以前看陈孝荣的水彩画，大多数为静物，白菜萝卜和各种水果在深色背景的衬托下散发着柔润的色光，安静而真实。可是这一次他展示的风景画作品，却显现出强烈的激情流露和神采飞扬。水彩画是一个历史久远，涵盖东西方绘画种类的国际化的绘画形式，由于久远，它有自己传统的绘画语言；由于轻捷灵便，它有极大的普及性；由于广泛，它有更多的表现空间，因此，水彩画是深受大众喜爱的高雅艺术。在当前绘画艺术发展快速、潮流涌动、变化多端的形势下，坚持自己的艺术道路、坦诚表达真实的心理诉求、心平气和地画画的画家已经不是很多了，而陈孝荣就是一位心平气和的水彩画家。

“老宅院即景”系列，表现的是长江岸边的古镇老宅。传统建筑模式下的挑梁飞檐变化多端，墙垣砖瓦风韵犹存。作品1号画面描绘的一梁一椽详细而准确地记录下房屋的建筑结构，无有相同的窗棂格式表现出不同年代留下的生活痕迹，浅淡的蓝灰色调透露出隐隐的乡愁；作品3号的画面仅仅有一堵老墙，它耸立在这里的年代曾经见证过多少物是人非，这面墙被刻画出每一块砖瓦，顽固而强烈；而作品9号里装饰别致的门窗记录的却是房屋主人当时那种对另类建筑风格的追求，历经数十年还略显时尚。

第二组画关于四川和江西的乡村风景，黑瓦白墙高大的徽派建筑和极具四川特色的褐木白灰穿斗房屋，在画家笔下均饰以色点斑驳的青绿植物，既表现出了村庄的古老又赋予了画面清新和生气，画植物时轻盈松动的笔调充满了情趣。最后一组龙门山区的风景画兴味陡转，水色淋漓，云雾缭绕，一片豁然开朗。从作画日期上看，这是陈孝荣最近两三年的作品。他在作品中传达出了十分朴实的对家乡的山水林木乡镇村舍的热爱之情，对即将逝去的古老文明的眷恋之感。这些极具写实性的作品给人的印象是深刻的，它不仅仅是艺术品，还有着记录历史的价值。画这样的风景需要作者情感的投入，还要有耐心勤勉的作画态度和纯熟的水彩画表现技法。陈孝荣的画是写实性的，但表现技法是灵活多变的，展现了他在学习传统方面的功力和不断探索的成绩。

陈孝荣是1997年从四川美院毕业的，那时我应该还是他的系主任，因为没有直接教过课，对他没多少印象。后来在重庆市和全国的水彩画展上看到他的作品，才回想起当年有过这么一位勤恳好学、朴实上进的学生。陈孝荣在校时我们还没有开设水彩画专业，只是在一年级的基础色彩训练里有水彩画课程，时间很短，教学一些水彩画的基本知识和作最基础的技法练习，很多学生在进入高年级专业学习后就放弃了对水彩画的研习。然而陈孝荣却默默地一直坚持着画水彩画，坚持着自己的理想追求。如今呈现在我们面前的是一位高等学校的美术教师，他是我们重庆市每一届水彩画展上从不缺席的作者和获奖次数最多的画家，也是经常活跃在全国水彩画展上的重庆画家之一。

在陈孝荣这些风景画里，我们看到了他日渐提高的美学修养，看到了他逐渐精炼的水彩技法和放松的作画的良好心态，正如他自己所愿，以随遇而安的心态随性而动、自在作画。这是一种境界。水彩画艺术入门易，精深难，走上这条路是需要勇气和毅力的，也需要画家安于清平的良好心态。我们高兴着陈孝荣这批新作带来的欣喜，期待着他下一批作品的问世。

 

（刘明明：四川美术学院教授，中国美术家协会水彩画艺委会委员）

 

 

Heartease - Peace and Tranquility

By Liu Mingming

 

I used to watch Chen Xiaorong’s works, most which were still life paintings, in which cabbage, radish and various fruits give off a soft luster, silent and real. At this exhibition, however, he presents his landscape paintings that show off a strong passion and high spirit. Water color is a time-honored internationalized form of painting that covers both occidental and oriental painting styles. Due to its long history, it possesses its own traditional painting language; due to its nimbleness and agileness, it enjoys great popularity; due to its broadness, it has more spaces to express. Therefore, water color is an elegant form of art that the public is fond of. Under the current trend of rapid development, surging tide and many changes in painting, few artists can persist in his or her own way to art, to express his or her real psychological appeal while working on his paintings with ease, but Chen Xiaorong is such an artist on water color, cool and calm.

In his water color series entitled Glimpses of Old Courtyards, the old towns and courtyards by the bank of the Yangtze River are depicted. The beams and eaves of the traditional buildings are variant, walls and bricks are attractive. In his work No. 1, the structure of the building is accurately documented through the depiction of the details of every beam and every eave, and the different forms of window lattice reveal the traces of life in different periods of time – the light bluish grey conveying faint homesickness; in work No. 3 there is only one old wall standing at a time that bears witness to many things that are still there but where men are no longer the same – every brick and tile of the wall depicted is obstinate and strong; in work No. 9 the uniquely-decorated doors and windows record the house owner’s pursuit of the special architectural style at that time – still in vogue albeit of several decades.

In his second series of paintings of the rural landscapes in Sichuan and Jiangxi, where the Hui style architecture with black tiles and white walls and the houses of brown wood and lime in typical Sichuan style are mottled with green plants under the artist’s brushes – both showing the antiquity of the village and injecting freshness and vitality in the picture, and that the lightsome, loose tone in painting the plants is full of interest. In the last series of landscape paintings about the Longmen Mountains, however, he made such an abrupt turn in his interest that resulted a picture wet in dripping water, shrouded in cloud and mist, and open and clear suddenly. From the date left on the picture, those are his works made in the last two or three years. Chen Xiaorong, in his works, attempted to convey his unadorned fond love for the mountains, rivers, woods, and houses in his home village as well as his sentimental attachment to the age-old civilization that is about to disappear. These truly realistic works are impressive to the viewers, so they are not only pieces of artworks but also are valuable in documenting the history. To make such landscape paintings, it calls for emotional input from the artist, a patient and diligent attitude and also skillful techniques in water color expression. Chen Xiaorong’s paintings are realistic but the techniques to express them are so varied that shows his strength and skill in learning from tradition and his achievements in continuous exploration.

Chen Xiaorong graduated from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 1997 when I was the dean of his department. But I had little impression of him as I didn’t give lessons to him directly. Later on, when I saw his water color works in Chongqing and at national exhibitions, I just recalled that I had such a diligent, progressive student. When he was at school, we hadn’t begun courses on water color, but only gave water color lessons in basic color training for a short period of time in the first grade, in which some fundamentals in water color were taught and very basic technique exercises were done; many students gave up their study of water color after they began professional training in the senior grade. Chen Xiaorong, however, in his pursuit of ideal,  continued to make his water color paintings. Today, what unveils before us is a university teacher of fine arts, who has never been absent from the water color exhibitions in Chongqing and who has won the most number of prizes and awards, and also one of the artists in Chongqing who are very active at national water color exhibitions.

In Chen Xiaorong’s landscape paintings, we see his aesthetic cultivation going up day by day; we see his technique refined in water color and good attitude relaxed in making paintings. As he desired, he acts according to his temperament and makes paintings with much ease. What a realm it is! For it’s easy to begin water color painting but hard to become proficient in it. It takes courage and perseverance to go on this road, and it also requires the artist to have a good attitude to take things in peace and tranquility. We are delighted at the joy that his new works have brought to us, and we expect to see the birth of his next series of works.

 

（Liu Mingming，Professor of Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts，Member of the Water Color Art Committee of China Artists’ Association）

作者：刘明明