my best to travel and read as much as possible, life becomes the source of my art. As my life experience grows, I come to know more about the difficulty of painting, while mechanical training would not be helpful, reflecting the Old Masters who have developed various hobbies beyond painting and constantly improved themselves.

　　My insistence on realistic oil painting is partly because that I am in favor of the nostalgia and tradition. In my free time, I like to collect antiquities and search for some old stuff whenever I get to a new place. Besides, I usually go to the antiquity market as well. After years of collection, I have owned some miscellaneous pieces such as wood-carving, pottery, porcelain. I like the wrapped slurry and the texture on those items, and particularly, I enjoy the moment when I make a bottle of fine tea in my studio and appreciate them in peace, from which I can smell the special historical flavor of treasure. Those potteries and jars are so dizzily beautiful. Perhaps the history is cruel to them. However, it is because of the historical sedimentation that makes them possess the smooth light that is natural, gentle and delightful, resembling the aura emanated from the paintings of the Old Masters. Looking at them is like drawing by something that stays still in the flow of time. Then I gradually turn around to see the stories covered by dust of past with vicissitudes spreading in human hearts…This special genre as the embodiment of historical memories might exactly be the significance that I search for in paintings through these antiquities. While the subject of Tibetans series I have always been working on has perfectly provided me with a point of penetration between tradition and reality.

　　The Tibetan series is an experiment in my practical process, revealing my own thoughts on the techniques of oil painting. As time passes, I painted more and more, which makes me feel stronger that this minority is like a bottle of aged, tasty wine that deserves savoring. In my eyes, Tibetans preserve their folk customs very well. They are a group of people with primitive honesty, whose feature resembles the lately unearthed jade with its quality and light despite of the passing of time. Tibetans don’t embody the modern secularity, thus they possess a certain kind of perpetuity that we can’t find on modern people. The Tibetan girls especially take our breath away with their bright, innocent and watery eyes as well as their healthy, smooth skin. Furthermore, they are kind, sympathetic and wide-hearted deep in side. We can sense the vivid warmth and a kind of compelling beauty on those girls. These are all the essences of why I am in favor of the Tibetan subject matter.

　　Apart from the above elements, the Tibetan subject is also a bridge for me to connect figures and backgrounds. Generally, I paint a single figure with simple background. But recently, I began to try some group figures. Firstly, I would be able to maintain certain purity and personal style more easily. Secondly, I wish to inherit my understanding and interpretation of the essence of classical oil painting and beauty, as well as my feelings of life and the life in the form of my works. Meanwhile I also hope that my works are not to be polyphonic in the end, but monologue to the heritage and development of traditional painting.

　　The development of realistic oil painting in China is a transcient, vulnerable but remarkable and exciting period among Chinese contemporary art history. After entering into modern society, realistic oil painting seems to become more and more marginalized. The rapid development of society has changed the mentality of Chinese. The sad departure of our “soul”, “belief” that once belonged to us has not been noticed during the grand economic construction, neither has the sincere back that is fading away and groan of cultural break. How could we take the traditional grandeur seriously when everyone is getting only too busy to deal with the present? To the visual experience astonished by multiple marvellous spectacles, people used to have unexplainable enjoyment or aversion， as well as the universal “cultural anxiety”. All of a sudden, people have forfeited the sense of self-existence and grew confused and lost…It may take only a few years when the moment of de-corporation of stimulation and excitement of changes comes. As a domestic critic used to put: “ is there ever going to be sufficient cultural memories to fill up the psychic blankness when the giant celebration is gone? At that time, we would probably clean up the fragmented memories that have collapsed attentively, trying to fix them again. Or we might re-dig, re-memorize to repair the broken pieces of memory…” Nowadays, when contemporary art prevails, realistic oil painting, as traditional art, is even more in need of self-maintenance of its own quality, striving to raise its noble forehead once again.

　　It might be true that the new created does not necessarily transcend what we have wiped out. Just as painting, being creative should embody another way to dig tradition. However, I am not judging the current condition of realistic oil painting here. I only hope that the future of realistic oil painting will be brighter. And I myself, as a member of this group, will stay on this road with my fellow artists and stick to the authenticity of realistic oil painting.

作者：唐伟民